Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

03.02.19 Learning to Emphasize Background Knowledge in My Own Reading

  I’ve been thinking a lot about reading lately, and not just students’–my own as well. This week EducationNext ran a  review I wrote of Maryanne Wolf’s Reader Come Home, it was a review about an immensely important book that was also one of the most soul-searching things I’ve written in some time. Here’s an excerpt…


02.01.17 Tucking In and Tucking Out

I am going to to use this post to share a parenting idea: something that enriches my daughter’s life and our relationship. I thought some others might want to steal it. I do not purport to be a parenting expert. This is recreational advice. Context: Tuck-in time at night is often the best time of the day…


01.06.17 Building Academic Vocabulary: A Postcard from Jo Facer’s Classroom

A few weeks ago we shot video at the Michaela School in London- truly a thought-provoking and inspirational place. I’ve just started in watching the footage, beginning with Jo Facer’s English class, and have already found a dozen moments I’m going to cut video of. But for now I just want to share a photo of…


12.20.16 My Favorite Mistake: Knowledge Problems and Skill Problems

  I’m lucky enough to get to learn constantly in my work and that inevitably involves recognizing my own mistaken thinking—things I believed but that I think time and evidence have proven were wrong. Here’s an example: A few nights ago as I was tucked in, reading aloud from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s On the Banks of…


09.23.16 A Few Minutes with Literacy Expert Tim Shanahan

Tim Shanahan is one of the country’s foremost experts on literacy. He’s a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he founded and directed its Center for Literacy. Though he understands the research on reading as well as anyone in the field, he’s also done plenty of real-world work, having been principal…