When Kids Can't Read, what Teachers Can Do


Book Description

For Kylene Beers, the question of what to do when kids can't read surfaced in 1979 when she met and began teaching a boy named George. When George's parents asked her to explain why he couldn't read and how she could help, Beers, a secondary certified English teacher with no background in reading, realized she had little to offer. That moment sent her on a twenty-three-year search for answers to the question: How do we help middle and high schoolers who can't read? Now, she shares what she has learned and shows teachers how to help struggling readers with comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, word recognition, and motivation. Filled with student transcripts, detailed strategies, reproducible material, and extensive booklists, Beers' guide to teaching reading both instructs and inspires.




Comprehension [Grades K-12]


Book Description

Radically change the way students learn from texts, extending beyond comprehension to critical reasoning and problem solving. Is your reading comprehension instruction just a pile of strategies? There is no evidence that teaching one strategy at a time, especially with pieces of text that require that readers use a variety of strategies to successfully negotiate meaning, is effective. And how can we extend comprehension beyond simple meaning? Bestselling authors Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Nicole Law propose a new, comprehensive model of reading instruction that goes beyond teaching skills to fostering engagement and motivation. Using a structured, three-pronged approach—skill, will, and thrill—students learn to experience reading as a purposeful act and embrace struggle as a natural part of the reading process. Instruction occurs in three phases: Skill. Holistically developing skills and strategies necessary for students to comprehend text, such as monitoring, predicting, summarizing, questioning, and inferring. Will. Creating the mindsets, motivations, and habits, including goal setting and choice, necessary for students to engage fully with texts. Thrill. Fostering the thrill of comprehension, so that students share their thinking with others or use their knowledge for something else. Comprehension is the structured framework you need to empower students to comprehend text and take action in the world.




Reading for Understanding


Book Description

In fall 1999, the Department of Education's Office of Educational Researchand Improvement (OERI) asked RAND to examine how OERI might improve thequality and relevance of the education research it funds. The RAND ReadingStudy Group (RRSG) was charged with developing a research framework toaddress the most pressing issues in literacy. RRSG focused on readingcomprehension wherein the highest priorities for research are: (1)Instruction




The Knowledge Gap


Book Description

The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis--and the seemingly endless cycle of multigenerational poverty. It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension "skills" at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware. But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.




The Body of Christopher Creed


Book Description

The often-tortured class weirdo has disappeared, leaving an enigmatic note on the school library computer. Is he a runaway, a suicide, or a murder victim?




The Science of Reading


Book Description

The Science of Reading: A Handbook brings together state-of-the-art reviews of reading research from leading names in the field, to create a highly authoritative, multidisciplinary overview of contemporary knowledge about reading and related skills. Provides comprehensive coverage of the subject, including theoretical approaches, reading processes, stage models of reading, cross-linguistic studies of reading, reading difficulties, the biology of reading, and reading instruction Divided into seven sections:Word Recognition Processes in Reading; Learning to Read and Spell; Reading Comprehension; Reading in Different Languages; Disorders of Reading and Spelling; Biological Bases of Reading; Teaching Reading Edited by well-respected senior figures in the field




The Great Mental Models, Volume 1


Book Description

Discover the essential thinking tools you’ve been missing with The Great Mental Models series by Shane Parrish, New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind the acclaimed Farnam Street blog and “The Knowledge Project” podcast. This first book in the series is your guide to learning the crucial thinking tools nobody ever taught you. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. The Great Mental Models: Volume 1, General Thinking Concepts shows you how making a few tiny changes in the way you think can deliver big results. Drawing on examples from history, business, art, and science, this book details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making and productivity. This book will teach you how to: Avoid blind spots when looking at problems. Find non-obvious solutions. Anticipate and achieve desired outcomes. Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses, … and more. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.




Developing Reading Comprehension


Book Description

Developing Reading Comprehension “In recent years the debate about teaching young children to read has tended to focus upon equipping them with the crucially important knowledge and skills they need to read words accurately in and out of context, that is to say, teaching them how the alphabet works for reading and spelling. While such knowledge and skills are essential, more is required for children to become literate, fluent readers who understand what they read. In short, the goal of reading is comprehension. This book scrupulously examines the obstacles to reading comprehension and exemplifies what can be done to help children overcome them. It is an important and timely contribution to securing high-quality teaching of the range of attributes children need to become fully-fledged readers.” Sir Jim Rose, CBE “The studies by Professors Charles Hulme and Maggie Snowling and their team over two decades based around the Reading Intervention Programme are the most sustained, comprehensive and rigorous research series on reading yet conducted in the UK. Their increasing focus on children who experience the most difficulty in reading is exactly where attention should be directed. This volume summarises the team’s achievements to date, and is most eagerly awaited.” Greg Brooks, Emeritus Professor of Education, University of Sheffield, Member of European High Level Group of Experts on Literacy “Developing Reading Comprehension presents a landmark study from the top research team in the UK on how to improve reading comprehension. It’s an exemplary masters-level textbook written with undergraduate-level lucidity and approachability.” Colin Harrison, Emeritus Professor of Literacy Studies in Education, University of Nottingham A significant minority of children aged 7–11, despite being able to read fluently and accurately, have difficulty extracting meaning from text. This detailed guide offers three evidence-based intervention programmes, drawn from the cutting edge of educational psychology, for improving the reading skills of children in this group. It includes a definitive introduction to the characteristics of the ‘poor comprehender profile’, and explains how to monitor and assess students’ experiences and learning outcomes. With invaluable strategies for teachers, psychologists and special educational needs coordinators, the book will help professionals to support learners in their efforts to explore the full richness of language and to read with real understanding.




Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children


Book Description

While most children learn to read fairly well, there remain many young Americans whose futures are imperiled because they do not read well enough to meet the demands of our competitive, technology-driven society. This book explores the problem within the context of social, historical, cultural, and biological factors. Recommendations address the identification of groups of children at risk, effective instruction for the preschool and early grades, effective approaches to dialects and bilingualism, the importance of these findings for the professional development of teachers, and gaps that remain in our understanding of how children learn to read. Implications for parents, teachers, schools, communities, the media, and government at all levels are discussed. The book examines the epidemiology of reading problems and introduces the concepts used by experts in the field. In a clear and readable narrative, word identification, comprehension, and other processes in normal reading development are discussed. Against the background of normal progress, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children examines factors that put children at risk of poor reading. It explores in detail how literacy can be fostered from birth through kindergarten and the primary grades, including evaluation of philosophies, systems, and materials commonly used to teach reading.




Some of My Best Friends are Books


Book Description

Recommends books for gifted readers that provide insights and coping skills for issues they may face from preschool through high school, featuring more than three hundred titles with brief summaries, organized by reading levels; and includes an index arranged by theme.