Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

05.25.22 Beth Verrilli: Knowledge Based Curriculum Opens Worlds

If you’ve read this blog, or attended any of our webinars or workshops, you know that we believe in knowledge-based curriculum. Research shows that knowledge is a critical factor in learning to read, in building long-term memory, and in thinking critically. We’ve seen classrooms where knowledge encourages independent reading and where knowledge inspires wonder. Recent global…


07.29.18 An Excerpt from Chapter Two of Reading Reconsidered

Lately I’ve been posting some excerpts from Reading Reconsidered here on Field Notes.  Today I’m posting a section from Chapter 2, which is about Close Reading.  The segment I’ve chosen deals with the idea of Establishing Meaning–making sure that students understand the full text and its nuances before you jump fully in to analysis.  Colleen, Erica…


05.18.18 Amazing Source of Five-Plagues Aligned Texts

We’re in Albany today with 150 amazing folks at our Reading Reconsidered workshop. Earlier this morning we discussed the five plagues of the developing reader–five common challenges that make complex text difficult for students and that are not captured by quantitative measures of text complexity such as Lexiles. We discussed the example of Lord of the…


05.04.18 We Are Writing a Language Arts Curriculum!

  This is kind of an exciting announcement. Maybe a scary one too. My team and I have decided to write a Language Arts (i.e. English) Curriculum.  We’re going to start with the middle grades (4-8) and expand from there. With a little luck we hope to have it ready for schools to use a year…