"It's not the tools-it's what we do with them that counts.Katie and Kristin start with our most important educational goals-literacy, independence, and critical thinking-and helps you connect them to the technology available in your classroom or school. You'll help students dig into texts, research their questions, and create powerful learning communities by using digital tools effectively, responsibly, and in combination with trusted artifacts and print resources.Amplify does exactly what the title implies. "When introducing technological tools, we often apply the same practices and strategies we use in our daily teaching, but amplify their power with technology," write Katie and Kristin. "We model what we want students to do with the technology, guide them to try it out with us, provide time for practice, then share as a class." They help amplify your literacy curriculum with lessons and guidance for:explicitly teaching kids how to be effective digital readers and thinkers giving students practice with closely reading images, infographics, and video emphasizing student ownership and creativity Whether you are in a 1:1 school, want to squeeze everything you can out of the one device in your classroom, or your school is encouraging you to use more digital tools, read Amplify. You'll discover how to gradually release responsibility to empower students as you-and your students-make the most of any technology.

    The Fundamental Five: The Formula for Quality Instruction, shares with teachers and school leaders the five practices that every teacher can, and should, use to dramatically improve instuctional rigor and relevance, and student performance.

    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.

     Reading is dying in our schools. Educators are familiar with many of the factors that have contributed to the decline—poverty, second-language issues, and the ever-expanding choices of electronic entertainment. In this provocative book Readicide: How Schools are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It , author and teacher Kelly Gallagher suggests it is time to recognize a new and significant contributor to the death of reading: our schools. InReadicide, Gallagher argues that American schools are actively (though unwittingly) furthering the decline of reading. Specifically, he contends that the standard instructional practices used in most schools are killing reading by:Valuing standardized testing over the development of lifelong readersMandating breadth over depth in instruction Requiring students to read difficult texts without proper instructional support and insisting students focus on academic textsIgnoring the importance of developing recreational readingLosing sight of authentic instruction in the looming shadow of political pressures  Readicide provides teachers, literacy coaches, and administrators with specific steps to reverse the downward spiral in reading—steps that will help prevent the loss of another generation of readers.

    Harvey Smokey Daniels and Sara Ahmed How can we meet today's elevated academic goals and engage middle school kids-but not simply replicate our competitive, winner-take-all society? How can our students achieve an even higher standard-demonstrating the capacity and the commitment to bend the world toward justice?In a word, inquiry.Welcome to the classroom of Sara Ahmed. With Smokey Daniels as your guide you'll see exactly how Sara uses inquiry to turn required curricular topics into questions so fascinating that young adolescents can't resist investigating them. Units so engaging that they provide all the complexity the standards could ever expect, while helping students grow from bystanders to Upstanders.Smokey and Sara describe precisely how to create, manage, and sustain a classroom built around choice, small-group collaboration, and critical thinking. You'll be inspired by what Sara's students accomplish, but you'll also come away from Upstanders with a can-do plan for teaching your own classes thanks to:a developmental look at what makes middle school kids special, challenging, and fun specific lessons that develop collaboration, self-awareness, and compassion a toolbox filled with teaching strategies, structures, tools, and handouts Point-Outs from Smokey that highlight key teaching moves Game-Time Decisions from Sara that reveal in-the-moment instructional choices narratives that document the incredible work that inquiry allows kids to do ambitious, engaging, and important units on commonly taught middle school themes. What kind of classroom do we want for our middle schoolers? How about one that develops the skills the standards demand and prepares kids to take action in the world right now? We can do it-if we help kids become Upstanders.

    Concepts illustrate how writers use image grammar to develop their art, while strategies provide classroom-tested lessons, as offered on the CD-ROM.

    Pat Cunningham's and Dick Allington's clear and friendly writing style emphasizes the importance of promoting the integration of phonics and literature-based process writing and reading instruction to enhance ALL students' learning and reading skills. It clarifies concepts, defines key terms, and offers just the right balance of research and practical coverage to make the content complete without being overwhelming. This affordable book helps teachers engage ALL children in meaning-centered reading by fostering powerful decoding and comprehension strategies and implementing a balanced reading program. Classrooms That Work identifies and explores five components: real reading and writing, guided reading, guided writing, decoding/spelling, and word/word knowledge. The Fourth Edition is filled with workable, practical strategies and activities to use in the classroom. offering a modern, applied approach to 'traditional' reading topics and an in-depth look at areas of reading instruction not covered by other books (e.g. Chapters 9, 10 & 11 describe a sample day in a Building Blocks kindergarten, a sample day in a Four Blocks primary classroom and a sample week in a Big Blocks intermediate classroom, respectively. Combined, these chapters show how all of the important components of a balanced literacy programs can be integrated.) The flexibility gained by using this comprehensive approach gives instructors the opportunity to tailor course coverage and topic sequence making this a perfect book to be used in reading and language arts methods courses.

    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."

