It's not easy to explain these abstract reading strategies to elementary readers, yet knowing how they work and how to use them is an important first step to connecting with texts. Fortunately Tanny McGregor has developed visual, tangible, everyday lessons that make abstract thinking concrete and that can help every child in your classroom make more effective use of reading comprehension strategies.Comprehension Connections is a guide to developing children's ability to fully understand texts by making the comprehension process achievable, accessible, and incremental. McGregor's approach sequences stages of learning for each strategy that take students from a fun object lesson to a nuanced and lasting understanding. Her lessons build bridges between the concrete and the abstract by incorporating writing, discussion, song, art, and movement into a web of creative connections that reinforce each strategy on a variety of levels. All the while Comprehension Connections offers an inside look at the dynamic of McGregor's teaching, showing you how her ideas look in action, and including the language she uses and that she encourages her students to use as they build their facility with: schema inferring questioning determining importance visualizing synthesizing. Many students struggle to understand what it is they are supposed to do as they learn to read strategically. Help them make connections to the ideas behind reading and watch as your readers go deeper into texts than ever before.

    "Mosaic of Thought "chronicles that journey, which ultimately led the authors to elaborate on eight cognitive processes identified in comprehension research and used by successful readers. These serve as models for the strategies offered in this book - strategies intended to help children become more flexible, adaptive, independent, and engaged readers."Mosaic" proposes a new instructional paradigm focused on in-depth, explicit instruction in the strategies used by proficient readers. The authors take us beyond the traditional classroom into the literature based, workshop-oriented classrooms. Through vivid portraits of these remarkable environments (all participants in the Denver-based Reading Project of the Public Education & Business Coalition), we see how explicit instruction looks in dynamic, literature-rich readers' workshops. As the students connect to background knowledge, create sensory images, ask questions, draw inferences, determine what's important, synthesize ideas, and solve problems at the word and text level, they are able to construct a rich mosaic of meaning.Straightforward and jargon-free, "Mosaic of Thought" has relevance to all literature-based classrooms, regardless of level. It offers practical tools for inservice teachers, as well as essential methods instruction for preservice teachers at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Indeed, anyone interested in literacy will benefit from the authors' challenge to rediscover the thought processes that inform our own comprehension.

    The book draws extensively on real world examples to explore economic concepts, theories and issues. Each of the 52 units deals with a specific topic in a lucid and pertinent manner. A number of activities, based on examples from around the world, are designed to facilitate students' easy understanding of the contents. There is a range of questions both at the end of units and at the end of each of the eight sections to assess students' progress in the subject.

    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. The new edition is organized around four sections:Part I highlights what comprehension is and how to teach it, including the principles that guide practice, a review of recent research, and a new section on assessment. A new chapter, Tools for Active Literacy: The Nuts and Bolts of Comprehension Instruction, describes ways to engage students in purposeful talk through interactive read alouds, guided discussion and written response.Part II contains lessons and practices for teaching comprehension. A new first chapter emphasizes the importance of teaching students to monitor their understanding before focusing on specific strategies. Five lessons on monitoring provide a sound basis for launching comprehension instruction. At the end of each strategy chapter, the authors outline learning goals and ways to assess students' thinking, sharing examples of student work, and offering suggestions for differentiating instruction.Part III, Comprehension Across the Curriculum is new. Comprehension strategies are essential for content-area reading, where information can be challenging, and presented in unfamiliar formats. This section includes chapters on social studies and science reading, topic study research, textbook reading and the genre of test reading.Part IV shows that kids need books they can sink their teeth into and the updated appendix section recommends a rich diet of fiction and nonfiction, short text, kid's magazines, websites and journals that will assist teachers as they plan and design comprehension instructionThrough its focus on instruction that is responsive to kids' interests and learning needs, the first edition of Strategies That Work helped transform comprehension instruction for teachers across the country. For them, this new edition will be a welcome extension of that work. Those coming to it for the first time will find a current and essential resource. When readers use these strategies, they enjoy a more complete, thoughtful reading experience. Engagement is the goal. When kids are engaged in their reading they enhance their understanding, acquire knowledge, and learn from and remember what they read. And best yet, they will want to read more!

