Interesting Research
Interactive Lessons
Professional Organizations and Publications
Book Publishers and Authors
Check out these books
What's
A Schwa Sound Anyway? by Sandra Wilde
Inside
the Classroom:Teaching Kindergarten and First Grade by Bobbi Fisher
Thinking
and Learning Together by Bobbi Fisher
In
The Middle-New Understanding About Reading and Learning by Nancie Atwell
Education
on the Edge of Possibility by Caine and Caine
Literacy
at the Crossroads by Regie Routman
Literature
Circles by Harvey Daniels
And
with a Light Touch by Carol Avery
What
a Writer Needs by Ralph Fletcher
The
Future of Whole Language
Spelling
in Use by Lester Laminack & Katie Wood
After
the End by Barry Lane
Learning
to Read in New Zealand
Inside
New Zealand Classrooms by Alan Cullen
Classrooms
That Work by Patricia Cunningham
Guided
Reading by Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell
Words
Their Way - Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary and Spelling , edited by
Donald Bear
Recommended books of the month
Methods that Matter by Harvey Daniels and Marilyn Bizar
Here are practical and proven ways of organizing time, space, materials, students, and activities that embody new standards while creating genuinely student-centered classrooms. Illustrated by stories from two dozen teachers at a wide variety of grade levels, the book clearly describes six fundamental, recurrent activities:integrative units, small group activities, representing-to learn, classroom workshop, authentic experiences, and reflective assessment.Is whole language the cause of the problems that beset our schools? Is the debate between whole language and phonics a cover-up fro control of what and how students learn? Is it appropriate that legislators, lobbyists, textbook publishers, and private interest groups evaluate and promote research on teaching and learning? Is the attack on whole language supported by research that is valid? These questions have come out of the reading wars. And teachers must be articulate and knowledgeable defendants in the debate if they are to retain control of their profession. In Defense of Good Teaching is an alarming and enlightening book and, as the dispute broadens to affect teaching math and bilingual education, it is an important book.
Available Now...Highly Recommended
Across the nation, legislators and policy makers are dictating the course of literacy education—all in the name of science." Unchallenged, this research has impacted just about every area of reading instruction. Now, just in time, nationally renowned educational psychologist Gerald Coles enters the discussion, offering the first comprehensive, clearly written critique of the so-called evidence.
This important book examines the studies of leading researchers who have testified in various hearings and promoted policy and legislation on behalf of skills-emphasis learning, especially those financed by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). No other book has systematically and comprehensively analyzed this work. Coles not only identifies each claim, he analyzes the research that backs it up. Chief among them are that:
- Phonemic awareness is the chief causal influence in learning to read.
- Skills-training programs facilitate learning to read and remediate reading problems.
- Research has demonstrated the superiority of skills emphasis over whole language instruction.
- The effectiveness of a widely acclaimed skills-emphasis reading program has been demonstrated in published research.
- A brain "glitch" associated with phonemic awareness is responsible for the reading problems of many children.
The publication of Misreading Reading marks a shift in the balance of power and an opportunity to enact early reading policy and legislation based on "good science." Preservice and inservice teachers, teacher educators, administrators, parents, anyone confronted with complex and mystifying claims about the value of direct instruction in reading instruction will benefit from this book.
Contents:
1. Erecting the "Strong Consensus"
2. Creating "the Culprit"
3. The Foorman Study
4. "Research-Based" Training Programs
5. "Coming Soon! Coming Soon!"
6. "Brain Glitch"
7. A "Broad Heritability"
8. "The Simple Theory"
9. Magic Markers
10. Science and Children's Learning
Talking
About Books by Kathy Short & Kathryn PierceDespite the recent call
for systematic, intensive phonics instruction, phonemic awareness, and
decodeable texts, many educators continue to bring students and books together
in transforming ways. Talking About Books is being reissued because it
is clear that a focus on dialogue about books within a literate community
remains important to teachers.
Read
Reflect Retell by Linda HoytHow can we be certain that students are
making sense of print? What can we do to improve comprehension? Linda Hoyt,
a reading specialist and staff developer, is convinced that thoughtful
reflection and retelling are the keys. When readers reflect upon and retell
what they know about a text, they experience deeper levels of understanding
and increased communicative competency. This highly practical collection
of more than 130 strategies and 90 reproducibles is the perfect resource
for any teacher attempting to evoke high-quality responses to literature.
It provides a detailed look at why to respond to text, when to respond
to text, and how readers might be invited to respond in authentic ways.
