PRESCHOOL/ELEMENTARY
Bennett-Armistead, V. Susan, Nell K. Duke, and Annie M. Moses. Literacy and the Youngest Learner: Best Practices for Educators of Children from Birth to 5. Teaching Resources, 2005. Research shows that literacy—the ability to listen, view, speak, read, and write - begins developing long before children enter elementary school. This book helps early childhood educators nurture that development. It begins with an argument for offering children literacy-rich activities and creating an environment for carrying out those activities. From there, it focuses on reading aloud, playing with words, and designing writing centers, book nooks, dramatic play areas, and other aspects of instruction.
Boushey, Gail, and Joan Moser. The Daily Five: Fostering Literacy Independence in the Elementary Grades. Stenhouse, 2006. The ideas and lesson procedures discussed in this book are very beneficial to teachers who incorporate balanced literacy components throughout their daily curriculum decisions. The discussion of muscle memory and how to build the students' stamina for longer periods of independent work are clearly laid out for the reader. A sample schedule that shows how to include daily lessons in the beginning weeks of school to build this stamina are detailed in the appendix.
Cooper, J. David and Nancy D. Kiger. Literacy Assessment: Helping Teachers Plan Instruction. Wadsworth Publishing, 2007. This popular resource distinguishes itself from other texts by placing literacy assessment within the context of mainstream classroom reading instruction. Using developmental reading stages as a framework (e.g. early-emergent literacy stage, emergent literacy stage, beginning literacy, and so on) Literacy Assessment puts teachers' instructional needs at its core and considers assessment as a natural part of the instructional cycle. The authors' mission is to show that, with appropriate instruction, success in literacy development is achievable for every student. This popular author team is uniquely skilled in presenting the right balance of concept and demonstration, along with a dynamic, positive outlook on learning in both children and teachers.
Diller, Debbie. Literacy Work Stations: Making Centers Work. Stenhouse, 2003. A comprehensive book on setting up centers (work stations) in an elementary classroom! This book covers everything: materials, introducing the work station, how to model them, solving problems, differentiation, assessment and accountability, and personal reflection. It demonstrates how kindergarten teachers can make their "traditional" centers more literacy-focused. A special section is also devoted to second language learners.
Dorn, Linda, and Carla Soffos. Teaching for Deep Comprehension: A Reading Workshop Approach (with DVD). Stenhouse, 2005. Dorn and Soffos describe the process of comprehension as a reflection of the mind – a window into the reader’s thoughts. They mesh complex theories of comprehension with everyday practical examples in such a way as to help teachers develop a better understanding of what it means to comprehend while reading. This book skillfully balances three key emphases: grounding instruction in comprehension theory and research, detailing the steps teachers and students go through in acquiring strategies to assist comprehension, and describing how to integrate comprehension instruction into everyday reading lessons.
Ellery, Valerie. Creating Strategic Readers: Techniques for Developing Competency in Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. IRA, 2005. The days of stressing the acquisition of reading skills in isolation are in the past. To develop lifelong readers, it is vital for teachers to also show students how to apply these reading skills strategically to acquire meaning from text. This book is a comprehensive resource you can use to better equip yourself in the craft of teaching reading. Author Valerie Ellery first lays the groundwork for a comprehensive literacy classroom, detailing appropriate curriculum, assessment, and instruction. She then focuses on the five essential components of reading instruction identified in the 2000 National Reading Panel report—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension—to align instruction with current standards. You will learn how to implement the components into your instruction with techniques that foster active, strategic reading. Each technique identifies corresponding multiple intelligences and developmental levels of reading so you can determine which approach is best suited for each student’s specific learning style and reading need. Because scaffolding and teacher talk are essential to successful instruction, procedures for modeling the techniques and examples of teacher talk are provided throughout the book. Ultimately, you will learn how to gradually release responsibility for learning to students and guide them in becoming strategic, independent readers.
Gallagher, Kelly. Deeper Reading: Comprehending Challenging Texts, 4-12. Stenhouse, 2004. This book shows how students can be taught to successfully read a broad range of challenging and difficult texts with deeper levels of comprehension. Gallagher shares effective strategies which enable students to accept the challenge of reading difficult books, move beyond a first draft understanding of text, consciously monitor their comprehension as they read, employ fix-it strategies when comprehension starts to falter, use meaningful collaboration, think metaphorically, reach deeper levels of reflection, use critical thinking skills to analyze real-world issues.
Graves, Michael F. Teaching Individual Words: One Size Does Not Fit All. IRA and Teachers College Press, 2009. Helping students master a broad range of individual words is a vital part of effective vocabulary instruction. Building on his bestselling resource The Vocabulary Book, Michael Graves’ new book describes a practical program for teaching individual words in the K-8 classroom. Designed to foster effective, efficient, and engaging differentiated instruction, Teaching Individual Words combines the latest research with vivid illustrations from real classrooms. Get ready to bridge the vocabulary gap with this user-friendly teaching tool!
Book Features include:
* A set of tactics proven successful for teaching individual words, including how to select word lists.
* Detailed lesson examples for introductory instruction, for reviewing words, and for assessing word knowledge.
* Strategies that will work across grade levels to meet the needs of struggling readers, average readers, gifted readers, and English language learners.
Hampton, Sally and Lauren B. Resnick. Reading and Writing with Understanding: Comprehension in Fourth and Fifth Grades. IRA, 2009. The goal of literacy instruction is to produce learners who understand deeply and communicate clearly. This book illustrates what to expect of upper elementary students as they hone skills and become competent readers and writers, ready to take on the complicated texts of middle and high school - and beyond.
Harvey, Stephanie. Nonfiction Matters: Reading, Writing, and Research in Grades 3-8. Stenhouse, 1998. This book shows how students can read expository text, engage in research, and write authentic nonfiction that is captivating, visual, and full of voice.
Henry, Marcia K., Ph.D. Unlocking Literacy: Effective Decoding & Spelling Instruction. Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company, 2003. This guide to teaching good reading and spelling skills offers a wide range of creative strategies for helping students learn, and a refresher course on language skills. It is designed for general and special educators of students from prekindergarten to middle school and beyond.
Kelley, Michelle J. and Nicki Clausen-Grace. Comprehension Shouldn’t Be Silent: From Strategy Instruction to Student Independence. IRA, 2007. Use the teaching ideas in this rich resource to improve your students reading comprehension. By nurturing meaningful talk about reading and learning, you can monitor and support students’ meta-cognitive use of strategies such as predicting, making connections, questioning, visualizing, and summarizing. A comprehensive breakdown of the components of each strategy helps you support learners from the introduction of a strategy to students’ independent use of it.
In these pages, you’ll learn how to set up the first six weeks of school for optimal success in reading instruction; promote conversations about books, specifically through literature circles, textbook circles, and R5 the authors unique independent reading block; address some of the common problems associated with independent reading, such as avoidance behaviors, fake reading, and inappropriate book selection; make each cognitive strategy more accessible to students. Throughout each chapter, you’ll read classroom transcripts as well as student samples and quotes that show the deep learning that occurs. Strategy chapters present numerous activities, and the appendixes contain a matrix that shows what activities can be used to teach each strategy, as well as numerous reproducible forms and graphic organizers.
Kletzien, Sharon Benge and Mariam Jean Dreher. Informational Text in K–3 Classrooms: Helping Children Read and Write. IRA, 2004. Increasing evidence shows that young children benefit from reading instruction that includes informational text. Educational organizations, U.S. state mandates, and standardized tests all call for children to effectively read information, yet emphasis on using story text with young readers persists in the early literacy community. Teachers who are unsure about how to integrate informational text into their instruction will find expert guidance in this book, which demonstrates the effectiveness of this text in early reading instruction. Authors Kletzien and Dreher provide suggestions for developing classroom libraries and choosing quality informational text that can be used with all children in a variety of settings, such as inclusive classrooms and self-contained special education classrooms. The authors guide teachers in choosing informational books at appropriate reading levels for their students, featuring them in class read-alouds, and using them to teach comprehension, writing, and search strategies. Informational Text in K–3 Classrooms: Helping Children Read and Write provides ways in which teachers can strive for and maintain a more equal balance of fiction and informational text in the classroom.
Lesesne, Teri. Naked Reading: Uncovering What Tweens Need to Become Lifelong Readers. Stenhouse, 2006. For teachers, the tween years can be the best and worst of times. While some fourth to ninth graders come to see books as a lifeline for understanding a changing world, too many experience the “fourth-grade slump” – a marked decline in interest and achievement in reading. Without help, many become middle and high school students who have stopped reading for pleasure, and only slog through what is assigned. Lesesne draws on her extensive experience as a teacher and consultant to examine ways that educators can help interest kids in books and keep them reading during this crucial period.
McCormack, Rachel L. and Jeanne R. Paratore, editors. After Early Intervention, Then What? Teaching Struggling Readers in Grades 3 and Beyond. IRA, 2003. Even with effective early interventions, many students continue to need expert, intensive, and focused reading instruction well beyond the primary-grade years. Now, intermediate and middle school educators have a resource to help them develop instructional strategies for these struggling students. The contributors to this volume draw from research and classroom practice as they share strategies that work for children who struggle to read in grades 3-8. The chapters address the needs of children in a range of instructional settings such as general, special, and bilingual classrooms and learning contexts such as classroom, small group, individual, and tutorial. You'll come away with a solid understanding of the current state of knowledge on struggling readers and the multiple pathways you can take to help them succeed.
McCormick, Sandra. Instructing Students Who Have Literacy Problems (5th Edition). Prentice Hall, 2006. Instructing Students Who Have Literacy Problems has long been valued because it covers both assessment and instructional strategies in a sound, research-based format. It reflects a balanced view of literacy instruction, comprehensively examining both word study and comprehension, and is the definitive research-based book in the field of assessment and diagnosis. Four complete chapters on literacy assessment detail timely information about formal and informal assessment procedures and make it an invaluable resource. This edition includes new English-language learner sections, more on No Child Left Behind and Reading First, information regarding special needs students, a segment on literacy coaches, and new fluency research and strategies sections.
