ABSTRACT
Routines for conversations and learning together at the beginning of the year and practicing them throughout the year help the reader lay the path for the children to maximize their time for inquiry, second-language development, and exploring information through reading, writing, and conversations. The gradual release of responsibility is a framework for instruction. Thinking out loud, or making our thinking visible to the kids, is an explicit routine that gets kids into the habit of expressing their thoughts. In guided practice there is a joint responsibility with teacher doing and students helping and students doing and teacher helping. Anchor charts record past learning and guide future teaching. Talk and conversations are very important in getting kids to feel comfortable about thinking, reading, and writing. Language acquisition progresses with every risk taken because exposure to new language structures increases.
