Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

01.16.26 A Glimpse Inside our New Workshop: Checking for Understanding in Math

  On February 10 and 11 we’ll be in Houston for something new and exciting–our first math-specific teaching workshop: Checking for Understanding in Math. We’ll discuss topics we’d cover in a typical CFU workshop–gathering data, perceiving and responding to errors–but look at them all through a math lens: What and how do we use and adapt…


12.07.25 Ask Doug: On Graphic Organizers

  Doug recently got a note from a teacher in Texas who had read our recent book, The Teach Like a Champion Guide to the Science of Reading, and was especially interested in making social studies classes more writing intensive. This teacher was curious that we don’t show many graphic organizers in the book, unless blank…


09.24.25 Make FASE Reading a Priority This Year: Results from Our FASE Reading Cohort

This past year TLAC’s reading team partnered with a group of Reading Reconsidered Curriculum teachers and leaders from across the country to study reading fluency. Fluency – as we share in our new book, The TLAC Guide to the Science of Reading – is an overlooked prerequisite to comprehension. It is defined, most simply, as “the…


09.15.25 TLAC’s Own Back to School, Part 1: How Much “Stress” in Learning

  We recently had our own bit of “back to school” on team TLAC. We have Content Development Meeting every Monday as a way of building our own knowledge and understanding of what makes great teaching and also so that we can build our capacity as facilitators. TLAC CAO and President Erica Woolway offered this reflection….