Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners


Ron Ritchhart - 2011
    Rather than a set of fixed lessons, Visible Thinking is a varied collection of practices, including thinking routines, small sets of questions or a short sequence of steps as well as the documentation of student thinking. Using this process thinking becomes visible as the students' different viewpoints are expressed, documented, discussed and reflected upon. Helps direct student thinking and structure classroom discussion.Can be applied with students at all grade levels and in all content areas. Includes easy-to-implement classroom strategies.The book also comes with a DVD of video clips featuring Visible Thinking in practice in different classrooms.

Text Complexity: Raising Rigor in Reading


Douglas Fisher - 2012
    This book focuses on the quantitative and qualitative factors of text complexity as well as the ways in which readers can be matched with texts and tasks. Examine how close readings of complex texts scaffold students understanding and allow them to develop the skills necessary to read like a detective.

Teach Like a Pirate: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator


Dave Burgess - 2012
    You'll learn how to: - Tap into and dramatically increase your passion as a teacher - Develop outrageously engaging lessons that draw students in like a magnet - Establish rapport and a sense of camaraderie in your classroom - Transform your class into a life-changing experience for your students This groundbreaking inspirational manifesto contains over 30 hooks specially designed to captivate your class and 170 brainstorming questions that will skyrocket your creativity. Once you learn the Teach Like a PIRATE system, you'll never look at your role as an educator the same again.

The Fluent Reader


Timothy V. Rasinski - 2003
    It opens with a clear research-based rationale for teaching oral reading, word recognition, fluency, and comprehension. From there, Rasinski provides the strategies themselves - read aloud, repeated reading, performance reading, and many more. The strategies are fun, easy to implement, and -- most important -- effective in helping children read with ease, confidence, and understanding.Praise for The Fluent Reader:"What I find remarkable about The Fluent Reader is the way Timothy Rasinski leads us from the theoretical to the practical...I suspect that teachers who read this book will be quick to take the ideas and apply them in their classrooms." ---From the foreword by James Hoffman, University of Texas at Austin

Spaces Places: Designing Classrooms for Literacy


Debbie Diller - 2008
    You'll love the "before and after" pictures and the step-by-step processes outlined for organizing your furniture and cabinets, setting up your room space by space, and using your walls thoughtfully. Debbie has even documented how to pack your room at the end of the year to save time next fall (so you can focus on thinking about instruction) and what to do if you must move all your belongings.Through pictures and text, this unique visual reference answers tough questions educators ask, such as:What do I really need in my room and what's the best way to set it up?How does my physical classroom impact student learning?How can I find the space I need to teach more effectively? What can I get rid of and how?Where do I put all my stuff?Charts, reproducible forms, motivating quotes, a list of shopping sources, and reflection questions are included, along with a section outlining ten specific suggestions for on-going staff development. Whether or not you implement literacy work stations in your classroom, Spaces & Places includes everything you need to look deeply at classroom space and how it supports instruction.

Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction, [Book, CD & DVD]


Donald R. Bear - 1993
    I use Words Their Way both in my first grade classroom and with college students as a way to implement word study. ""Kristi McNeal, CSU Fresno" Words Their Way's developmentally-driven, hands-on instructional approach has been a phenomenon in word study, providing a practical way to study words with students. The keys to this research-based approach are to know your students' literacy progress, organize for instruction, and implement word study. This streamlined book and the DVD and CD-ROM that accompany it gives you all the tools you need to carry out word study instruction that will motivate and engage your students, and help them to succeed in literacy learning. Ordered in a developmental format, Words Their Way complements the use of any existing phonics, spelling, and vocabulary curricula." ""Knowing Your Students"Streamlined Chapter 2 provides step by step guidelines for assessing students. NEW Words Their Way Word Study Resources CD: Assessment Planning and Additional Interactive Word Sorts contains computerized assessments to gauge students' developmental levels. Word Study with English Learner sections in each chapter help you organize and adapt instruction to meet the needs of students whose first language is not English. "Organizing for Instruction"NEW Words Their Way DVD Tutorial: Planning for Word Study in K-8 Classrooms reinforces and illustrates classroom organization and management, as outlined in Chapter 3. Word Study Routines and Management sections in every chapter give you practical guidance on managing and implementing word study in your classroom. NEW Tech Notes throughout chapters pinpoint opportunities for you to use the DVD and CD-ROM to prepare for instruction. "Implementing Word Study "Classroom-proven, research-driven activities end each developmental chapter, giving you the instructional practices to get your word study instruction up and running immediately. NEW Words Their Way Word Study Resources CD: Assessment Planning and Additional Interactive Word Sorts provides more than just assessments. You'll also find hundreds of additional word and picture sorts, games and templates, and an interactive Create Your Own section. The Appendix at the back of the book contains a comprehensive bank of word lists, word sorts, picture sorts, games and templates." ""The theory behind and practice for word sorts allows even the novice teacher to understand how to use the assessments to organize instruction. The organization of the last five chapters creates a useful resource for teachers. Each begins with a research-based description and moves into sound instructional practices, giving the teacher a complete understanding of how to meet the needs of students. ""Cathy Blanchfield, CSU Fresno "" ""Meet the Authors"Donald Bear is Director of the E.L. Cord Foundation Center for Learning and Literacy at the University of Nevada, Reno, assessing and teaching students who experience difficulties learning to read and write. A former preschool and elementary teacher, Donald currently researches literacy development with a special interest in students who speak languages other than English, and he partners with schools and districts to consider assessment and literacy instruction. Marcia Invernizzi is Director of the McGuffey Reading Center at the University of Virginia exploring developmental universals in non-English orthographies. A former English and reading teacher, Marcia works with children experiencing difficulties learning to read and write in intervention programs such as Virginia's Early Intervention Reading Initiative and Book Buddies. Shane Templeton is Foundation Professor of Literacy Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno. A former classroom teacher at the primary and secondary levels, he researches the development of orthographic and vocabulary knowledge Francine Johnston is Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she teaches reading, language arts, and children's literature. A former first-grade teacher and reading specialist. Interested in extending your Words Their Way training? Learn more about the new Online Workshop at www.pearsoncourseconnect.com/wtw.