Miller, Debbie. Reading with Meaning: Teaching Comprehension in the Primary Grades . Prentice Hall, 2002. This book is designed for teachers dedicated to producing thoughtful readers who read for meaning. Not only is it filled with helpful lesson ideas, but the arrangement of each chapter follows a scaffolded approach to help young readers engage and develop as lifelong readers. Miller shows teachers how to lay out the entire year. Included in this book are chapters about schema building, mental images, inferring, questioning, non-fiction reading, and synthesizing. She focuses on one comprehension strategy in each chapter, including how to introduce it to students AND what children's books she considers "tried-and-true." At the end of each chapter, the author includes a list of children's book titles that all highlight the comprehension strategy perfectly for young children. The books are outstanding pieces of literature that children adore. Also, the lessons work well in a Reader's Workshop format. After instruction, students can get busy practicing reading from their own books by using what they learned right away.
Morrow, Lesley Mandel and Linda B. Gambrell. Using Children’s Literature in Preschool: Comprehending and Enjoying Books. IRA, 2004. When a teacher reads aloud a good piece of children’s literature, children are exposed to much more than an oral rendition of a storybook. Reading aloud to young children is a critical aspect of their social, emotional, and intellectual development. This book, part of the Preschool Literacy Collection, will help you create a rich literature environment for fostering your preschoolers’ reading comprehension. Authors Lesley Mandel Morrow and Linda B. Gambrell explore the why and the how of using children’s literature in preschool. In addition to explaining why it is important to use children’s literature in preschool, the chapters show you how to design a classroom literacy center and read and tell stories to children, help preschoolers comprehend stories and understand concepts of books, integrate children’s literature and literacy activities in thematic instruction and in the content areas, and strengthen the home–school connection with activities that you can share with parents for increasing their use of children’s literature at home. The book also provides a glossary of specialized literacy terms to expand your professional knowledge and offers recommended children’s literature resources to support your instruction. Preschool teachers and administrators can use this book to develop the habit of sharing good literature with their preschoolers and make the most of the powerful benefits of reading aloud literature.
Oczkus, Lori D. Reciprocal Teaching at Work: Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension. IRA, 2003. Reciprocal teaching is a technique based on teacher modeling, student participation, and four strategies that good readers use to comprehend text: predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing. Although reciprocal teaching originally was designed for use with struggling readers, author Lori D. Oczkus offers innovative lessons aimed at improving the reading comprehension of all students. Reciprocal Teaching at Work: Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension provides a practical classroom resource on reciprocal teaching that readers will find accessible and engaging. Chapter 1 describes each reciprocal teaching strategy in detail and suggests ways that teachers can overcome both difficulties that they may encounter when using this teaching technique and common problems that students have with using the strategies. Chapters 2–4 explain how to use reciprocal teaching in whole-class sessions, guided reading groups, and literature circles, respectively. Each of these chapters offers scaffolded lessons, mini-lessons, and reproducible forms for classroom teachers to use with students, and reflection questions for staff development. The appendixes provide a list of what teachers should observe when students work with the reciprocal teaching strategies, a student self-assessment for strategy usage, and instructions for conducting informal assessment interviews with students. This book will benefit classroom teachers and reading specialists working primarily with students in grades 2–6, and teacher educators, school administrators, and staff developers seeking successful reading comprehension strategies to share with teachers.
Opitz, Michael and Timothy Rasinski. Goodbye Round Robin: 25 Effective Oral Reading Strategies. Heinemann, 1998. Offers teachers new alternatives to traditional round robin reading. It demonstrates how to use oral reading to help students develop comprehension, share information, and discover effective reading strategies.
Pilgreen, Janice. The SSR Handbook: How to Organize and Manage a Sustained Silent Reading Program. Heinemann, 2000. Explains what sustained silent reading is, its importance, and how to implement it in the classroom.
Pinnell, Gay Su and Irene C. Fountas. The Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades K-2: A Guide to Teaching. Heinemann, 2007. Over their influential careers, Gay Su Pinnell and Irene Fountas have closely examined the literacy learning of thousands of students in the primary grades. In The Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades K - 2, and its companion volume for grades 3 - 8, they combine everything they have learned about the development of readers, writers, and language users to create a comprehensive curriculum document for use as an assessment tool and as a guide for teaching. Now, with the flip of a page, you can quickly identify the literacy goals appropriate to each grade level, K - 2, and each text level, A - N, and determine the specific competencies any child has achieved along his or her literacy journey. The Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades K - 2 names and categorizes the behaviors and understandings students can be expected to demonstrate in kindergarten and first and second grades. Grounded in research and classroom experience, these helpful visual representations of goals for literacy in the primary grades allow you to analyze children's strengths and identify where they need teaching support in different instructional contexts. They describe specific behaviors to notice, teach, and support at each grade level.
Portalupi, Joann and Ralph Fletcher. Nonfiction Craft Lessons: Teaching Information Writing, K-8. Stenhouse, 2001. Gives teachers practical strategies to help students grow into strong writers of nonfiction. Concrete strategies are included that help students scaffold their ideas as they write.
Prior, Jennifer and Maureen R. Gerard. Environmental Print in the Classroom: Meaningful Connections for Learning to Read. IRA, 2004. Finally - a research-based resource that will help you use environmental print as an instructional literacy tool in your kindergarten classroom. This book provides environmental print play props and play activities; shows how to create an environmental print curriculum; describes print games, activities, and centers using environmental print; demonstrates how to use environmental print to assess students' print awareness and sight word vocabulary; and gives recommendations for helping parents assist their children in learning to read using environmental print. Although kindergarten students are the focus of the book, you also will find ideas for preschoolers and more advanced learners.
Raphael,Taffy E., Susan Florio-Ruane, MariAnne George, Nina L. Hasty, and Kathy Highfield. Book Club Plus! A Literacy Framework for the Primary Grades. IRA and Small Planet Communications, 2004. This research-based framework will enable you to 1)include substantive content in your literacy curriculum; 2)organize literacy activities and routines in a supportive manner; 3)build a classroom environment that meets the needs of all learners; 4)meet state and district standards while promoting a love of reading and learning. Additional resources include lesson plans and schedules, theme-based unit guides, booklists, assessment resources, and reproducibles.
Resnick Lauren B. and Sally Hampton. Reading and Writing Grade by Grade, Revised Edition. IRA, 2009. This book is an indispensable tool for analyzing literacy skills and setting specific targets for learning for your kindergartners through third graders. Here you’ll discover what abilities and understandings children at each grade level K–3 can be expected to have about the print–sound code, comprehension, reading and writing habits, written genres, and language use and conventions. Along with thoughtful commentary and suggestions for instruction, the book and companion DVD include dozens of examples of children’s writing, samples of oral reading, and videos of children discussing books and following written directions. Drawn from real classrooms, these work samples show just what makes for competent performance in kindergarten through third grade. Part of the influential New Standards project, Reading and Writing Grade by Grade is informed by the best thinking of a committee of distinguished educators, including Lucy Calkins, Gay Su Pinnell, Rosalinda Barrera, Mary Ellen Giacobbe, P. David Peterson, and Dorothy S. Strickland.
Resnick, Lauren B. and Catherine E. Snow. Speaking and Listening for Preschool Through Third Grade, Revised Edition. IRA, 2009. Oral language lays the foundation for reading and writing and supports children as they explore books and experiment with expressing their thoughts. This book, with its accompanying DVD, shows what young children can do as they use language to learn.
Rog, Lori Jamison. Marvelous Minilessons for Teaching Beginning Writing, K–3. IRA, 2007. This practical resource provides 40 research-based, classroom-tested, and developmentally appropriate mini lessons for kindergarten through grade 3 - presented in the context of authentic writing experiences. You can use these lessons to teach students how to: generate and organize ideas before writing, and then turn their prewriting ideas into connected text; develop writing style by focusing on word choice, voice, and fluency; increasingly use conventional spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar to produce more readable work; and revise their writing for clarity, style, and effectiveness. Also included are charts to help you decide which lessons suit your students' needs; language you might use when presenting the lessons to students; notes sections, where you can record and reflect on what works and what doesn't; and reproducibles.
Roser, Nancy L. and Miriam G. Martinez, editors, with Junko Yokota and Sharon O’Neal. What a Character! Character Study as a Guide to Literary Meaning Making in Grades K–8. IRA, 2005. Bring text and its meaning alive for your students! This collection brings together the perspectives of classroom teachers, researchers, and children’s book authors on the power of character study and how to use it to guide elementary- and middle-grade students through creating, reading, and comprehending text. The contributors evaluate character-rich books and offer instructional strategies that will help you become a more insightful teacher as you implement character study in your classroom.
Silver, Harvey F., Richard Strong and Matthew Perini. Discovering Nonfiction: 25 Powerful Teaching Strategies, Grades 2-6. Canter and Associates, Inc., 2000. Offers descriptions of instructional strategies, information about how to implement them in the classroom, and special instructions for using them with struggling readers. The strategies are easily adaptable to upper grade levels.
Strickland, Dorothy S., Kathy Ganske, and Joanne K. Monroe. Supporting Struggling Readers and Writers: Strategies for Classroom Intervention 3–6. IRA & Stenhouse Publishers, 2001. This book provides teachers, administrators, and staff developers with the best research-based practice on the literacy learning and teaching of low-achieving intermediate students. Drawing from a combined 40 years of classroom teaching experience, the authors explore the factors that contribute to success and failure in literacy and provide systematic and ongoing approaches for helping students who are most at risk. This great resource includes a "Strategy Bank" of more than 20 step-by-step practices, and extensive lists of children's books and sources of books, organized by purpose.
