Best Practices in Literacy Instruction, Third Edition Review

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(More customer reviews)I begged my administrator to purchase this for me after attending the state reading convention. What a great resource! This provides practical, yet expertly researched ideas and solutions to common literacy problems. A great feature is included for pre-service and new teachers at the end of each chapter - questions and activities to evaluate current teaching.
My copy is all highlighted, dog eared, and sticky noted. It has been passed around the building for sharing ideas. This book should be a gift to each new teacher by their principal!

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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.

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Craft Lessons Review

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(More customer reviews)This is one of the best books I've seen for helping teach students to be better writers. It gives short minilessons that can give ideas and teach writing techniques with examples. I love it. I wouldn't teach writing without it

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Craft is the cauldron in which the writing gets forged.

Ralph Fletcher and JoAnn Portalupi argue that too often we concentrate on the beginning and ending of the writing process—conceiving and correcting—while leaving students on their own to make a thousand critical decisions in their writing about crafting leads, voice, structure, supporting detail, setting, mood, and character.

What elements of craft can we teach student writers, and at what age are they ready to learn them? This book answers both questions. Craft Lessons is the practical text for the over-scheduled writing teacher who wants to give students fresh challenges for their writing but doesn't have time to pore over dozens of trade books to do so.

There are three main sections in the book: one geared for teachers of primary students, one for teachers of grades 3-4, and one for teachers of middle school writers. This developmental structure allows teachers to go directly to those craft lessons most applicable and adaptable to their own students. Each of the 78 lessons is presented on a single page in an easy-to-read format. And every lesson features three teaching guidelines:Discussion—A brief look at the reasons for teaching the particular element of craft.How to Teach It—Concrete language showing exactly how a teacher might bring this craft element to students in individual writing conferences or a small-group setting.Resource Material—A listing of the book or text referred to in the craft lesson plus additional texts you can use and references to a passage, a poem, or a piece of student writing in the Appendixes.Craft Lessons also explores the context—the crucial classroom conditions—for successfully bringing rich ideas to young writers. It will appeal to both experienced writing teachers seeking new horizons for their writers and teachers who are relatively new to teaching writing.

Be sure to take a look at Nonfiction Craft Lessons: Teaching Information Writing K-8 and the When Students Write videotapes.

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Response to Intervention: Principles and Strategies for Effective Practice (The Guilford Practical Intervention in Schools Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)Where I work, we are close to the point in which we will be implementing the Response to Intervention model for determining learning disabled and emotionally disturbed student eligibility. This necessitated my pouring over this book a few times in the last few weeks. I have to recommend it strongly as it would be difficult to imagine a more thorough work concerning this very new subject. Its historical discussion of special education and learning disabilities was excellent as was the authors' review of recent laws and legislation. The authors' description of the ineptitude of the discrepancy model is compelling even for those of us who never endured zoo staffings which were often its inevitable result. For those of us in the field, there are endless forms and figures on these pages which can be used as inspiration behind the forms accompanying our district's transition; although, RTI adoption clearly isn't just a matter of forms. The most exciting aspect is that it will give us an opportunity to develop a new aspect to one's game. Now, we'll utilize scientifically based interventions and be able to initiate them while recording the results. The authors even offer a template for a novel psychological report based upon Response to Intervention. Their creativity and thoroughness was a pleasant surprise.
However, I couldn't give the text five stars as the authors offer only unmitigated support for their subject. This is not good scholarship, nor is it good science. They make no attempt to explain the limitations which may be inherent to the enterprise. They also do not mention what many a practitioner (I hope) has realized since they first heard of it; which is that, contrary to expectations, it will balloon the size of special education because it will now be impossible to limit the number of children who will be eligible for learning disabled services. The slow learners who were once, and wrongfully, turned away will now be identified alongside the deficit students accommodated in the past. Without any mechanism with which to say no, school psychologists--that is those of us did what we were supposed to do for decades--will have to watch as the floodgates open and numbers swell to the point where special education becomes more normal than special. Perhaps I'm wrong, but my allowing for error is something with which the authors should partake.