Notebook Know-How: Strategies for the Writer's Notebook


Aimee Buckner - 2005
    It is here that students brainstorm topics, play with leads and endings, tweak a new revision strategy, or test out a genre for the first time.In Notebook Know-How, Aimee Buckner provides the tools teachers need to make writers' notebooks an integral part of their writing programs. She also addresses many of the questions teachers ask when they start using notebooks with their students, including:How do I launch the notebook?What mini-lessons can be used throughout the year to help students become more skilled in keeping notebooks?How do I help students who are stuck in writing ruts with notebooks?How do I help students use their learning from notebooks for other writing?How do I organize notebooks so that the design is flexible, yet still allows students to access information easily?How can writers' notebooks help students become better readers? How do I assess notebooks?This compact guide is packed with lessons, tips, and samples of student writing to help teachers make the most of writers' notebooks, without sacrificing time needed for the rest of the literacy curriculum. In fact, Notebook Know-How shows how smart and focused use of writers' notebooks enhances and deepens literacy learning in both reading and writing for students in grades 3–8.

Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters


Robert Probst - 2017
    Now, in Disrupting Thinking they take teachers a step further and discuss an on-going problem: lack of engagement with reading. They explain that all too often, no matter the strategy shared with students, too many students remain disengaged and reluctant readers. The problem, they suggest, is that we have misrepresented to students why we read and how we ought to approach any text - fiction or nonfiction. With their hallmark humor and their appreciated practicality, Beers and Probst present a vision of what reading and what education across all the grades could be. Hands-on-strategies make it applicable right away for the classroom teacher, and turn-and-talk discussion points make it a guidebook for school-wide conversations. In particular, they share new strategies and ideas for helping classroom teachers:–Create engagement and relevance–Encourage responsive and responsible reading–Deepen comprehension–Develop lifelong reading habits“We think it’s time we finally do become a nation of readers, and we know it’s time students learn to tell fake news from real news. It’s time we help students understand why how they read is so important,” explain Beers and Probst. “Disrupting Thinking is, at its heart, an exploration of how we help students become the reader who does so much more than decode, recall, or choose the correct answer from a multiple-choice list. This book shows us how to help students become the critical thinkers our nation needs them to be." Includes online resource bank.

The English Teacher's Companion: A Complete Guide to Classroom, Curriculum, and the Profession


Jim Burke - 1999
    Covering the entire English curriculum, from basic reading and writing to digital literacy, media literacy, and integrated instruction, it proved to be a revolutionary guide for preservice and inservice teachers alike. And with it author Jim Burke became one of the most trusted names in secondary English.Now, in this new edition, "ETC"2, Jim incorporates his current thinking. He also shows how teachers can address standards and assessment issues while maintaining their commitment to meaningful, engaging curriculum. With all this, plus updated revisions and 40 percent completely new material, his "ETC2" is a must-have addition to every English teacher's bookshelf.Written for the way most teachers read-on the run, in search of a particular solution-the second edition retains the original's highly structured format with a new more open design for ease of use. Chapters are clearly subdivided; lessons are presented step-by-step; and assessment is integrated throughout. Outstanding new features include: increased emphasis on theoretical foundations completely revised major curriculum areas, especially reading and writing changes that reflect the latest use of technology in the classroom updated recommendations for the latest resources improved alignment with the latest standards and assessments sample instructional sequences to show how a complete unit looks new instructional design and planning tools expanded strategies for helping English Language Learners. Discover-or rediscover-a valued colleague who challenges you to reexamine your own classroom practice. Read "ETC2," reference it, share it, but most of all USE it-as your primary source of information about classroom management, curriculum content, professional development, and more.