All of the strategies are classroom tested, and the blackline masters offer
powerful incentives for creative interactions. Each chapter is loaded with
assessment tools for teachers, student self-reflection forms, observation
guides, and parent activities that are ready for immediate use. You and
your students will laugh together in Game Show, explore graphophonic understandings
through Alphaboxes and AlphaAntics, engage in inferential reasoning with
V.I.P., and stretch your understanding with Interactive Journals. Revisit,
Reflect, Retell is firmly grounded in constructivist reading theory, offering
support across a range of genres and learning styles. Teachers will find
it a valuable resource for creating meaningful and authentic learning experiences.
The book will be equally useful as a workshop manual, discussion starter
for teacher study groups, and support for staff developers.
Different Paths to Common Outcomes written by Marie ClayThis collection of readings is about all children and the early years of schooling. It brings together for educators and classroom teachers significant new, previously unpublished articles (Chapters 4, 10, and 14) as well as several of Dr. Clay's seminal papers. Here she reiterates for new teachers many of the concerns that lie at the heart of her work with young children - the sensitive observation of the constructive child, the challenges of early encounters with how we put language down in print (Concepts About Print), introducing storybooks to children, and how we can better adapt to diversity in our classrooms. Other emphases that emerge in her new articles call for changes in how teachers think about three things: literacy awareness as it develops before and after the transition to school, the power of writing for all children in early literacy encounters, and conversation as a tool for vastly improving teaching interactions. Marie Clay focuses on many reciprocal connections - how one kind of learning supports another - between oral language and reading, between writing and reading, between theory and practice. She believes that practice informs theory and theory informs practice in a circular and continuing set of relationships. Teachers who want to go beyond their present practice must get into the writings of those who challenge their expectations on how best to meet the needs of their very diverse children. Each chapter in this collection - from the glimpses of some fascinating children to some strong challenges to basic assumptions about literacy teaching - could provide a centerpiece for a workshop, the background reading for several group discussions, or an opportunity for practicing teachers to bring their experience face to face with a text that challenges. As Margaret Mooney writes in her foreword, "Marie Clay knows how to ask the niggling questions and to prompt and probe the uncomfortable issues. But readers of this collection will realize she is equally skilled in providing practical examples and well-researched, reasoned discussion for the road she chooses . . . This book is not a one-read-is-sufficient publication. It is a companion for frequent dipping and delving, thinking and questioning, challenging and confirming. We'll all find different paths to common outcomes."
The Case For Late Intervention The Case for Late Intervention: Once A Good Reader Always A Good Reader written by Stephen D. Krashen and Jeff McQuillan. The current trend in literacy education is early intervention. This is based on the assumption that once a child is behind, he or she will always be behind. There is, however, no evidence that there is a critical period for learning how to read and there is strong evidence that we can learn to read anytime. Once a poor reader, always a poor reader should be replaced with once a good reader, always a good reader. Published by Language Education Associates © 1996 ISBN 0-9652808-0-2 soft cover booklet 7" x 5" 19 pagesprice: $3.00
In The Company of Children by Joanne Hindley. In schools of every description, teachers are working to turn their classrooms into reading-writing workshops. TheyÌre filling bookcases with the best of childrens literature, and students are tucking writersÌ notebooks into their bulging backpacks. This new look calls for meaningful change in teaching practice, but many questions about implementing literacy workshops remain. In this clear and practical book, Joanne Hindley takes a hard look at how to make every minute count and offers specific suggestions for creating rigorous, efficient, and successful reading and writing workshops. Grounding her story in the lives of her third graders, Joanne tackles difficult issues and offers thoughtful direction and ideas you will appreciate: How to manage a productive workshop setting in a crowded classroom. How to launch writerÌs notebooks with your students. How the study of one genre can help you manage the reading/ writing workshop. Where to get ideas for mini-lessons for the reading/writing workshop. Guidelines to help you improve your conferring with individual readers and writers. How to assess student progress in a process-oriented classroom. In the Company of Children is a treasure trove of fresh ideas and strategies that teachers-inservice and preservice-will draw on and adapt for their own classrooms. Contents Introduction 1. Supportive Settings and Caring Communities Part One: The Writing Workshop 2. The WriterÌs Notebook: Not Just for Kids 3. Mini-Lessons: A Time for Rigorous Whole-Class Instruction 4. Lifting the Quality of Student Writing 5. Conferring Toward Published Writing 6. The Power of Picture Books: A Whole-Class Genre Study 7. The Potential of Notebooks for Younger Writers Part Two: The Reading Workshop 8. The Reading Workshop: What It Looks Like and Why 9. Mini-Lessons: Taking Our Cues from Children 10. Learning from Our Conferring and Record-Keeping 11. Responding to Literature: Getting Beyond I Liked the Book 12. Inviting Students and Parents in on Assessment Epilogue: Telling Our Stories / Appendixes / Bibliographies
Strategies That Work by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis
A child may be a great decoder, but that's only one step toward becoming
a fluent reader. Reading implies thinking and understanding, and teachers
can help children develop strategies for comprehension. Children need to
know how to make connections and ask questions, how to visualize and infer,
how to extract important ideas and to synthesize information if they are
to become fluent readers. Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis show how teachers
can model these strategies by thinking aloud and coding the text, lifting
text onto the overhead and reasoning through it in class discussions, and
bringing in their own books to model how adults use these strategies. All
the while teachers give students long blocks of time to practice these
strategies independently in their own reading.
