Category: Reading

Task Card Series Can Boost Reading Skills

K-8 literacy coach Amber Bartlein reports The 100 Task Card series is set to become a staple in the classrooms she works with, for use during small group instruction, intervention and enrichment time, or to provide quick, focused practice on a specific literacy skill.

Fiction and Nonfiction: Smart Lesson Planning

Do you want a book filled with lesson plans that you can use the next day or something based in theory that will inform your teaching decisions along the way? Pam Hamilton writes you can have it both ways in these fiction and nonfiction guides by Gravity Goldberg and Renee Houser.

Teaching Reading in the Middle School

What sets this book apart from many other professional books is that it not only gives a rational for using its strategies, it explicitly offers step-by-step instructions on how to unlock elusive teaching dilemmas. Janice Rustico recommends it to literacy leaders.

The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading

Fourth grade teacher Alex Valencic looks forward to integrating Jan Richardson’s assess-decide-guide framework into his guided reading instruction. Beyond its thorough introduction, the book shows in detail how students at 5 levels of reading can develop their skills.

Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters

Veteran ELA teacher Lisa Belcher finds Disrupting Thinking to be a fabulous reminder that our students need teachers to be their guides to finding intrinsic motivation to read for more than simply finding answers to questions. Beers and Probst include helpful tools.

Help Kids Read with Skill and Passion

Reading Nancie Atwell and Anne Atwell Merkel’s The Reading Zone, 2nd edition, is like getting a letter from a good friend and mentor, says ELA teacher Amy Matthes. Find reading workshop case studies to help readers become passionate, skilled, and habitual.

Staying Student-Centered in Whole Novel Study

Ariel Sacks’ Whole Novels for the Whole Class is “the ultimate teacher-friendly manual for accommodating all students around a single book,” says ELA veteran Mary Tedrow, who finds Sacks’ practical specificity convincing and her confidence infectious.

Every Child a Super Reader with 7 Strengths

Every Child a Super Reader can empower students to become lovers of reading who understand what they read. Teacher Linda Biondi says its lessons and resources will help students analyze a text, appreciate the craft, and become voracious consumers of the written word.

Still Learning to Read in the Early Middle Grades

Sibberson and Szymusiak are back with a fresh look at reading instruction in the early middle grades. Literacy coach Pam Hamilton says “Still Learning to Read” will help teachers fine-tune classroom libraries, organize groups, and support still-developing readers.

Robb’s Reading Intervention Toolkit Delivers

Laura Robb, author, teacher, literacy coach, speaker and expert in literacy, has done it again in The Reading Intervention Toolkit. Reviewer Linda Biondi says the book will guide teachers in providing help for students who need it most: struggling readers.