Tompkins, Gail E. 50 Literacy Strategies: Step-by-Step (3rd Edition) (Teaching Strategies Series). Prentice Hall, 2008. The new edition of 50 Literacy Strategies: Step by Step by Gail E. Tompkins is a conveniently organized resource for all elementary and middle school teachers, providing research-based and classroom-tested strategies to develop literacy skills. Everything you need to know to implement each strategy effectively and quickly is included in a consistent, easy-to-understand format. Each of the strategies outlines: *Instructional Focus: whether the strategy develops phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and/or writing *Grade Level: whether the strategy is appropriate for k-2, 3-5 or 6-8*Scaffolding English Learners: how the strategy is particularly appropriate, or how it can be adapted to better meet the needs of, English Learners*Step by Step: as always, clearly outlined steps to implement the strategy*Why and When to Use the Strategy: headings to determine why each strategy is appropriate and when it's best to choose each strategy*Authentic Student Samples: to model the responses strategies will receive from students The strategies are organized alphabetically and numbered for easy reference. Inside the cover is an index grouping strategies by concept, providing another helpful guide to finding the strategy needed.
Tompkins, Gail E. Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach (4th Edition) Prentice Hall, 2005. Literacy for the 21st Century is the number #1 reading book preferred by teacher educators, future teachers, and in-service teachers. The book continues to offer a balanced approach to literacy instruction, while providing clear look into successful literacy teaching. The new 4th Edition has been thoroughly revised to address the realities of today`s classroom and to provide invaluable practical resources.
Vukelich, Carol, James F. Christie, and Billie Jean Enz. Helping Young Children Learn Language and Literacy: Birth Through Kindergarten (2nd Edition). Allyn & Bacon, 2007. The unique focus of this book integrates constructivist learning, diversity, and instruction-based assessment, and helps translate principles into practice for teachers of early literacy. The book begins with a brief overview of the recent key national policies and initiatives that have had a significant impact on the teaching of reading and writing at the preschool level. Renowned and respected authors Vukelich, Christie, and Enz describe a continuum of approaches to reading instruction, ranging from emergent literacy to Scientifically-Based Reading Research. They also present their vision of a "blended" approach to teaching literacy that includes the best elements of these diverging views. The authors end this introduction with a set of principles to guide the effective teaching of literacy in preschool and kindergarten classrooms. The first edition of our book was written in late 1990s and was heavily influenced by the emergent literacy perspective that was dominant at the time. This constructivist view maintains that the best way to teach early literacy is to provide settings and experiences that provide rich, meaningful experiences with language and print. Key emergent literacy strategies include extended classroom discourse, print-rich environments, shared reading, shared writing, and literacy-enriched play. We still believe that these strategies form the core of an effective early literacy program. However, over that past decade, a series of significant national educational events have impacted early literacy education, including the standards movement, No Child Left Behind legislation, and the use of scientifically-based reading research to make curricular and instructional decisions. The new second edition of our book reflects these important new trends and explains how this new skills-based approach to literacy instruction can be integrated with the earlier constructivist perspective. We advocate blending scientifically-based reading research with the emergent literacy perspective to create a 'value added' approach to language and literacy teaching and learning.
Witherell, Nancy, and Mary McMacken. Graphic Organizers and Activities for Differentiated Instruction for Reading. Teaching Resources, 2002. Includes organizers to build reading comprehension skills and reach every learner. Key skills covered include making predictions, identifying main ideas, using context clues, analyzing cause and effect, and many more. Each skill is paired with three student pages designed to support individual learning needs at three levels: introductory, intermediate, and challenging.
Young,Terrell A., editor. Happily Ever After: Sharing Folk Literature With Elementary and Middle School Students. IRA, 2004. As an instructional tool, folk literature can foster literacy, promote cultural awareness, and create connections with the content areas. Yet most of the professional literature on folklore addresses either the scholarly aspects of the genre or how teachers can encourage their students to read it. Few resources exist that provide teachers with a background about folk literature and how to use it in their classrooms. Happily Ever After fills that gap by offering ideas for teaching folklore as a literary genre to children in grades K-8. Rooted in contemporary views of reading and literature-based instruction, this collection of essays defines folk literature and its subgenres, provides strategies for incorporating folklore into and across the curriculum, and describes techniques for teaching students to write their own folk stories.
MIDDLE/HIGH
Allen, Janet. It’s Never Too Late: Leading Adolescents to Lifelong Literacy. Heinemann, 1995. This is a research chronicle that offers not only proven methods but also inspiration. Anyone working with “at risk” students – those for whom school has not been a place of success – will see here a reflection of their own experiences and discover thoughtful and creative strategies for making those experiences positive ones.
Allen, Janet. More Tools for Content Literacy. Stenhouse, 2008. In Tools for Teaching Content Literacy Janet Allen put a wealth of research-based instructional tools at teachers' fingertips to help students make connections with information resources and to read critically. More Tools for Teaching Content Literacy extends this treasure trove with twenty-five new instructional strategies—from Expert Groups to Point-of-View Guides to Wordstorming—using the same compact tabbed flipchart format. More Tools is a handy reference that provides instant access to succinct description, practical strategies, and manageable assessments, allowing teachers to save time and be more flexible and confident in meeting students' needs.
Allen, Janet. Tools for Content Literacy. Stenhouse, 2004. This handy flip chart will easily fit in a plan book, and provides ready reference to strategies for reading and writing across content areas, along with the research basis, classroom vignettes and graphic organizers that help support each strategy.
Allen, Janet. Words, Words, Words: Teaching Vocabulary in Grades 4-12. Stenhouse, 1999. Do your spend hours creating word lists and weekly vocabulary tests only to find that students have “forgotten” the words by the following week? Words, Words, Words describes the research that changed the way Janet Allen and many other teachers teach vocabulary. It provides educators with a strong research base, detailed classroom-based lessons, and graphic organizers to support strategy lessons. At a time when teachers are struggling to meet content standards in reading across the curriculum, this book offers practical solutions for meeting those standards in meaningful and lasting ways.
Alvermann, Donna E., Kathleen A. Hinchman, and Heather K. Sheridan-Thomas. Best Practices in Adolescent Literacy Instruction (Solving Problems in the Teaching of Literacy) . Guilford Press, 2008. Covering everything from day-to-day learning activities to school-wide goals, this engaging book reviews key topics in literacy instruction for grades 5–12 and provides research-based recommendations for practice. Leading scholars present culturally responsive strategies for motivating adolescents; using multiple texts and digital media; integrating literacy instruction with science, social studies, and math; and teaching English language learners and struggling readers. Vivid case studies, thoughtful discussion questions and activities in each chapter, and detailed ideas for program and lesson planning make this an indispensable classroom resource and professional development tool.
Beers, Kylene, and Lou Howell. Reading Strategies for the Content Areas: An ASCD Action Tool. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2003. Provides a series of graphic organizers addressing reading strategies suited to specific purposes.
Beers, Kylene, and Barbara Samuels. Into Focus: Understanding and Creating Middle School Readers. Christopher Gordon Publishers, 1996. This book discusses making readers active learners and promoting literature discussions.
Brozo, William. To Be a Boy, To Be a Reader: Engaging Teen and Pre-Teen Boys in Active Literacy. IRA, 2002. Author William Brozo makes the case that boys are in the greatest need of help with literacy instruction, and stresses the importance of engaging boys in active literacy both in and out of school. Structured on the premise that adolescent males need to be exposed to literary images they can identify with and look up to, the book presents 10 positive male archetypes that engage boys in reading and capture their unique male imaginations. Classroom strategies for using reading material containing these archetypes are interspersed throughout the book, while an appendix listing more than 300 titles affords teachers a quick reference to archetypal literature.
Buehl, Doug. Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning (third edition). IRA, 2009. The updated edition of this top-selling title will help teachers develop students into purposeful thinkers and proficient readers by using classroom strategies that scaffold comprehension. Doug Buehl has completely revised his collection of literacy skill-building strategies to bring this edition more in line with today's thinking about reading comprehension. The stronger focus on gradual release of responsibility, meta-cognition, and what happens before, during, and after reading will get you thinking about how students can really own the strategies. Buehl has added 11 new, user-friendly strategies that can be adapted to a variety of ability levels. The format of the strategies remains the same, but you'll find a stronger emphasis on the rationale for each and a broader variety of content area classroom examples. The Strategy Indexes that accompany each strategy will assist you in your instructional planning and have been updated to include the strengths of each strategy in terms of instructional focus and comprehension processes.
Burke, Jim. The English Teacher’s Companion (third edition). Heinemann, 2007. The third edition of The English Teacher's Companion again delivers vital information on the teaching of English, including foundational advice for teaching literature; nurturing reading, writing, and thinking skills; and organizing for success. But it also responds to needs that Jim has heard in speaking engagements and professional development workshops across the country. Teachers and teacher educators asked for:
- the latest research on literacy
- more information about national standards
- ways to consider gender in instruction
- advice for teaching Advanced Placement classes
- ideas for teaching media literacy and incorporating technology effectively into instruction
- even more resources for mentoring new teachers
- analysis of how trends in society, culture, and politics impact teachers and their classrooms.
Burke, Jim. Reading Reminders: Tools, Tips, and Techniques. Boynton/Cook Publishers, 2000. Features 100 best techniques for teaching reading, complete with tools and tips on how to implement them.
Burke, Jim. Tools for Thought: Graphic Organizers for Your Classroom. Heineman, 2002. Tools that spark student thinking in grades 6-12 in all subject areas.
Ciardiello, A. Vincent. Puzzle Them First! Motivating Adolescent Readers With Question-Finding. IRA, 2007. This unique teaching strategy - question-finding - can help you teach content literacy by presenting puzzling situations that lead your adolescent students to probe the multiple meanings of text and ask challenging, open-ended questions. Question-finding addresses the changing needs of adolescents, too, by reducing social constraints and increasing independence. The author encourages you to "pause and ponder" and "ponder and practice" within each chapter to reinforce and apply the concepts. Other practical tools include annotated resources, a sample lesson plan, motivational sources for question-finding, and a glossary of important concepts and specialized terms.