    Now a world-renowned expert gives us a substantially updated and augmented edition of her classic work: drawing on an additional fifteen years of cutting-edge research, offering new information on all aspects of dyslexia and reading problems, and providing the tools that parents, teachers, and all dyslexic individuals need. This new edition also offers:- New material on the challenges faced by dyslexic individuals across all ages - Rich information on ongoing advances in digital technology that have dramatically increased dyslexics' ability to help themselves - New chapters on diagnosing dyslexia, choosing schools and colleges for dyslexic students, the co-implications of anxiety, ADHD, and dyslexia, and dyslexia in post-menopausal women - Extensively updated information on helping both dyslexic children and adults become better readers, with a detailed home program to enhance reading - Evidence-based universal screening for dyslexia as early as kindergarten and first grade - why and how - New information on how to identify dyslexia in all age ranges - Exercises to help children strengthen the brain areas that control reading - Ways to raise a child's self-esteem and reveal her strengths - Stories of successful men, women, and young adults who are dyslexic

    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

    Now, with Guiding Readers and Writers (Grades 3-6), Fountas and Pinnell support teachers on the next leg of the literacy journey, addressing the unique challenges of teaching upper elementary students. The product of many years of work with classroom teachers, Guiding Readers and Writers (Grades 3-6) is one of the most comprehensive, authoritative guides available today. It explores all the essential components of a quality literacy program in six separate sections:Breakthrough to Literacy: Fountas and Pinnell present the basic structure of the language/literacy program within a breakthrough framework that encompasses the building of community through language, word study, reading, writing, and the visual arts. The framework plays out as three blocks, which can be interpreted as conceptual units as well as segments of time within the school day. Specific information on how to structure a reading and writing workshop is provided. A practical chapter on organizing and managing the classroom will help you implement the principles in your own classroom.Independent Reading: It is essential for students to develop interests and tastes as readers, selecting books for themselves every day. Fountas and Pinnell devote four chapters to independent reading, exploring how to structure teaching, minilessons, conferences, groupshare, and ways to use response journals as part of a reading workshop.Guided Reading: The chapters in this section provide detailed information on planning for guided reading, dynamic grouping for effective teaching, and selecting, introducing, and using leveled texts. Fountas and Pinnell describe characteristics of texts related to difficulty and ways to organize texts in your classroom and school.Literature Study: This section of the book discusses how to make students experiences with literature as rich as possible. The authors offer specific suggestions for forming groups, guiding student choices, and establishing and teaching routines for literature discussion. A full chapter explores reader response and ways to help readers dig deep to uncover the meaning of texts.Teaching for Comprehension and Word Analysis: This detailed look at the reading process explores both oral and silent reading, processes and behaviors related to comprehension, and ways to help students construct meaning. Included are twelve systems for sustaining the reading process and expanding meaning, plus discussions of the important areas of phonics, spelling, and vocabulary.The Reading and Writing Connection: These chapters showcase the instructional contextspoetry, writers notebooks, writers talks, genre, content literacy, and student researchthat support students in connected reading and writing. An informative overview of the characteristics of fiction and nonfiction will help you teach students to read and write a variety of genre. Whats more, the authors suggest ways to help students learn the genre of testing and perform the kinds of reading and writing tasks that tests require. They also detail the continuous thoughtful assessment that guides all aspects of effective teaching.A special feature appears at the end of each section, in which Fountas and Pinnell provide indispensable suggestions for working with struggling readers and writers.

    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.

    A rich design, replete with infographics and special features, guides you quickly from learning to teaching with:Jen's moves and language 9 videos of her teaching in K-8 classrooms 13 conference note-taking forms-one for each reading goal from the hierarchy in her Reading Strategies BookSuggestions for connecting emergent bilingual learners' language goals and reading goals. With Jen's support, you'll discover the true magic of conferring-the joyous, aha moments you'll see in growing readers.

    Effective vocabulary instruction is particularly vital in the content areas, where the specialized language used by “insiders” often creates a barrier to understanding for those new to the subjects. In Inside Words, Janet Allen merges recent research and key content-area teaching strategies to show teachers how to help students understand the academic vocabulary found in textbooks, tests, articles, and other informational texts.Each instructional tool is listed alphabetically along with its purpose: building background knowledge; teaching words that are critical to comprehension; providing support during reading and writing; developing a conceptual framework; and assessing students' understanding of words and concepts.Inside Words builds on Janet's previous books Words, Words, Words and Tools for Teaching Content Literacy, to provide a much-needed middle and secondary school resource for teaching vocabulary, not only in the language arts, but in all of the content areas.

    Shifting the focus from "fixing" teachers to collaborating with them in designing instruction that targets for student achievement makes coaching more respectful and results-based. The book also underscores the critical role of the principal in fostering a culture of learning. Each chapter includes:A model for designing and implementing student-centered coaching Data-driven coaching tools and techniques focused on student learning Specific practices for leading a student-centered coaching effort