    When used regularly, these types of assessments enable every teacher to determine what students know, what they need to know, and what type of instructional interventions are effective.

    

    One of the rare breed of teachers who do know this is Nancie Atwell. - The New York TimesReading this book can be revolutionary. . . . Atwell leads us to new understandings of teaching and learning in a workshop classroom. - Voices from the Middle When first published in 1987, this seminal work was widely hailed for its honest examination of how teachers teach, how students learn, and the gap that lies in between. In depicting her own classroom struggles, Nancie Atwell shook our orthodox assumptions about skill-and-drill-based curriculums and became a pioneer of responsive teaching. Now, in the long awaited second edition, Atwell reflects on the next ten years of her experience, rethinks and clarifies old methods, and demonstrates new, more effective approaches.The second edition still urges educators to "come out from behind their own big desks" to turn classrooms into workshops where students and teachers create curriculums together. But it also advocates a more activist role for teachers. Atwell writes, "I'm no longer willing to withhold suggestions and directions from my kids when I can help them solve a problem, do something they've never done before, produce stunning writing, and ultimately become more independent of me."More than 70 percent of the material is new, with six brand-new chapters on genres, evaluation, and the teacher as writer. There are also lists of several hundred minilessons, and scripts and examples for teaching them; new expectations and rules for writing and reading workshops; ideas for teaching conventions; new systems for record keeping; lists of essential books for students and teachers; and forms for keeping track of individual spelling, skills, proofreading, homework, writing, and reading.The second edition of In the Middle is written in the same engaging style as its predecessor. It reads like a story - one that readers will be pleased to learn has no end. As Atwell muses, "I know my students and I will continue to learn and be changed. I am resigned - happily - to be always beginning for the rest of my life as a teacher."

    Cris Tovani is an accomplished teacher and staff developer who writes with verve and humor about the challenges of working with students at all levels of achievement—from those who have mastered the art of "fake reading" to college-bound juniors and seniors who struggle with the different demands of content-area textbooks and novels.Enter Cris' classroom, a place where students are continually learning new strategies for tackling difficult text. You will be taken step-by-step through practical, theory-based reading instruction that can be adapted for use in any subject area. The book features:anecdotes in each chapter about real kids with real universal problems. You will identify with these adolescents and will see how these problems can be solved;a thoughtful explanation of current theories of comprehension instruction and how they might be adapted for use with adolescents;a What Works section in each of the last seven chapters that offers simple ideas you can immediately employ in your classroom. The suggestions can be used in a variety of content areas and grade levels(6-12);teaching tips and ideas that benefit struggling readers as well as proficient and advanced readers;appendixes with reproducible materials that you can use in your classroom, including coding sheets, double entry diaries, and comprehension constructors.In a time when students need increasingly sophisticated reading skills, this book will provide support for teachers who want to incorporate comprehension instruction into their daily lesson plans without sacrificing content knowledge.

    Filled with critical insights from respected authors, education researchers, and expert practitioners, this comprehensive volume features twenty-six chapters in six primary areas of interest: Principles of Leadership, Moral Leadership, Culture and Change, Standards and Systems, Diversity and Leadership, and the Future of Leadership.

    In recent years, reforms such as No Child Left Behind have created a new vision of education that emphasizes provable results, uniformity, and greater attention for floundering students. Schools are expected to behave more like businesses and judged almost solely on the bottom line: test scores.To see if this world is producing better students, Linda Perlstein immersed herself in a suburban Maryland elementary school. The resulting portrait -- detailed, human, and truly thought-provoking -- is marked by the same narrative gifts and expertise that made Not Much Just Chillin' so illuminating.The school, once deemed a failure, is now held up as an example of reform done right. Perlstein explores the rewards and costs of that transformation, through the experiences of the people who lived it. Nine-year-olds meditate to activate their brains before exams and kindergartners write paragraphs. Teachers attempt to address diverse needs at the same time they are expected to follow daily scripts, and feel compelled to focus on topics that will be tested at the expense of those that won't. The principal attempts to keep it all together, in the face of immense challenges.Perlstein provides the first detailed view of how new education policies are modified by human realities. Tested will be talked about, thought about, written about -- and will almost certainly play an important role in the national debate as the federal education law come up for renewal.