Daniels, Harvey. Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs and Reading Groups. Stenhouse Publishers, 2002. Offers strategies, structures, and tools for using literature circles effectively.
Daniels, Harvey, and Marilyn Bizar. Methods That Matter. Stenhouse Publishers, 1998. Descriptions of ways to organize time, space, materials, students, and activities so learning can achieve Best Practice levels.
Daniels, Harvey, and Steven Zemelman. Subjects Matter: Every Teacher’s Guide to Content Area Reading. Heinemann, 2001. Uses humor, practical suggestions, and research to get their point across. Discusses interventions for improving reading in all content areas and includes examples of book lists, classroom best practices, as well as discussion on the use or non-use of a textbook.
Deshler, Donald D., Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar, Gina Biancarosa, and Marnie Nair. Informed Choices for Struggling Adolescent Readers: A Research-Based Guide to Instructional Programs and Practices. Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2007. This comprehensive resource arms classroom teachers and administrators with information to meet today’s adolescent literacy challenges. In Part I, the authors highlight research on what works with adolescent learners and discuss how to implement instructional programs to fit the unique needs of your school or district. Part II presents a directory of more than 40 programs designed for middle and secondary students. Each program description includes 1) an overview of the instructional approach; 2)a description of available professional development resources; 3)summaries of any program evaluations conducted; 4)contact information for program publishers. Summary charts offer a quick way to identify programs suitable for particular students -- typically developing, advanced, struggling, those with learning disabilities, or English learners, all by grade level or that include specific features.
Ericson, Bonnie. Teaching Reading in High School English Classes. NCTE, 2001. This collection of essays offers numerous strategies to help students increase their vocabulary, improve comprehension, and learn to love reading. Some chapters address the needs of struggling readers.
Fisher, Douglas, William G. Brozo, Nancy Frey, and Gay Ivey. 50 Content Area Strategies for Adolescent Literacy (Teaching Strategies Series) . Prentice Hall, 2006. From some of the best-known authors in the field comes a book that provides teachers with practical information about improving students reading, writing, and oral language development. Examples from science, social studies, English, math, visual and performing arts, and core electives ensure that all middle and high school teachers will find useful ideas that they can implement immediately. This book provides readers with examples of fifty evidence-based instructional strategies that can be used across content areas to ensure that reading and writing occur in all classes.
Fisher, Douglas, and Nancy Frey. Improving Adolescent Literacy: Content Area Strategies at Work (second edition). Pearson, 2008. Too many students in middle and secondary classrooms struggle to comprehend texts in their content area classes. This straightforward text provides classroom-proven strategies to improve middle and secondary students’ comprehension in content areas. Includes new focuses on English language learners and technology.
Gallagher, Kelly. Deeper Reading: Comprehending Challenging Texts, 4-12. Stenhouse, 2004. This book shows how students can be taught to successfully read a broad range of challenging and difficult texts with deeper levels of comprehension. Gallagher shares effective strategies which enable students to accept the challenge of reading difficult books, move beyond a first draft understanding of text, consciously monitor their comprehension as they read, employ fix-it strategies when comprehension starts to falter, use meaningful collaboration, think metaphorically, reach deeper levels of reflection, use critical thinking skills to analyze real-world issues.
Gallagher, Kelly. Reading Reasons: Motivational Mini-Lessons for Middle and High School. Stenhouse, 2003. In this book, Gallagher offers a series of mini-lessons specifically tailored to motivate middle and high school students to read, and in doing so, to help them understand the importance and relevance reading will take in their lives. This book introduces and explains in detail nine specific “real-world” reasons why students should be readers.
Graves, Michael F. Teaching Individual Words: One Size Does Not Fit All. IRA and Teachers College Press, 2009. Helping students master a broad range of individual words is a vital part of effective vocabulary instruction. Building on his bestselling resource The Vocabulary Book, Michael Graves’ new book describes a practical program for teaching individual words in the K-8 classroom. Designed to foster effective, efficient, and engaging differentiated instruction, Teaching Individual Words combines the latest research with vivid illustrations from real classrooms. Get ready to bridge the vocabulary gap with this user-friendly teaching tool! Book Features include:
- A set of tactics proven successful for teaching individual words, including how to select word lists.
- Detailed lesson examples for introductory instruction, for reviewing words, and for assessing word knowledge.
- Strategies that will work across grade levels to meet the needs of struggling readers, average readers, gifted readers, and English language learners.
Guthrie, John T., Linda B. Gambrell, Lesley Mandel Morrow, and Michael Pressley. Best Practices in Literacy Instruction, Third Edition. Guilford Press, 2007. Now in a thoroughly revised and expanded third edition, this evidence-based book distills the latest knowledge about literacy teaching and learning into clear strategies for helping all children succeed. Within a comprehensive conceptual framework, the field's leading authorities provide eminently practical recommendations to guide instructional decision making. The third edition has been fully updated with current research findings, policy issues, and program innovations. It offers significantly revised coverage of assessment, motivation, approaches to integrating different kinds of texts and multimedia resources, and adolescent literacy. New chapters address working with English-language learners and supporting teachers' professional development. Also featured is a new concluding commentary by Michael Pressley.
Harvey, Stephanie. Nonfiction Matters: Reading, Writing, and Research in Grades 3-8. Stenhouse, 1998. This book shows how students can read expository text, engage in research, and write authentic nonfiction that is captivating, visual, and full of voice.
Harvey, Stephanie and Anne Goudvis. Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement . Stenhouse, 2007. Since its publication in 2000, Strategies That Work has become an indispensable resource for teachers who want to explicitly teach thinking strategies so that students become engaged, thoughtful, independent readers. In this revised and expanded edition, Stephanie and Anne have added twenty completely new comprehension lessons, extending the scope of the book and exploring the central role that activating background knowledge plays in understanding. Another major addition is the inclusion of a section on content literacy which describes how to apply comprehension strategies flexibly across the curriculum.
Hoyt, Linda. Revisit, Reflect, Retell: Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension. Heinemann, 1998. A compilation of the best research-based reading strategies including over 90 reproducible strategies for improving learning comprehension.
Irvin, Judith, Julie Meltzer, Martha Jan Mickler, Melvina Phillips, and Nancy Dean. Meeting the Challenge of Adolescent Literacy: Practical Ideas for Literacy Leaders. IRA, 2009. Secondary level educators will welcome this hands-on guide to starting and sustaining a school-wide literacy initiative aimed at overcoming critical issues in adolescent literacy and improving student achievement. Each chapter addresses one of the critical issues that middle and high school literacy leaders across the United States have said get in the way of implementing a school-wide plan to raising students’ literacy achievement. Such issues include setting up effective language and literacy development for adolescents who are English-language learners; getting widespread, active support for a school-wide literacy improvement effort; developing teachers as potential leaders and mentors to their colleagues; better understanding, valuing, and building upon contributions that families and communities make to students’ literacy development
Kane, Sharon. Integrating Literature in the Content Areas: Enhancing Adolescent Learning and Literacy. Holcomb Hathaway Publishers, 2007. This practical, accessible resource will help teachers integrate children's and young adult literature into middle school or high school classrooms, while addressing content area standards and improving the literacy skills of students. Two introductory chapters are followed by five chapters that each covers a different genre: informational books; fiction; biography, autobiography, and memoir; poetry; and how-to and hands-on books. The four parts in each genre chapter present a rationale for using the genre to further content learning and enhance literacy skills; offer hands-on instructional strategies and activities designed to use literature in a variety of disciplines; present individual author studies with bibliographies and guidelines for using the authors books; and feature an annotated bibliography of specially selected fiction and nonfiction literature for children and young adults, organized by content area.
Kane, Sharon. Literacy and Learning in the Content Areas (2nd edition). Holcomb Hathaway Publishers, 2006. This second edition of Literacy and Learning in the Content Areas incorporates countless resources, including discussions of and book lists for children’s and young adult literature, primary sources, biographies, essays and poetry as well as resources about literacy and the art of teaching; numerous concrete examples and practical suggestions make it a valuable tool for teaching. Throughout, readers encounter the voices of adolescent learners, experienced and pre-service content area teachers, and leading content area figures discussing their own literacy and learning experiences. These resources, and the book's concrete examples and practical suggestions, will provide the knowledge, motivation, tools, and confidence for integrating literacy into content area classrooms.
Keene, Ellin, and Susan Zimmermann. Mosaic of Thought. Heinemann, 1997. Deals with the various skills that people must have to be proficient readers. It emphasizes the teaching of comprehension through a reading workshop.
King-Shaver, Barbara. When Text Meets Text: Helping High School Readers Make Connections in Literature. Heinemann, 2005. Presents the research supporting inter-textual instruction, techniques for adding it to the curriculum, suggestions for a wide array of books to teach together, and practical ideas for units of study covering key aspects of teaching literature.
King-Shaver, Barbara and Alyce Hunter. Differentiated Instruction in the English Classroom. Heinemann, 2003. Helps teachers of both middle and high school English understand and apply the principles and practices of differentiated instruction, addressing their unique challenges and needs.
Lenski, Susan, Mary Wham and Jerry Johns. Reading and Learning Strategies: Middle Grades Through High School (Second Edition). Kendall/Hunt Publishing, 2003. How can older students meet new required standards in literacy? There are many products available for the lower grades, but very few for struggling middle and high school students in the content areas. This book will give you more than 100 content-relevant teaching strategies for implementation with middle and secondary students. The new edition contains a chapter on identifying unknown words, critical literacy and new strategies in addition to what was included in the first edition.
