Renee Goularte

When people ask Renee what she teaches, she says, "I teach little people, so I teach everything!" Renee started teaching third grade in the late 1980s, eventually finding her home in the Kindergarten classroom. She has worked with at-risk students and English language learners. Renee explains, “Helping my students become independent learners while being responsible contributors to the group has always been my main goal in teaching.”

Renee holds a Master’s Degree in Elementary Education, is a member of NCTE and the Whole Language Umbrella (WLU), and participates in the TAWL (Teachers Applying Whole Language) listserv. Her favorite book on teaching reading is Radical Reflections by Mem Fox.

Lessons on ReadWriteThink

“America the Beautiful”: Using Music and Art to Develop Vocabulary (K-2)
Students learn the song “America the Beautiful” and the meanings of its words through shared reading, context clues, images, and a mural project.

Acrostic Poems: All About Me and My Favorite Things (K-2)
Students write two free-verse acrostic poems about themselves. One uses the letters of their names to begin each line; the other uses a word from in their name poem for the letters beginning each line. Both poems are recopied, illustrated, and mounted for display.

Adventures in Nonfiction: A Guided Inquiry Journey (K-2)
Students are guided through an informal exploration of nonfiction texts and child-oriented Web sites, learning browsing and skimming techniques for the purpose of gathering interesting information. They share learned facts with others, develop follow-up questions, and seek answers using Internet search engines in addition to print resources.

Animal Study: From Fiction to Facts (K-2)
Students listen to matching fiction and nonfiction read-alouds and explore selected Web sites to identify factual information about animals. To complete their exploration, students predict, question, confirm, and record information about one animal. This lesson plan focuses on ants, but the project can easily be adapted to any animal of interest. Resources are included for ants, black bears, fish, frogs and toads, penguins, and polar bears.

Book Sorting: Using Observation and Comprehension to Categorize Books  (K-2)
This sorting lesson supports the development of critical-thinking and vocabulary skills through observation and discussion of text illustrations and content. With the whole group and then in pairs, students sort books into three or more groups using their own criteria, then explain in writing how they sorted the books.

Building a Matrix for Leo Lionni Books: An Author Study (K-2)
In this author study, students listen to four books by Leo Lionni and discuss the literary elements of each story. With each new read-aloud story, students identify similarities and differences in the stories and work in groups to add illustrated information to a story matrix. Finally, students compare two stories of their choice.

Collaborative Stories 1: Prewriting and Drafting (K-2)
Students participate in two small-group prewriting activities to gather ideas for a story to be written collaboratively by the whole class. After listening to the beginnings of several children’s stories, students work in groups to brainstorm plot ideas and story beginnings. Students then write a collaborative story on chart paper, working individually or in pairs to add to the story sentence-by-sentence, honing their teamwork skills and playing off each other's writing strengths.

Collaborative Stories 2: Revising (K-2)
Using a story which has been written collaboratively by students, the teacher leads a shared-revising activity to help students consider content when revising, with students participating in the marking of text revisions.

Creating Class Rules: A Beginning to Creating Community (K-2)
On the first days of school, students are led through a process for establishing year-long goals and needs for the classroom. These become the classroom guidelines which are used as a foundation for continuous community-building in the classroom.

Creating Family Timelines: Graphing Family Memories and Significant Events (3-5)
In this lesson plan, students interview their parents and other family members to gather family stories and event information, using questions from a brainstormed list. They create a family-event timeline based on the information from their interviews and display their information using a graphic map.

Creating Question and Answer Books through Guided Research (K-2)
Students investigate one topic, recording details on KWL charts, through whole class read-alouds as well as individual reading of nonfiction text. The activity concludes with a collaborative writing project as students compose a class question and answer book. This lesson can be easily expanded for any grade level.

Draw a Math Story: From the Concrete to the Symbolic (K-2)
When students draw first, write second, and then use equations to symbolize their stories, they start from the concrete and move to the symbolic, helping to improve reading comprehension as well as mathematical understanding. Students' higher-level thinking skills are developed by comparing, sequencing, writing and drawing to support their reading, and using symbols to represent meaning.

Draw a Story: Stepping from Pictures to Writing  (K-2)
Students draw a series of pictures that tell a simple story that includes character action, problem and solution. They ‘read’ their story to others, transcribe it into writing, and create an accordion book with the drawings and writing. The activity supports the transition from oral to written storytelling.

Exchanging Ideas by Sharing Journals: Interactive Response in the Classroom (3-5)
Pairs of students alternately respond to literature in literature journals, developing ongoing written dialogues that include making connections and predictions, stating opinions, asking and answering each others’ questions, and enhancing responses with drawings. The lesson works well with independent reading and/or literature group structures.

Giant Story Problems: Reading Comprehension through Math Problem Solving (K-2)
Students solve "oversized" story problems using drawings, equations, and written responses, helping them understand the links between the language of story problems and the numerical representations of matching equations. The activity also includes oral language and reflective writing, thus bringing together a variety of language experiences into mathematics work.

Literature Circles with Primary Students Using Self-Selected Reading (K-2)
After reading self-selected books, students respond to reading in a journal and talk about their books daily in small, heterogeneous groups. The teacher guides and assesses students’ work by rotating among the groups, offering suggested response prompts and writing with them in their dialogue journals.

Question and Answer Books—From Genre Study to Report Writing (3-5)
This lesson on genre study explores question and answer books to identify their unique characteristics. Students critically read question and answer books, looking at format and content. Students then compare the format of this genre with other nonfiction texts. After conducting research, students publish their findings in the style of a question and answer book.

Searching for Gold: A Collaborative Inquiry Project (3-5)
In this collaborative inquiry activity, the real gold is the inquiry skills and content area knowledge that students develop. Students study the Gold Rush using a collaborative inquiry strategy: each of several small groups research one aspect of the topic and teach that topic to the rest of the class. Students create a project to aid in their oral presentation of their researched topic.

Seasonal Haiku: Writing Poems to Celebrate Any Season (3-5)
Students listen to a sample of haiku read aloud. Then, using seasonal descriptive words, they write their own haiku following the traditional syllable and line format. Finally, they publish their poems by either mounting them on illustrated backgrounds that support the images depicted in the poems or completing the leaf interactive.

Sentence Quest: Using Parts of Speech to Write Descriptive Sentences (K-2)
Working with class-generated word lists categorized by parts of speech, students learn the criteria for a sentence by manipulating word cards, then collaborate to write and illustrate complete, descriptive sentences. Finally, students work in groups using descriptive words and phrases to try to create the longest sentence they can.

Voting! What’s It All About? (3-5)
Students learn about the voting process through read-alouds, partner and independent reading, as well as guided Internet exploration of child-friendly Web sites. Students share information through writing and whole group discussions, explore the difference between fact and opinion, and create a large graffiti wall mural with information they’ve learned.

Who’s Got Mail? Using Literature to Promote Authentic Letter Writing (3-5)
This activity teaches and reinforces letter writing through read alouds and shared writing. Students discuss and chart letter elements and write their own letters to adults at school. This can lead to ongoing correspondence between adults and students, reinforcing letter-writing skills beyond the classroom lesson.