Qualitative Reading Inventory-5


Lauren Leslie - 2009
    QRI-5

Mosaic of Thought: Teaching Comprehension in a Reader's Workshop


Ellin Oliver Keene - 1997
    "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.

Falling in Love with Close Reading: Lessons for Analyzing Texts--And Life


Christopher Lehman - 2013
    In Falling in Love with Close Reading, Christopher Lehman and Kate Roberts show us that it can be rigorous, meaningful, and joyous. You'll empower students to not only analyze texts but to admire the craft of a beloved book, study favorite songs and videogames, and challenge peers in evidence-based discussions.Chris and Kate start with a powerful three-step close-reading ritual that students can apply to any text. Then they lay out practical, engaging lessons that not only guide students to independence in reading texts closely but also help them transfer this critical, analytical skill to media and even the lives they lead.Responsive to students' needs and field-tested in classrooms, these lessons include: strategies for close reading narratives, informational texts, and arguments suggestions for differentiation sample charts and student work from real classrooms connections to the Common Core State Standards a focus on viewing media and life in this same careful way."We see the ritual of close reading not just as a method of doing the academic work of looking closely at text-evidence, word choice, and structure," write Chris and Kate, "but as an opportunity to bring those practices together to empower our students to see the subtle messages in texts and in their lives." Read Falling in Love with Close Reading and discover that the benefits and joy of close reading don't have to stop at the edge of the page.

Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56


Rafe Esquith - 2007
    From one of America s most celebrated educators, an inspiring guide to transforming every child s education In a Los Angeles neighborhood plagued by guns, gangs, and drugs, there is an exceptional classroom known as Room 56. The fifth graders inside are first-generation immigrants who live in poverty and speak English as a second language. They also play Vivaldi, perform Shakespeare, score in the top 1 percent on standardized tests, and go on to attend Ivy League universities. Rafe Esquith is the teacher responsible for these accomplishments. From the man whom The New York Times calls a genius and a saint comes a revelatory program for educating today s youth. In Teach Like Your Hair s on Fire!, Rafe Esquith reveals the techniques that have made him one of the most acclaimed educators of our time. The two mottoes in Esquith s classroom are Be Nice, Work Hard, and There Are No Shortcuts. His students voluntarily come to school at 6:30 in the morning and work until 5:00 in the afternoon. They learn to handle money responsibly, tackle algebra, and travel the country to study history. They pair Hamlet with rock and roll, and read the American classics. Teach Like Your Hair s on Fire! is a brilliant and inspiring road map for parents, teachers, and anyone who cares about the future success of our nation s children. "

Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning


Peter H. Johnston - 2004
    Teachers create intellectual environments that produce not only technically competent students, but also caring, secure, actively literate human beings.Choice Words shows how teachers accomplish this using their most powerful teaching tool: language. Throughout, Peter Johnston provides examples of apparently ordinary words, phrases, and uses of language that are pivotal in the orchestration of the classroom. Grounded in a study by accomplished literacy teachers, the book demonstrates how the things we say (and don't say) have surprising consequences for what children learn and for who they become as literate people. Through language, children learn how to become strategic thinkers, not merely learning the literacy strategies. In addition, Johnston examines the complex learning that teachers produce in classrooms that is hard to name and thus is not recognized by tests, by policy-makers, by the general public, and often by teachers themselves, yet is vitally important.This book will be enlightening for any teacher who wishes to be more conscious of the many ways their language helps children acquire literacy skills and view the world, their peers, and themselves in new ways.

Teaching with Poverty in Mind: What Being Poor Does to Kids' Brains and What Schools Can Do About It


Eric Jensen - 2009
    A brain that is susceptible to adverse environmental effects is equally susceptible to the positive effects of rich, balanced learning environments and caring relationships that build students' resilience, self-esteem, and character.Drawing from research, experience, and real school success stories, Teaching with Poverty in Mind reveals* What poverty is and how it affects students in school;* What drives change both at the macro level (within schools and districts) and at the micro level (inside a student's brain);* Effective strategies from those who have succeeded and ways to replicate those best practices at your own school; and* How to engage the resources necessary to make change happen.Too often, we talk about change while maintaining a culture of excuses. We can do better. Although no magic bullet can offset the grave challenges faced daily by disadvantaged children, this timely resource shines a spotlight on what matters most, providing an inspiring and practical guide for enriching the minds and lives of all your students.