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Student choice. We all know it is important, but so many of us are hesitant to provide it. In my classroom, we use a daily 5/workshop type model. This is a large block of time where I meet with guided reading groups (including my novel study groups), interventionists push in to meet with students, and other students work on reading, writing, or word work (vocabulary). There are three rounds every day, and when students are not with a teacher they choose from reading, writing, word work…and (here’s the big thing) they choose what they read, write, or work on.

I do NOT assign work during this time of our day.

There is another part of our day where we do structured stations. This is the time students work on our assigned writing projects and reading work. But it is important to me that students see workshop time as their time to work on their goals. This doesn’t mean students goof off, in fact I see more work produced during this time than any other. When students see that their choices are validated and even appreciated, they begin to own it.

1. Gather (quality) Materials - & a lot of it!

If you are going to give your students choice, you are going to need a plethora of materials. This includes a classroom library, writing materials, and materials to practice words/vocabulary.

Classroom library: Building your classroom library to encourage choice has to be intentional. You can get free books easily, but are those books going to be chosen? Yes, it is important to have a variety of titles but if your titles are mostly old, beat up, and irrelevant to your kids they are not going to inspire students to choose reading. If you pay attention long enough, you will begin to know the titles to look for. Look at the books your students are bringing back from the library, asking for at book fairs, reading on Epic/reading apps, etc. Stock up on these titles. I spend the summer visiting as many thrift stores as I can and rifling through their book sections. I also utilize Scholastic. Scholastic book clubs have dollar deals all the time, and they are usually really great titles! I stock up on mentor texts, novel study texts, and library books! I love to raffle out book titles on Fridays to encourage reading. Another thing to think about is the placement of your library. Our classroom library is the heart of our classroom, right in the middle. There’s a rug, a large bookshelf of books, a spinning bookshelf of chapter book titles, and a couch. This sends the message that our class values reading.

Writing materials: I get asked often how I get my students to write so much, and it’s true. My students love writing and they write a lot. When I moved up to third grade, I had made it my mission to work on creating intrinsic readers and writers. Choice is the key! So, to get my kids to write….I let them write! During workshop, they do NOT have as assignment. THEY choose what to write. Because I want them all to love writing, I put out a lot of options. Friendly letter templates, Scribble stories, Sticker stories, Top 10 lists, Would you Rather cards, seasonal writing prompts, story cubes, etc. My students can also always choose to free write in their journal or write a book (get the cute blank books from Target or Amazon!). I’ve made a designated tub in our classroom library for student-made books and other students can choose to check them out to read. The minute I started doing this and students saw others’ books, every kid in my class was writing a book. They were eventually grabbing loose notebook papers and filling pages and pages of writing. (This is when people started asking me about how I motivate them). Again, we have another time of day where students work on a more structured writing assignment, but brainstorming ideas is often the hardest part and choice opens up the world of writing for so many students!

Check out a fun writing resource here!

Word Work materials: I offer 3 word work choices a week. The activities are stored in Iris tubs in a certain spot of our room near our writing materials. Sentence scramble is always a choice (more about that here) and I usually have task cards or crosswords. In third, our word work focuses on vocabulary so I want to make sure my students have a lot of choice to practice their words. Start looking our for favorite activities you can stock up on!

For my students that do need phonics support, I like to throw in my phonics Boggle Boards. Every few weeks I will use the Affix ones (a very important 3rd grade skill)

Click below to check them out!

2. Create (the right) Space

Choice in work is good, but made better by choice in space and materials. I allow my students to work in an area that is best and most comfortable for them (unless they lose that right). Environment goes a long way in motivation. This is why I minimize the amount of sterile tables and chairs in my room and use lamps instead of our overhead lights. Our entire school does not use desks. I want my students to feel that the classroom is truly theirs. Again, workshop is the time for them to work on their goals. Why would they do that in my space?

I also need to make sure that materials are accessible to my students. They know exactly where to get a scribble story template, a new sharp pencil, a red crayon, or a new blank book. They know where the word work boxes are and where to place things they want me to see. I also make some fun things accessible to them, like hi-liters, stickers, and tape. These little things that actually don’t cost me much can often motivate my students and get them making positive choices…which equal growth.

3. MODEL

Once you gather materials and set up your space for choice, you’re gonna have to jump in! The first few weeks you need to model all the choices students might make. Walk through scenarios with your class. People don’t make a choice on their own unless they know why and feel some benefit from it. Students should be discussing what makes a choice positive or negative. I make a chart with my students called “Deposit & Withdrawal Choices” (hello economics tie-in!) We talk about choices that deposit knowledge into your brain, and choices that withdraw. Students love to be talked to “like adults” and they quickly feel the difference when they are making their own choices.

When I’m helping people set up their classroom for choice, people often give up after the first few weeks. You need to know that setting up a classroom that runs and thrives on choice is a long game. Don’t change what you’re doing, just fine tune it, and keep going. My motto (and sometimes the only thing that gets me through August & September…) is “keep going and make it to October!” October seems to be a magical month where, if you haven’t given up and you’ve set things up well, students start rolling. I love October. If the class starts to feel like they’re slipping, gather them and model again!

4. Build Accountability

This is the other reason people usually quit. “If I let students choose, they’ll just never choose well!” First of all, I would say to give your kids more credit. We discount kids a lot when we haven’t really even let them try..
For the most part, kids really want to succeed. They are used to someone telling them what to do, which even if they do it well, doesn’t give them that true feeling of success. The best feeling of success is when you have done something you cared about and no one thought you could do!

But I also live in reality, and I know you have a responsibility to your students to make sure they’re learning. We all need a little accountability.

If you are 1:1 technology (or even share devices!) there is one super simple way to set up accountability after your students have worked on Daily 5/workshop. And it’s our favorite little app called SeeSaw.
My students know that after each round, they must upload their “evidence of learning”. This is the evidence that they actually learned during their work time.

—->If they read, they must take a photo of the cover of their book, type the page they read to, and a short summary.

—->If they wrote, they upload a picture of their writing.

—->If they did word work, they upload a picture of their word work.

Every day, I pick 5-6 kids to share out their evidence. I pull it up on the SmartBoard and the student shares what they did. I ask my kids “do you think —— learned today?” “Did their brain grow today? How do you know? What do you notice that they did?”
Plus, I can keep a status of the class by checking SeeSaw after school and I don’t have to take time away fro my guIded reading groups or interrupt my learners.

Plus PLUS, this is great for conferences. You have evidence of students growth, or lack thereof. You can also prove that students are not really working in the way that they should and have a productive conversation to address it.

If you don’t have technology, use the same idea but old school. Have students bring their evidence of learning to the carpet. Choose some kids to share out. This little bit of accountability can go a long long way!

5. Just START!

So many of teachers do not allow student choice because they are so scared of losing “control”. Let me tell you, if you put the trust and time into letting your students have choice, it will be so worth it. That is why tip number five is just about your mindset - letting go and STARTING student choice! Not for a day, not even for a week. Give it months. Model, instruct, try, try again!

I absolutely love our Daily 5 time. When I look up from my groups (after October 1!), I see kiddos around the room, at tables or on the floor, using stools or lap desks or clipboards, writing furiously, reading veraciously, working together to unscramble vocabulary sentences, etc. When I set up choice in my room, the classroom is self-sustaining. I don’t have to set up centers week after week. I don’t have any early finishers. And best of all, students are working on real authentic reading and writing work (i.e. not a worksheet) that they care about (i.e. not an assignment).

So what are you waiting for? Wouldn’t this be the perfect year to give your kids a little choice?

Happy Teaching!