Lesesne, Teri. Naked Reading: Uncovering What Tweens Need to Become Lifelong Readers. Stenhouse, 2006. For teachers, the tween years can be the best and worst of times. While some fourth to ninth graders come to see books as a lifeline for understanding a changing world, too many experience the “fourth-grade slump” – a marked decline in interest and achievement in reading. Without help, many become middle and high school students who have stopped reading for pleasure, and only slog through what is assigned. Lesesne draws on her extensive experience as a teacher and consultant to examine ways that educators can help interest kids in books and keep them reading during this crucial period.
Lewis, Jill and Gary Moorman, editors. Adolescent Literacy Instruction: Policies and Promising Practices. IRA, 2007. With this comprehensive resource, you’ll explore how adolescence and academic achievement are defined within today’s political context, examine the in-school potential of teen’s out-of-school immersion in digital technologies and popular culture, and learn how you can embed comprehension strategies into classroom instruction. In 18 chapters contributed by leading experts in the field, you’ll find innovative teaching techniques, first-hand accounts of district- and school-wide literacy initiatives, scores of discussion questions, adaptable forms and templates, activities for professional study groups.
Literacy Across the Curriculum: Setting and Implementing Goals for Grades Six to Twelve. Southern Regional Education Board, 2003. This volume is essential for state, district and school leaders who plan to implement school-wide literacy programs. It provides concrete, research-based steps not only to raise reading and writing achievement, but also to help students learn more in every class by using literacy skills. The guide focuses on five literacy goals: reading 25 books across the curriculum; writing weekly in all classes; using reading and writing strategies; writing research papers; and taking rigorous language-arts classes.
McCormack, Rachel L. and Jeanne R. Paratore, editors. After Early Intervention, Then What? Teaching Struggling Readers in Grades 3 and Beyond. IRA, 2003. Even with effective early interventions, many students continue to need expert, intensive, and focused reading instruction well beyond the primary-grade years. Now, intermediate and middle school educators have a resource to help them develop instructional strategies for these struggling students. The contributors to this volume draw from research and classroom practice as they share strategies that work for children who struggle to read in grades 3-8. The chapters address the needs of children in a range of instructional settings such as general, special, and bilingual classrooms and learning contexts such as classroom, small group, individual, and tutorial. You'll come away with a solid understanding of the current state of knowledge on struggling readers and the multiple pathways you can take to help them succeed.
McCormick, Sandra. Instructing Students Who Have Literacy Problems. (5th Edition). Prentice Hall, 2006. Instructing Students Who Have Literacy Problems has long been valued because it covers both assessment and instructional strategies in a sound, research-based format. It reflects a balanced view of literacy instruction, comprehensively examining both word study and comprehension, and is the definitive research-based book in the field of assessment and diagnosis. Four complete chapters on literacy assessment detail timely information about formal and informal assessment procedures and make it an invaluable resource. This edition includes new English-language learner sections, more on No Child Left Behind and Reading First, information regarding special needs students, a segment on literacy coaches, and new fluency research and strategies sections.
McEwan, Elaine K. Raising Reading Achievement in Middle and High Schools: 5 Simple-to-Follow Strategies for Principals. Corwin Press, 2001. In response to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), raising literacy levels in secondary schools has taken on a new urgency. Recognized literacy author, Elaine K. McEwan, focuses her revised second edition on enhancing the "five big ideas" for raising reading achievement with seven cognitive strategies of highly effective readers and more than twenty research-based "teaching for learning" tips to infuse into daily content instruction. Featuring reflection and discussion questions for reinforcement, this indispensable guide demonstrates how to improve students' literacy with these five teacher-friendly strategies: Focus on changing what you can change; Teach the students who can’t read how to read; Teach every student how to read to learn; Motivate all students to read more, to read increasingly more challenging books, and to be accountable for what they read; and Create a reading culture in your school.
McLaughlin, Maureen and Glenn DeVoogd. Critical Literacy: Enhancing Students' Comprehension of Text .Teaching Resources, 2004. A resource to help teachers guide and extend students’ thinking and learning through a critical look at author’s purpose and message and making connections to their own knowledge and experiences in the real world.
Marzano, Robert, Debra Pickering, and Jane Pollock. Classroom Instruction That Works: Research Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2001. The authors examined decades of research findings to distill the results into nine broad teaching strategies that have positive effects on student learning. The book includes extended classroom examples of teachers and students in action, models of successful instruction, and many other ideas to help teachers plan and implement strategies.
Moore, David W., et al. Struggling Adolescent Readers: A Collection of Teaching Strategies. IRA, 2000. A collection of articles from the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, this presents strategies for inspiring adolescent readers and providing the support they need to be successful.
Pilgreen, Janice. The SSR Handbook: How to Organize and Manage a Sustained Silent Reading Program. Heinemann, 2000. Explains what sustained silent reading is, its importance, and how to implement it in the classroom.
Pinnell, Gay Su and Irene C. Fountas. The Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades K-8: Behaviors and Understandings to Notice, Teach, and Support . Heinemann, 2007. Gay Su Pinnell and Irene Fountas understand that a high-quality curriculum is the important first step toward good teaching and successful learning. Good curriculum comes from knowing what students can do, can almost do, and need to learn how to do as readers, writers, and language users. In The Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades K - 8 they combine everything they have learned about literacy development to create a powerful tool that enables curriculum coordinators and literacy specialists to observe teaching and learning, to plan responsive instruction, and to ensure consistency across buildings, grades, or classrooms.
Plaut, Suzanne, editor. The Right to Literacy in Secondary Schools: Creating a Culture of Thinking. IRA, Teachers College Press and Public Education and Business Coalition, 2009. This inspirational resource challenges educators to view adolescent literacy as a ''civil right'' that enables students to understand essential content and to develop as independent learners. Edited by the Vice President of Education at the Public Education & Business Coalition (PEBC), a nonprofit that is nationally regarded for its expertise in literacy and professional development, the book is a call to action and a practical guide for reform-minded schools and districts, and for teachers seeking to help all adolescent learners achieve at high levels. It is replete with vivid illustrations of exemplary classroom practice across all content areas. It also offers important frameworks to help teachers implement those practices in their own schools. Perfect for professional learning communities, study groups, and individual teachers.
Portalupi, Joann and Ralph Fletcher. Nonfiction Craft Lessons: Teaching Information Writing, K-8. Stenhouse, 2001. Gives teachers practical strategies to help students grow into strong writers of nonfiction. Concrete strategies are included that help students scaffold their ideas as they write.
Readence, John, David Moore and Robert Rickelman. Prereading Activities for Content Area Reading and Learning. IRA, 2000. Provides practical activities that promote learning among adolescents in their daily work in content classrooms. It offers strategies for asking and answering questions before reading, forecasting passages, understanding vocabulary, graphically representing information, and writing before reading.
Richardson, Judy S. Read It Aloud! Using Literature in the Secondary Content Classroom. IRA, 2000. Based on the author’s “Read It Aloud” columns from the IRA Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, this book shows middle and high school teachers how read-aloud excerpts from a variety of genres can be used in the content areas.
Robb, Laura. Teaching Reading in the Middle School: A Strategic Approach to Teaching Reading That Improves Comprehension and Thinking. Scholastic Professional Books, 2000. Provides a variety of teacher resources that help students build a solid foundation for learning, including guidance for establishing a workshop atmosphere in the classroom.
Roser, Nancy L. and Miriam G. Martinez, editors, with Junko Yokota and Sharon O’Neal. What a Character! Character Study as a Guide to Literary Meaning Making in Grades K–8. IRA, 2005. Bring text and its meaning alive for your students! This collection brings together the perspectives of classroom teachers, researchers, and children’s book authors on the power of character study and how to use it to guide elementary- and middle-grade students through creating, reading, and comprehending text. The contributors evaluate character-rich books and offer instructional strategies that will help you become a more insightful teacher as you implement character study in your classroom.
Rycik, James A. and Judith L. Irvin, editors. What Adolescents Deserve: A Commitment to Students’ Literacy Learning. IRA, 2001. This collection of articles from various professional journals provides many helpful examples of how administrators, staff developers, and teachers can renew and revitalize their efforts for teaching middle school and high school students. Developed as an extension of the International Reading Association's Adolescent Literary: A Position Statement, the book centers around four commitments that the editors believe are critical to achieving results for adolescent literacy learners. 1. Literary Access for All Students calls for adequate materials and human resources for teaching reading. Learn how ESL students and struggling readers can be included in the literacy program and how a literate community can help students build positive identities. 2. Challenging and Supportive Instruction calls for sound teaching that meets the developmental needs of students. Discover a variety of tools and contexts ranging from traditional textbooks to literature units and technology. 3. Comprehensive and Collaborative Programs. Find out how teachers and principals can be involved in meaningful collaboration, and how students can strengthen learning by using literacy activities to connect with their parents and community. 4. Reimagining Adolescent Literacy Learning challenges educators to expand their notion of what it means to be literate for both today's adolescents and tomorrow's adults.
Sadler, Charlotte Rose. Comprehension Strategies for Middle Grade Learners: A Handbook for Content Area Teachers. IRA, 2001. Offers 56 basic strategies, each with a description and easy-to-follow procedures, content area examples, and suggestions for assessments.
Schoenbach, Ruth, et al. Reading for Understanding: A Guide to Improving Reading in Middle and High School Classrooms. Jossey-Bass, 1999. This book describes a successful approach to helping students improve their reading in all content areas. It includes a specific discussion of how one urban high school used the approach to dramatically improve its students’ reading scores.
Smith, Michael and Jeffrey Wilhelm. Going With The Flow: How to Engage Boys (and Girls) in Their Literacy Learning. Heinemann, 2006. Drawing on the research that won Reading Don’t Fix no Chevys the NCTE David H. Russell Award, Smith and Wilhelm take Chevys out of the showroom and onto the road, presenting classroom-tested units, lessons and activities that get boys (and girls) reading and writing and keep them involved in literacy learning.