    If its purpose is to entertain or to provoke thought, it makes readers want to come back for more.Revised and updated, this guide covers four essential aspects of good writing:Individual words - spelling variations, hyphenation, frequently confused homonyms, frequently misused words and phrases, irregular plurals and negatives, and uses of capitalization and type style to add special meaningsPunctuation - the role of each mark in achieving clarity and affecting tone, and demonstration of how misuses can lead to ambiguitySyntax and structure - agreement of subject and verb, parallel construction, modifiers, tenses, pronouns, active versus passive voice, and moreStyle - advice on the less hard-and-fast areas of clarity and tone, including sentence length and order, conciseness, simplification, reading level, jargon and cliches, and subtletyFilled with self-test exercises and whimsical literary quotations, "Grammatically Correct" steers clear of academic stuffiness, focusing instead on practical strategies and intuitive explanations.Discussions are designed to get to the heart of a concept and provide a sufficient sense of when and how to use it, along with examples that show what ambiguities or misinterpretations might result if the rules are not followed. In cases where there is more than one acceptable way to do something, the approach is not to prescribe one over another but simply to describe the options.Readers of this book will never break the rules of language again - unintentionally."

    Jones describes how highly successful teachers produce orderly, productive classrooms without working themselves to death. This program is the whole package - discipline, instruction and motivation - described in the down-to-earth language of "how to" with plenty of examples for guidance. You will learn how to decrease classroom disruptions, backtalk, dawdling and helpless hand raising while increasing responsible behavior, motivation, independent learning and academic achievement.Like previous editions, the 3rd edition of Tools for Teaching: Discipline, Instruction, Motivation describes the specific skills of classroom management that increase learning while reducing teacher stress. Taken together, these skills provide the synergy required for both the primary prevention of discipline problems and a dramatic increase in teaching efficiency and time-on-task.WHAT'S NEW IN THE 3RD EDITION?The 3rd Edition includes the latest research on both successful teaching practices and the neuropsychology of skill building, as well as two completely new chapters.Chapter 8: Say, See, Do Teaching, reviews the ground-breaking work of John Hattie, Ph.D. Dr. Hattie places the extensive outcome research regarding different teaching methodologies onto a common scale so that their effectiveness can be directly compared. Many of the sacred cows of education do not fair so well, whereas variations of Say, See Do Teaching do extremely well.Chapter 20: Teaching Skills Efficiently, reviews the latest finds of neuropsychology concerning the amount of work needed to create mastery. Once again Say, See, Do Teaching leads the way. This new research provides critical information for teachers when making decisions about how to teach a given lesson.

    Shaun Allison and Andy Tharby examine the evidence behind what makes great teaching and explore how to implement this in the classroom to make a difference to learning. They distil teaching and learning down into six core principles - challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning - and show how these can inspire an ethos of excellence and growth, not only in individual classrooms but across a whole school too. Combining robust evidence from a range of fields with the practical wisdom of experienced, effective classroom teachers, the book is a complete toolkit of strategies that teachers can use every lesson to make that lesson count. There are no gimmicky ideas here - just high impact, focused teaching that results in great learning, every lesson, every day. To demonstrate how attainable this is, the book contains a number of case studies from a number of professionals who are successfully embedding a culture of excellence and growth in their schools. Making Every Lesson Count offers an evidence-informed alternative to restrictive Ofsted-driven definitions of great teaching, empowering teachers to deliver great lessons and celebrate high-quality practice. Suitable for all teachers - including trainee teachers, NQTs, and experienced teachers - who want quick and easy ways to enhance their practice and make every lesson count.

    Richardson has identified the essential components of an effective guided reading lesson: targeted assessments, data analysis that pinpoints specific strategies students need, and the use of guided writing to support the reading process. Best of all, Richardson provides detailed lessons for readers at all grade levels and at all reading stages from emergent through proficient. For use with Grades K-8.

    It argues for the importance of multiple critical perspectives and urges teachers to expand their theoretical repertoires.Teachers will find actual lessons and strategies for teaching a variety of contemporary literary theories including reader response, feminism, Marxism, and deconstruction.