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Meeting a key need, this is the first comprehensive guide to implementing a schoolwide response to intervention (RTI) program. The book is geared to helping practitioners understand and respond to No Child Left Behind and to the new special education eligibility guidelines outlined in IDEIA 2004. Presented are the theoretical and empirical foundations of the approach and a clear, 10-step model for conducting RTI procedures with students experiencing learning difficulties. Special features include reproducible planning and implementation worksheets and more than two dozen overhead transparency masters for use in RTI training sessions, with lay-flat binding to facilitate photocopying. For optimal utility, RTI training materials are also available online as PowerPoint slides and PDFs (www.guilford.com/rti).

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Reading Recovery: A Guidebook for Teachers in Training Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this book to familiarize myself with the Reading Recovery program. It opened my eyes to several things I have been doing when helping my child read which actually hinder a child's ability to decode words by themselves. Too much focus on the mechanics of reading and the letters in a word can contribute to problems when the child moves beyond the most basic reading skills.
Marie's book offers many excellent suggestions for working with a child. Her suggestions help a child grow in their reading without getting in their way. The lists of activities and skills to be acquired are helpful. We have seen tremendous progress in our child's ability to read independently since implementing the reading recovery program.
I think every parent who has a child struggling with reading could learn something from this book. I also think it would make excellent reading for any educator interested in helping their students read better.

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Reading Recovery is a guidebook for training teachers to deliver an early intervention program designed to reduce literacy problems in an education system.

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Beyond Leveled Books Review

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(More customer reviews)Szymusiak and Sibberson do a great job hitting the needs of the transitional readers. There are so few resources that truly address the unique needs of kids in the transitional stage of becoming more capable readers. This book is very practical and easy to read. Their suggestions are easy to implement in a variety of settings. I highly suggest this book as a resource for all who teach kids how to read as compared to those who just teach reading!

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In the first edition of Beyond Leveled Books, Franki Sibberson and Karen Szymusiak, offered a much-needed perspective on moving transitional readers from the basic supports of leveling to independent book selection. Seven years later, drawing on their continued research and expanding roles as authors and literacy consultants, Franki and Karen, along with colleague Lisa Koch, present a new updated and expanded edition of this "useful and eye-opening book." [Education Reviews, 2001]In Beyond Leveled Books, Second Edition the authors provide even more resources to help teachers understand and meet the needs of transitional readers. The key topic of series books has been revised and enlarged, with charts outlining new series with the challenges they pose and supports readers need. New lessons have been added, and most chapters now include a related article from a literacy expert. Some of the contributors include Kathy Collins, Larry Swartz, and Mary Lee Hahn.The book also features an entirely new section covering grades K-1, that explores the uses and limitations of leveled texts in primary reading instruction. Among the highlights of this new section are ideas for how to organize your classroom library and a list of great books to use alongside leveled text in supporting new readers.Packed with examples of classroom instruction, sample mini-lessons, strategies for small-group instruction, assessment techniques, and student work, this new edition expands what was once a great little book that filled a gap for teachers in intermediate grades into an essential resource for independent reading instruction from grades K-5.--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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25 Emergent Reader Mini-Books (Grades K-1) Review

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(More customer reviews)While this set is entertaining and certainly appropriate for the beginning reader, the emergent reader will be frustrated by the small size of the print, the lack of exagerrated spacing between words and the lack of predictable language. The books are more appropriate for the average second semester first grader.

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These adorable, thematic mini books will delight and engage emerging readers! Simple, predictable stories with appealing artwork that supports the text will help students build important reading skills. Topics include favorites like weather, penguins, friends, plants, the seasons, and many more. Comes complete with easy, step-by-step directions and teaching tips. For use with Grades K-1.

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