Stephens, Elaine and Jean Brown. A Handbook of Content Literacy Strategies: 75 Practical Reading and Writing Ideas. Christopher-Gordon, 2000. The authors provide teachers with strategies for integrating reading and writing as tools for learning in the content areas.
Strong, Richard, et. al. Reading for Academic Success. Corwin Press, 2002. This book provides instructional strategies to help students develop important reading strategies.
Strong, William. Write for Insight: Empowering Content Learning, Grades 6-12. Pearson, 2006. Strong presents a clear and compelling case for using writing to learn as a tool across the curriculum. Arguing for insightful teaching and learning – balancing more emphasis on writing-to-learn (ungraded) assignments with a rich array of process writing (graded) tasks – Strong draws upon the work of the National Writing Project colleagues to show how writing becomes a powerful learning tool across diverse content areas, engaging both imagination and intellect.
Tatum, Alfred. Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males. Stenhouse, 2005. Bridges the connections among theory, instruction, and professional development to create a roadmap for better literacy achievement. The author presents practical suggestions for providing reading strategy instruction and assessment that is explicit, meaningful, and culturally responsive, as well as guidelines for selecting and discussing nonfiction and fiction texts with black males.
Tovani, Chris. Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? Content Comprehension, Grades 6-12. Stenhouse, 2004. Provides strategies to content area teachers in reading strategies.
Tovani, Chris. I Read It, But I Don’t Get It: Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers. Stenhouse, 2000. Provides ideas for incorporating comprehension instruction into daily lesson plans without sacrificing content. Includes many teaching tips and ideas for grades 6-12 in all content areas.
Tyner, Beverly and Sharon E. Green. Small-Group Reading Instruction: A Differentiated Teaching Model for Intermediate Readers, Grades 3–8. IRA, 2005. This book presents a powerful small-group differentiated teaching model for leading intermediate students through the evolving reader, maturing reader, and advanced reader developmental stages. Using these effective, research-based teaching strategies, teachers can support growth in fluency, word study, and comprehension as students make critical practices for working with, managing, and assessing small groups, which result in better instruction for all students.
Wilhelm, Jeffrey, et. al. Strategic Reading: Guiding Students to Lifelong Literacy, 6-12. Boyton/Cook Publishers, 2001. Describes strategies middle and high school teachers can use to help all students read challenging, higher-level texts successfully.
Wilhelm, Jeffrey, et. al. You Gotta BE the Book: Teaching Engaged and Reflective Reading With Adolescents. Teachers College Press, 1997. Through case studies of engaged and reluctant readers, this book looks at many issues, such as what do highly engaged adolescent readers do as they read?
Witherell, Nancy, and Mary McMacken. Graphic Organizers and Activities for Differentiated Instruction for Reading. Teaching Resources, 2002. Includes organizers to build reading comprehension skills and reach every learner. Key skills covered include making predictions, identifying main ideas, using context clues, analyzing cause and effect, and many more. Each skill is paired with three student pages designed to support individual learning needs at three levels: introductory, intermediate, and challenging.
Wood, Karen, and Janie Harmon. Strategies for Integrating Reading and Writing in Middle and High School Classrooms. National Middle School Association, 2001. These easy-to-use, research-based strategies are designed to improve students’ performance and interest in course content by increasing the time they spend reading and writing. Each chapter addresses a topic relevant to middle school and high school literacy and offers sample lessons to illustrate the application to various subject areas.
Yancey, Kathleen. Teaching Literature as Reflective Practice. NCTE, 2004. This book speaks to teachers of “gen ed” literature courses that students must take to complete a curriculum requirement. These students are the ones we hope will become the active and reflective members of the reading public. Given this goal, Yancey outlines a course in reflective practice and connected to readings in the world.
Young, Terrell A., editor. Happily Ever After: Sharing Folk Literature With Elementary and Middle School Students. IRA, 2004. As an instructional tool, folk literature can foster literacy, promote cultural awareness, and create connections with the content areas. Yet most of the professional literature on folklore addresses either the scholarly aspects of the genre or how teachers can encourage their students to read it. Few resources exist that provide teachers with a background about folk literature and how to use it in their classrooms. Happily Ever After fills that gap by offering ideas for teaching folklore as a literary genre to children in grades K-8. Rooted in contemporary views of reading and literature-based instruction, this collection of essays defines folk literature and its subgenres, provides strategies for incorporating folklore into and across the curriculum, and describes techniques for teaching students to write their own folk stories.
Zwiers, Jeff. Building Reading Comprehension Habits in Grades 6-12: A Toolkit of Classroom Activities. IRA, 2004. This book offers middle and high school teachers in all curricular areas research-based, innovative activities to strengthen students’ reading comprehension. The activities are organized around six automatic habits of reading comprehension that help proficient readers actively construct meaning as they read: sculpting main idea and summarizing, connecting to background knowledge, making inferences and predictions, generating and answering questions, understanding and remembering word meanings, and monitoring one’s own comprehension.
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Aaron, Jennifer, Eurydice Bouchereau Bauer, Michelle Commeyras, Sharon Dowling Cox, Bren Daniell, Ellen Elrick, Bob Fecho, Jill Hermann-Wilmarth, Elizabeth Hogan, Andrea Pintaone-Hernandez, Kathy Roulston, Amanda Siegel, and Hope Vaughn. No Deposit, No Return: Enriching Literacy Teaching and Learning Through Critical Inquiry Pedagogy. IRA, 2006. Foster a classroom community in which teachers and students make their own meanings of the world and consider their relation to larger social, political, cultural, and historical issues. You’ll find a rich range of perspectives in the stories of K–12 teachers and university educators who participated in a three-year study exploring issues of critical inquiry. This text will show you -the power of research partnerships; -a framework for teachers and teacher educators to provide ongoing professional support for one another; -the complexities, challenges, and possibilities of critical inquiry classrooms; -classrooms where teachers and students transact with community, responsibility, and risk in productive ways.
Afflerbach, Peter. Understanding and Using Reading Assessment, K–12. IRA, 2007. Understanding and Using Reading Assessment, K-12 will help you examine and choose reading assessment in relation to current understandings of the reading process, students' development, and the culture of schooling. Each chapter
- Focuses on a particular type of reading assessment to familiarize you with the broad array of assessments available
- Uses the CURRV framework as an organizing principle to help you consider the Consequences, Usefulness, Roles and responsibilities, Reliability, and Validity of the assessment
- Includes questions and tasks that invite you to apply the knowledge you have gained from the chapter
- Concludes with Reading Assessment Snapshots, which highlight important reading assessment issues that pertain to some or all of the assessments covered in this book.
Allington, Richard L. and Sean A. Walmsley, editors. No Quick Fix, The RTI Edition: Rethinking Literacy Programs in America’s Elementary Schools. IRA and Teachers College Press, 2007. This classic text introduced the framework for the current Response to Intervention (RTI) initiative. Now that federal education policy has caught up with the research and reform models first presented here over a decade ago, this special edition of No Quick Fix is of critical importance to today’s teachers, principals, administrators, policymakers, and everyone interested in creating schools where all students learn to read.
Alvermann, Donna E., Stephen F. Phelps, Victoria Ridgeway Gillis. Content Area Reading and Literacy: Succeeding in Today's Diverse Classrooms (5th Edition). Allyn and Bacon Publishing, 2006. A continuing best-seller, Content Area Reading and Literacy, Fifth Edition, equips pre-service and in-service teachers to teach content area literacy in an era of high accountability and provides in-depth and integrated attention to the needs of students from diverse cultural and language backgrounds. In a time when high-stakes testing, standards, and scientifically based reading research are driving the field, Alvermann, Phelps and Ridgeway include a new focus and greater emphasis on helping teachers and students meet their schools' annual yearly progress plans. More classroom-tested and research-based teaching and learning strategies to use in all core areas (e.g., math, science, English/language arts, social sciences) have been included in all chapters. In addition, current trends in technology and multimedia use have been highlighted as well as ideas for increasing students' motivation to learn (e.g. engaging them in more in-depth learning of content and developing their sense of self-efficacy). Finally, it provides updates on many state and federal initiatives affecting adolescent literacy instruction (including the new Striving Readers Initiative, NCLB, literacy coaches, content standards, and so on).
Atwell, Nancie. The Reading Zone. Scholastic 2007. Drawing on over two decades of teaching experience, Nancie Atwell builds the case that frequent, voluminous reading is the key to developing skilled, passionate, habitual, critical readers.
Barton, Mary Lee and Deborah Jordan. Teaching Reading in Mathematics. Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning, 2001. Instructional strategies from Teaching Reading in the Content Areas: If Not Me, then Who? Are adapted specifically for mathematics. Available online at http://www.mcrel.org/.
Barton, Mary Lee and Deborah Jordan. Teaching Reading in Science. Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning, 2001. Instructional strategies from Teaching Reading in the Content Areas: If Not Me, then Who? Are adapted specifically for science. Available online at http://www.mcrel.org/.
Barton, Mary Lee and Deborah Jordan. Teaching Reading in Social Studies. Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning, 2001. Instructional strategies from Teaching Reading in the Content Areas: If Not Me, then Who? Are adapted specifically for social studies. Available online at http://www.mcrel.org/
Beers, Kylene. When Kids Can’t Read, What Teachers Can Do. Heinemann, 2003. Beers provides a teacher-friendly guide to instructional strategies for struggling readers.
Billmeyer, Rachel and Mary Lee Barton. Teaching Reading in the Content Areas: If Not Me, Then Who? McRel, 1998. This manual, a resource “to assist teachers in expanding and refining their repertoire of teaching strategies,” includes extensive descriptions and instructions for specific reading strategies. Available online at http://ww.mcrel.org/.