Full of practical suggestions to help students think when they read,
Strategies
That Work gives teachers:
- more than forty K-8 strategy lessons for understanding text;
- ways to use short text, such as picture books, newspapers, magazines, and poetry to teach comprehension;
- ideas for choosing books that promote thinking and discussion;
- suggestions to better comprehend text in social studies, science, and other content areas;
- a wide range of authentic response options that promote engagement and enable students to monitor their own comprehension;
- examples of student work, illustrations, scripts of conversations, and a complete assessment interview to demonstrate and evaluate students' use of strategies.
- an authoritative bibliography of content-area text sets on the most common curricular topics in history, science, the arts, and literacy;
- a list of favorite books teachers choose for introducing and guiding students in the practice of a given strategy;
- a list of professional journals that review books for classroom use and a list of great young adult magazines;
- a selection of response options, homework suggestions, and authentic charts arranged by strategy.
Contents
List of Strategy Lessons / Foreword by Donald Graves / Acknowledgments
/ Part I The Foundation of Meaning 1. Strategic Thinking 2. Strategic Reading
3. Strategy Instruction and Practice 4. Teaching with Short Text 5. Book
Selection Part II Strategy Lessons and More 6. Making Connections: A Bridge
from the New to the Known 7. Questioning: The Strategy That Propels Readers
Forward 8. Visualizing and Inferring: Strategies That Enhance Understanding
9. Determining Importance in Text: The Nonfiction Connection 10. Synthesizing
Information: The Evolution of Thought 11. Strategy Instruction in Context:
Three Classroom Portraits 12. Assessing Comprehension: How Do We Know?
Part III Resources That Support Strategy Instruction Appendix A Great Books
and Author Sets to Launch Strategy Instruction and Practice / Appendix
B Great Books for Teaching Content in History, Social Studies, Science,
Music, Art, and Literacy / Appendix C Adult Text Sets / Appendix D Magazines
and Newspapers for Kids and Young Adults / Appendix E Professional Journals
for Selection of Children's Books / Appendix F Response Options for Each
Strategy / Appendix G Assessment Interview with Fourth Graders / Bibliography
This easy-to-read text will guide K-3 teachers as they develop a
reading and writing program for all their students. An apprenticeship approach
to literacy emphasizes the role of the teacher in providing demonstrations,
engaging children, monitoring their understanding, providing timely support
and, ultimately, withdrawing that support as the child gains independence.
Drawing on authentic classroom examples - student writing samples,
class schedules, photographs, and rich transcriptions of teaching and learning
interactions - the authors illustrate instruction that is aimed at children's
learning zones. As children become more competent readers and writers,
the instructional interactions are adjusted to accommodate their higher-level
learning.
Here is a wealth of in-depth information, specific strategies, and
organizational formats in literacy areas such as:
- principles of apprenticeship literacy;
- learning to read from a cognitive apprenticeship approach, including the roles of read-aloud, familiar reading, and shared reading;
- guided reading, including flexible grouping, reading and writing links, and instructional interactions that emphasize problem-solving strategies;
- helping children develop writing strategies through interactive writing, writing aloud, and revising and editing transactions;
- transitions in children's independent writing, including their relationship to modeling and coaching demonstrations during assisted writing;
- helping children acquire phonological knowledge, including activities that guide children in manipulating letters, sounds, and spelling patterns;
- a typical day of putting it all together in two apprenticeship settings: Angela's first-grade classroom and Carla's Title I reading program;
- using school-based professional literacy teams to support teachers in developing an effective literacy program for their children.
With Apprenticeship in Literacy you can achieve a balanced literacy program that works for all your students.
Contents
Introduction 1. The Right to Literacy 2. A Cognitive Apprenticeship
Approach to Literacy 3. Learning to Read 4. Guided Reading 5. Assisted
Writing 6. Independent Writing 7. Developing Phonetic Skills 8. Establishing
Routines and Organizing the Classroom 9. A Day with Angela and Her First
Graders 10. Supplementary Literacy Lessons with Carla 11. Working Together
/ Appendix / References / Index