Collaborative Classroom is a mission-driven, nonprofit organization committed to ensuring that all students become readers, writers, and thinkers who learn from, care for, and respect one another.
Collaborative Classroom’s evidence-based programs help children develop as proficient readers and writers, appreciate the ideas and opinions of others, learn to agree and disagree respectfully, think critically about big ideas, and become responsible citizens of the world.
Our commitment to continuous, embedded professional learning empowers educators to grow their teaching practices, build school community, and create the conditions for authentic, student-centered learning.
Being a Reader™ provides comprehensive reading instruction, systematically developing both foundational skills and comprehension. This research-based program integrates rich literacy experiences with explicit social skills instruction and activities that foster students’ growth as responsible, caring, and collaborative people.
Through an engaging combination of whole-class, small-group, and individualized instruction—including daily independent reading with teacher conferring—the Being a Reader program not only develops students’ reading proficiency, but also their love for reading and talking about books.
Being a Reader can be implemented as powerful, stand-alone Tier 1 instruction for grades K–2 or serve as a seamlessly integrated program within our comprehensive K–5 English Language Arts curriculum, Collaborative Literacy.
How It Works:
Being a Reader follows a continuum of reading development to meet each student at their instructional point of need and guide them to their next level of literacy through an engaging combination of whole-class, small-group, and individualized approaches.
Each grade level includes either seven or eight instructional units organized around two instructional strands: Reading and Word Study.
The strands work together to develop comprehension, fluency, decoding strategies, word analysis, spelling, vocabulary, and independent reading. Progress monitoring and other assessment tools help teachers make informed, targeted instructional decisions to ensure reading success for every child.
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Comprehensive Writing Instruction
Create a classroom culture of writing and collaboration.
Whether implemented as a standalone program or seamlessly integrated as a module in our comprehensive ELA curriculum, Collaborative Literacy, Being a Writer is a proven, research-based writing curriculum for grades K–5.
Combining a writing process approach with guided instruction, Being a Writer is student-centered, rigorous writing instruction for students in grades K–5. The program’s dual goals – fostering students’ growth as capable, skilled writers and caring, respectful members of their classroom community – make Being a Writer unique among writing curricula.
Grades: K-5
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Collaborative Classroom Book Clubs for Grades 3-6.
Support Student Literacy, Strengthen Independent Reading, and Empower Small Group Learning.
When students love books, they can’t put them down and can’t resist talking about them. Inspire a love of literacy and explore a whole new way for readers to learn together through Collaborative Classroom Book Clubs.
Utilizing research-based best practices for small-group reading, Collaborative Classroom Book Clubs provide the foundational lessons for setting up independent, student-led book clubs and a variety of mini-lessons that can be used to support and deepen book discussions.
Great for use as either a companion to Collaborative Literacy or as a stand-alone program, Collaborative Classroom Book Clubs for grades 3-6 combines great books, differentiated small-group and individualized reading, and social skills development.
What’s Included:
- A Teacher’s Manual containing lessons for Small-group Reading and Book Clubs
- Sets of carefully selected, grade-appropriate fiction and nonfiction texts used during the lessons
- Digital resources including articles, assessment forms, and images
Grades: 3-6.
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Discover the transformative power of Collaborative Literacy—a comprehensive K–5 curriculum that builds strong and knowledgeable readers and writers, creates vibrant and caring classroom communities and empowers teachers to deepen their knowledge and expertise.
Comprehensive, research-based reading instruction that systematically develops both foundational skills and comprehension
High-quality, high-interest fiction and nonfiction texts selected not only to support the instructional focus of each lesson but also for equitable representation
Knowledge building through the integration of reading and writing experiences. Students actively foster their curiosity, build their knowledge, and become experts on topics that truly matter to them.
English learner pre-teaching, extension, and point-of-need supports that help teachers provide scaffolding and prepare English learners to participate confidently in lessons
Integrated social-skills development that creates a caring, supportive classroom community and nurtures students’ sense of responsibility for their own learning and behavior
Embedded, continuous professional learning that empowers teachers to expand their content knowledge and deepen their pedagogical expertise as they teach
Formative and summative assessments that support instructional decision-making for the class, groups of students with similar points of need, and individual students
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Whole-Class Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary:
Making Meaning provides a full year of research-based, whole-class reading comprehension and vocabulary instruction, using increasingly complex texts across a wide range of genres for grades 3–5.
The program offers complete support for daily independent reading, integrated development of social skills, regular student-teacher conferences, and optional integrated book clubs.
Making Meaning can be implemented as powerful, stand-alone instruction for grades 3–5 or serve as a seamlessly integrated program within our comprehensive K–5 English Language Arts curriculum, Collaborative Literacy.
Grades: 3-5.
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SIPPS (Systematic Instruction in Phonological Awareness, Phonics, and Sight Words) is a research-based decoding intervention program proven to help new and struggling readers in grades K-12 build skills and confidence for fluent, independent reading.
The SIPPS program provides a structured literacy approach to foundational skills instruction through explicit instructional routines focused on phonological awareness, spelling-sounds, and sight words.
The systematic scope and sequence supports students who struggle with decoding, including students identified with dyslexia, in an accelerative approach. Each SIPPS level corresponds to a specific stage of reading development: simple alphabetic, spelling pattern, and polysyllabic/morphemic. Daily SIPPS lessons and reading practice in appropriate texts help readers achieve automaticity and accuracy, which in turn allow them to focus on comprehension.
Whether used as a stand-alone intervention or integrated to support foundational skills in Collaborative Literacy programs, the SIPPS program allows students to:
- Respond orally during the foundational skills routines and receive immediate, strategic feedback.
- Demonstrate mastery of learning at regular intervals through criterion-referenced tests.
- Read controlled-vocabulary text to practice the words and concepts taught.
- Engage with books at appropriate levels to build fluency and increase confidence.
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