Booth, David. Even Hockey Players Read: Boys, Literacy and Learning. Pembroke, 2002. This comprehensive overview of the challenging issues around boys and reading and writing features thought-provoking questions, strategies, and practical solutions for helping boys develop their literacy potential. Find answer to such questions as 1) What factors in the home and in the classroom influence the literacy lives of boys? 2) Why do so many boys select different reading materials than girls? 3) Why do many girls score higher than many boys on tests of reading achievement? 4) Are society’s expectations for boys’ and girls’ literacy lives different? 5) and Why do so many adult males consider themselves non-readers? Even Hockey Players Read advocates changing the classroom environment so that boys who can’t read are helped; boys who don’t read become motivated; and boys who do read find enrichment.
Brock, Cynthia H. and Taffy E. Raphael. Windows to Language, Literacy, and Culture: Insights From an English-Language Learner. IRA, 2005. This new addition to the Kids InSight series show educators, that regardless of statistics, teachers with the necessary knowledge base and positive dispositions toward diversity can provide meaningful learning contexts for all their students. The authors give teachers an insider's perspective on the literacy learning process of one English-language learner to help them develop a deeper understanding about working with these learners in a mainstream classroom. Teachers will discover the power of listening to and learning from their students as the acquisition and its impact on instruction for the English-language learners. Effective ways to structure classroom learning contexts and use literature are discussed.
Clyde, Jean Anne, Shelli Barber, Sandra Hogue, and Laura Wasz. Breakthrough to Meaning: Helping Your Kids Become Better Readers, Writers and Thinkers. Heinemann, 2006. What if there were a single literacy strategy that helped learners of all ages across all contexts read critically, write reflectively, think deeply – and yes, even improve their performance on standardized reading and writing assessments? There is. It’s called the subtext strategy, and in Breakthrough to Meaning, you’ll find out how it can help children improve in virtually every aspect of their learning.
Compton-Lilly, Catherine, editor. Breaking the Silence: Recognizing the Social and Cultural Resources Students Bring to the Classroom. IRA, 2009. The standards-based initiatives that dominate educational policy and practice today typically focus only on the surface skills of reading, thus isolating teaching and learning from the social and cultural contexts that are a part of every classroom. Fortunately, in this excellent volume edited by Catherine Compton-Lilly, you will enter classrooms in which literacy is treated as more than just a set of skills, and discover solutions and possibilities for providing culturally responsive teaching. You'll learn how to create classrooms that reflect and honor the social and cultural worlds of children, how to make instruction relevant to your students, and how to create home - school partnerships with diverse families. Especially helpful are a rich variety of practical resources that you can use in your classroom: examples and vignettes from actual classrooms that illustrate how you can apply the insights from each chapter to your daily instruction; a 'Recommendations for Educators and Classroom Applications' section that translates theory to practice for busy teachers; a list of suggested resources; and, sidebars with tips and recommendations to use immediately with your students.
Corcoran, John. The Bridge to Literacy: No Child--or Adult--Left Behind. Kaplan, 2008. Most educators in the nation are trying to figure out how to close the achievement gap and to stop the loss of thirty percent of our high school students. John Corcoran's Bridge to Literacy is the roadmap. Not only does it expose the problem as literacy but the book also brilliantly outlines the solutions. This is a must read for every educator and parent so that there will be NO more excuses.
Corcoran, John. The Teacher Who Couldn't Read: One Man's Triumph Over Illiteracy. Kaplan, 2008. Here is the incredible true story of a smart kid who slipped through the system and became part of it. John Corcoran graduated from high school and college and went on to become a high school teacher--but he never learned how to read. Corcoran shares his amazing experiences of using deception to survive in a world of literates, and he clearly defines what schools, teachers, churches, and parents can do to conquer the little-known but widely spread disease of our educational system: illiteracy.
Duffy, Gerald. Explaining Reading: A Resource for Teaching Concepts, Skills, and Strategies. Guilford Press, 2003. This book is a practical resource for explaining reading to students who do not learn to read easily. Identified are 22 major skills and strategies associated with vocabulary development, comprehension, word recognition, and fluency. Ways to explain each skill or strategy are illustrated with concrete examples, which teachers can use as starting points for developing lessons tailored to the needs, strengths and interests of their own students.
Farstrup, Alan E. and S. Jay Samuels, editors. What Research Has to Say About Reading Instruction, Third Edition. IRA, 2002. The third edition of this respected volume provides current research along with instructional implications that reflect the rapidly evolving professional context in which the research is used. Educators will find information on how to teach students to read based on evidence from a broad base of effective, well-designed research. Topics have been updated and added to better reflect current thinking in the field and address issues that have come to national and international attention for a number of reasons, including the recently released U.S. National Reading Panel report. The editors maintain a balance among theory, research, and effective classroom practice without presenting a formulaic view of good instruction or overly theoretical discussions in which practical applications of research findings are not adequately explored. The 17 chapters focus on research related to early reading instruction, phonemic awareness, comprehension, and many other topics. Each chapter concludes with "Questions for Discussion" to encourage reflection on the topics discussed.
Farstrup, Alan E. and S. Jay Samuels, editors. What Research Has to Say About Vocabulary Instruction. IRA, 2008. In these pages, some of the best-known scholars in the field present hands-on strategies and useful suggestions for vocabulary instruction that you can put to use in your classroom right away—all backed by the most current research.
Fink, Rosalie and S. Jay Samuels, editors. Inspiring Reading Success: Interest and Motivation in an Age of High-Stakes Testing. IRA, 2008. Although recent U.S. legislation has had a profound impact on reading instruction and student achievement, some students continue to fall behind. This provocative text addresses this gap with a new perspective on reading instruction that goes beyond the realms of teacher content knowledge and methodology. You’ll learn how motivation and interest can enhance reading instruction for all students and you’ll get strategies to increase reading success.
Fisher, Douglas, Nancy Frey, and Diane Lapp. In a Reading State of Mind: Brain Research, Teacher Modeling, and Comprehension Instruction (with DVD). IRA, 2009. Educators agree that teacher modeling is a key component of good instruction—but how do you model reading comprehension? What’s the best way to present new information so your students’ brains can convert it to working knowledge and useable skills? This book seamlessly blends current research about the brain and learning with classroom examples to show you how instructional modeling can lead to increased engagement and literacy learning. You also will meet a number of middle- and secondary-grade teachers who use modeling to help their students’ understand complex ideas. Chapters explore, specifically, ways you can model comprehension and word solving strategies, as well as how to use text structures and text features to learn and retain information. The accompanying DVD gives you an opportunity to see teacher modeling in action in real classrooms, and the final chapter in the book serves as a professional development guide with discussion questions that correspond to segments of the DVD.
Freeman, Yvonne S., and David Freeman. Closing the Achievement Gap: How to Reach Limited-Formal-Schooling and Long-Term English Learners. Heinemann, 2002. Struggling older English learners pose a real challenge for educators. Some of these students are new arrivals with limited or interrupted schooling. Others have been in and out of ESL and bilingual programs in this country since kindergarten, but have never succeeded academically. Yvonne and David Freeman provide four research-based keys for closing this achievement gap.
Fuchs, Douglas, Lynn S. Fuchs, and Sharon Vaughn, editors. Response to Intervention: A Framework for Reading Educators. IRA, 2008. Written with reading professionals firmly in mind, this book tells you what you need to know to implement RTI well in your school or district. Leading experts in literacy and special education describe a three-tier approach that begins with effective instruction for all children, moves to preventive tutoring through a variety of approaches, and concludes with a reformed conceptualization of special education. Key to the approach is using assessment to identify students at risk, monitor student progress, and guide appropriate instructional support.
Graves, Michael F. The Vocabulary Book: Learning & Instruction. Teachers College Press, IRA, and the National Council of Teachers of English, 2006. This text presents a comprehensive plan for vocabulary instruction from kindergarten through high school - one broad enough to instruct students with small vocabularies, exceptional vocabularies, and every child in between. Written by one of the top experts in the field, this practical book presents a research-based program with plenty of classroom examples and strategies that teachers can use. The comprehensive plan includes four parts: rich and varied language experiences, teaching individual words, teaching word learning strategies, and fostering word consciousness.
Guth, Nancy DeVries and Stephanie Stephens Pettengill. Leading a Successful Reading Program: Administrators and Reading Specialists Working Together to Make It Happen. IRA, 2005. Use the model detailed here to build a successful school-wide literacy program. You'll learn how to design a vision, establish a literacy community, get all staff involved, build the school resource collection, assess the program's success, and plan collaboratively with students and parents. Helpful resources include suggestions for organization; tips on providing specialized instruction; ideas to keep staff, students, and parents motivated to succeed; and classroom-tested sample lesson plans to help you put your program into practice. This book is based on the experiences of a reading specialist and an administrator in a middle school, but is easily adaptable to specific elementary, middle, or high school needs.
Hadaway, Nancy L. and Marian J. McKenna, editors. Breaking Boundaries With Global Literature: Celebrating Diversity in K–12 Classrooms. IRA, 2007. In today's increasingly diverse classrooms, it is essential for educators to provide students with the tools, dialogue, and experiences that will help them to know and understand the global village in which they live and also build their compassion, empathy, and appreciation for the diverse individuals and cultures who populate it. This resource shows educators how to accomplish both of these goals. Drawing from the selection of quality global literature chosen for the Notable Books for a Global Society booklists, this book explores key themes in global literature, offering ideas, activities, and strategies for your K-12 English language arts classrooms. You will learn how to use global literature to
- Explore literary elements and at the same time develop students global awareness
- Illustrate the diversity as well as the commonality at the heart of all stories and people
- Promote students critical thinking about society, diversity, and their place in the global community
- Extend students connections with literature to constructive activism and service learning.
Hammond, Bill, Mary Eleanor Rhodes Hoover, and Irving Pressley McPhail, editors. Teaching African American Learners to Read: Perspectives and Practices. IRA, 2005. This collection of original, adapted, and previously published articles fills a critical need for professional literature that documents successful research-based practices and programs that teach African American children to read. Thoughtful commentary on historic and current issues, discussion of research-based best practices, and examples of culturally appropriate instruction help you identify and select the best practices and programs that will lead your African American learners to reading success.
Indrisano, Roselmina and Jeanne R. Paratore, editors. Learning to Write, Writing to Learn: Theory and Research in Practice. IRA, 2005. Changing the way you teach writing requires changing the way you understand the process of writing. The chapters in this collection bring together the perspectives of university researchers and classroom teachers so you see the explicit connection between writing theory and practice. The book covers writing development in grades K–12 and within different learning contexts to help you understand and implement excellent writing instruction suited to your particular classroom setting.
Jensen, Eric. Learning Smarter – The New Science of Teaching. Brain Store, Inc., 2000. A compilation of research findings that collectively inform the teaching practice known as “brain compatible.” The articles, most of them published online by The Brain Store, summarize recent discoveries about the brain and learning while translating them into practical solutions for educations.
Koechlin, Carol, and Sandi Zwaan. Q Tasks: How to Empower Students to Ask Questions and Care About Answers. Pembroke, 2006. Based on the complex needs of surviving in the information age, Q Tasks offers practical strategies that will empower students to become critical thinkers and users of information. The step-by-step approach in this book offers more than 80 tried-and-proven classroom activities that will take students beyond memorization and rote learning. Teachers will find innovative ways to help students ask real questions that focus on personal understanding and give them ownership of their learning experience.
McAndrews, Stephanie L. Diagnostic Literacy Assessments and Instructional Strategies: A Literacy Specialist’s Resource. IRA, 2008. Research shows that specific programs do not improve reading and writing—the most impact is made by the decision-making process of the literacy professionals who use assessment to drive language, reading, and writing instruction. Diagnostic Literacy Assessments and Instructional Strategies: A Literacy Specialist’s Resource can provide literacy specialists and classroom teachers with all you need to become the effective decision makers for your K–8 students. To help you choose the right assessment for each student’s needs, an extensive appendix contains two matrixes that show the assessments’ related literacy processes and purposes. The appendix also contains reproducible copies of numerous assessments and tools necessary for implementing some strategies. Of course not every assessment or strategy is appropriate for every student, but this comprehensive resource provides a range of indispensable tools to help you make appropriate assessment and instructional decisions.
Moore, David, Donna Alvermann, and Kathleen Hinchman. Struggling Adolescent Readers: A Collection of Teaching Strategies. IRA, 2000. This compilation, comprised almost entirely of articles from The Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, suggests ways to generate academic engagement and success, and ways to break cycles of failure with struggling adolescent readers.
Morgan, Norah, and Juliana Saxton. Asking Better Questions (2nd edition). Pembroke, 2006. This book explores the compelling role of questions in creating a powerful learning environment. Research tells us that the person who asks the question is the active learner, yet too many classrooms still revolve around teacher-generated questions. Teachers will receive the guidance and tools they need to encourage students to ask thoughtful questions and care about the answers.
Mueller, Pamela. Lifers: Learning from At-Risk Adolescent Readers. Heinemann, 2001. Uses first person accounts from students who have spent all their lives in remedial programs to support her plea for a more effective literacy curriculum.
Program Evaluation: English Language Arts: A Comprehensive Guide for Standards-Based Program Evaluation for Schools Committed to Continuous Improvement. National Study of School Evaluation, 1998. Offers the view of program evaluation as a source of learning and as a tool for school improvement.
Rasinski, Timothy V., Nancy D. Padak, Brenda Weible Church, Gay Fawcett, Judith Hendershot, Justina M. Henry, Barbara G. Moss, Jacqueline K. Peck, Elizabeth (Betsy) Pryor, and Kathleen A. Roskos, editors. Motivating Recreational Reading and Promoting Home-School Connections: Strategies From The Reading Teacher. IRA, 2000. How can you increase children's motivation for reading outside the classroom - a sure predictor of increased reading achievement? You'll find the answers in Motivating Recreational Reading and Promoting Home-School Connections. This collection of articles presents classroom-tested ideas, resources, and activities to create motivational tools and home-school partnerships that will make literacy learning more effective and engaging for your students. The 33 articles present strategies that address a wide range of topics, including poetry, riddles in the classroom, book commercials, cooperative group rotation, classroom libraries, multiculturalism, reading workshops, peer tutoring, reading buddies and coaches, supporting parents and families, linking home and school, and community involvement. You'll also find in the appendixes a variety of resources for teachers and parents, including information on IRA parent material, U.S. reading initiatives and programs, and IRA's "Choices" booklists.
Reutzel, D. Ray and Robert B. Cooter, Jr. Strategies for Reading Assessment and Instruction: Helping Every Child Succeed (third edition). Pearson Merrill/Prentice Hall, 2007. The third edition of Strategies for Reading Assessment and Instruction provides a wealth of complementary and practical ideas for teachers who need to assess and address students' reading achievement. Each of the strategy-driven chapters moves from a set of theory-informed assessment tools to intervention strategies that will address students' reading needs. The indispensable IF-THEN charts present these strategies in an instantly applicable manner. Readers diagnose the specific problem their students are having, then immediately discover which of the chapter's strategies are most beneficial in assisting them.
Ruddell, Robert B. and Norman J. Unrau, editors. Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading (Fifth Edition). IRA, 2004. The fifth edition of this landmark reference continues the tradition of offering the highest quality research and representing the best scholarship in the field. The selected pieces, 70 per cent of which are new to this edition, will help educators develop an understanding of reading and literacy research and the ability to apply that understanding in generating new research and informing instructional decision making. Plus, a supplementary CD includes a number of other classic and recent research pieces to enrich readers' understanding of the selections in this updated volume.
Sandel, Lenore, editor. Teaching With Care: Cultivating Personal Qualities That Make a Difference. IRA, 2006. In today’s standards-focused environment, we often overlook a real key to student achievement: teachers’ personal qualities. In this collection, respected educators give their views on what it takes to be an outstanding teacher. The essays speak on a personal level, providing novice and experienced teachers with guidance about what it takes to be an excellent educator. Reflection questions at the start of each section will help you relate essay topics to your own practice.
Silver, Harvey, Richard Strong and Matthew Perini. So Each May Learn: Integrating Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2000. Provides models and graphics to help teachers integrate different learning styles and multiple intelligences in their instruction.
Sousa, David. How the Brain Learns to Read. Corwin Press, 2005. This book presents what scientists have uncovered about how children develop spoken language and use spoken language abilities when learning to read. Sousa explores source material on brain research and provides scores of practical reading strategies for the K-12 classroom. Complete with diagrams and informative tables, this exciting new book examines critical concepts including language acquisition, modern classroom research, overcoming reading problems and early intervention programs, content area reading strategies, and developing a successful reading program with teachers as researchers.
Sutton, John and Alice Krueger, Eds. EdThoughts: What We Know About Mathematics Teaching and Learning. Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning, 2002. Summarizes education research and surveys of best classroom practice and offers implications for improved teaching and learning.
Toll, Cathy A. The Literacy Coach’s Survival Guide: Essential Questions and Practical Answers. IRA, 2005. Often, literacy coaches are former classroom teachers who have little or no coaching training. Although confident in their knowledge of reading, literacy coaches may feel daunted when faced with the practical aspects of coaching. This book provides tools and tips to guide literacy coaches as they work in schools to promote more effective literacy instruction. Author Cathy A. Toll has organized the book around three sections—How Do I Promote Change? What Does a Successful Literacy Coach Do? and How Do I Coach in Difficult Situations?—to answer the main questions you may have about coaching. The first section will help you better understand various issues of educational change, and view change as beneficial. The second section will assist you with the practical matters of coaching, such as starting out, working with individuals and groups, and approaching problems in a helpful manner. The third section shows you how to overcome challenges, with information on dealing with resistant teachers and responding to pressures from administrators. The questions addressed in the book are listed by topic in an appendix for easy reference. Plus, a narrative bibliography is included to provide a discussion of the professional literature and topics covered in the book. Literacy coaching is best when you approach it with the belief that coaching is at heart about relationships and growth. This book will show you how to be a literacy coach who is successful in supporting teachers and, most important, students.
Tomlinson, Carol Ann. How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms. Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2001. Offers field-tested strategies that teachers can use to differentiate instruction. Shows how to use students’ readiness levels, interests, and learning profiles to address student diversity.
Topping, Donna and Roberta McManus. Real Reading, Real Writing. Heinemann, 2002. Provides special emphasis on math and science reading and writing strategies.
Williams, Belinda, ed. Closing the Achievement Gaps: A Vision for Changing Beliefs and Practices (2nd edition). Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2003. If education reform is to work, educators must become sensitive to the worldviews of disadvantaged students, and incorporate this awareness into their day-to-day work. Thoroughly researched and eloquently written, this book is a vital resource for ensuring that students of all backgrounds succeed equally well in the classroom.
Wood, Karen D., Diane Lapp, James Flood, and D. Bruce Taylor. Guiding Readers Through Text: Strategy Guides for New Times (second edition). IRA, 2008. This updated edition of the bestselling Guiding Readers Through Text shows how to use strategy guides, with their integrative and active approach to learning, to help students at all grade levels achieve better comprehension. Taking into account the vast array of multi-format texts used in classrooms today, these new guides will work not only with traditional texts but also with audio, video, digital, and multimedia texts, as well as other information sources such as field trips, artifacts, or classroom experiments. Add this book to your library and use it throughout your career in any subject area, at any grade level, and with any student. An array of organizational activities will help you develop strategic readers and writers and support your students' learning and studying.
Zemelman, Steven, Harvey Daniels and Arthur Hyde. Best Practice: New Standards for Teaching and Learning in America’s Schools. Heinemann, 1998. This book includes charts of recommended practices, and practices to deemphasize, in teaching reading and writing.