How Fiction Works
by James Wood
from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Amazon Best of the Month, July 2008: The first thing you'll notice about How Fiction Works is its size. At 252 pages, it's a marvel of economy for a book that asks such a huge question and right away you'll want to know (as you might at the start of a new novel) what the author has in store. James Wood takes only his own bookshelves as his literary terrain for this study, and that in itself is the most delightful gift: he joins his audience as a reader, citing his chosen texts judiciously--ranging from Henry James (from whom he takes the best epigraph to a book I've ever read) to Nabokov, Joyce, Updike, and more--to explore not just how fiction works, mechanically speaking, but to reflect on how a novelist's choices make us feel that a novel ultimately works ... or doesn't. Wood remarks that you have to "read enough literature to be taught by it how to read it." His terrific bibliography will surely be a boon to anyone's education, but it's his masterful writing that you'll want to keep reading over the course of your life. --Anne Bartholomew
How to Read a Book (A Touchstone Book)
by Mortimer J. Adler
from Touchstone
How to Read a Book, originally published in 1940, has become a rare phenomenon, a living classic. It is the best and most successful guide to reading comprehension for the general reader. And now it has been completely rewritten and updated.
You are told about the various levels of reading and how to achieve them -- from elementary reading, through systematic skimming and inspectional reading, to speed reading, you learn how to pigeonhole a book, X-ray it, extract the author's message, criticize. You are taught the different reading techniques for reading practical books, imaginative literature, plays, poetry, history, science and mathematics, philosophy and social science.
Finally, the authors offer a recommended reading list and supply reading tests whereby you can measure your own progress in reading skills, comprehension and speed.
Qualitative Reading Inventory-4 (4th Edition)
by Lauren Leslie
from Allyn & Bacon
Words Their Way Word Sorts for Syllables and Affixes Spellers (2nd Edition) (Words Their Way Series)
by Francine Johnston
from Prentice Hall
This book, intended for use with the core Words Their Way book, is the ideal supplement to any phonics, spelling and word study curriculum. The Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Spelling, and Vocabulary Instruction core book provides a practical, research-based and classroom-proven way to study words with pupils; this companion volume augments that content with numerous reproducible sorts that specifically address the needs of the syllables and affixes speller. Accompanying the sorts are step-by-step directions for guiding pupils through the sorting lessons, as well as follow-up activities and tips for using the sorts to their best advantage. This book is designed to help all teachers address the needs of all readers and spellers, giving them confidence in the knowledge that their teaching is developmentally appropriate.
Mosaic of Thought, Second Edition: The Power of Comprehension Strategy Instruction
by Ellin Oliver Keene
from Heinemann
Mosiac of Thought Online Course available to all adopters of 25 copies or more of Mosaic of Thought, Second Edition.
Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann have returned with a new edition of Mosaic of Thought that features 70 percent new material. When the first edition published ten years ago, Mosaic of Thought became a runaway best seller as the first book to explicitly describe the use and benefits of strategy-based comprehension instruction. Since then comprehension strategy instruction has exploded, leading to numerous inspiring variations on Mosaic's instructional principles, as well as a widening of the comprehension research base. Now the second edition offers up-to-the-minute insight for classroom teachers, literacy coaches, and school leaders everywhere, and reminds everyone of precisely what effective, long-lasting comprehension teaching looks like. Mosaic of Thought, Second Edition, has been carefully revised and reflects
- Key Ideas sections for each strategy that describe crucial comprehension concepts
- new classroom examples that show comprehension strategies put into action in dynamic, literature-rich, current classrooms
- new opening vignettes that illustrate the concepts students will learn through explorations of the thinking used by proficient adult readers
- new tools to help teachers create effective reader's workshops
- innovations from teachers around the country for fine tuning think-alouds and conferring practices
- new advice on long-term instructional planning.
Guided Reading: Good First Teaching for All Children
by Gay Su Pinnell
from Heinemann
- This is an important book for teachers, administrators, prospective teachers, college professors, or anyone seeking to provide quality teaching to children in their first years of schooling.
- Harvard Educational Review
Among the many changes to sweep American literacy education has been a move toward whole class instruction. Nonetheless, children still bring to literacy a wide range of experiences and competencies. How, then, might teachers best support a literate community yet still meet the needs of individual readers? For Fountas and Pinnell, the answer lies in guided reading, which allows children to develop as individual readers within the context of a small group. Their new book is the richest, most comprehensive guided reading resource available today and the first systematic offering of instructional support for guided reading adherents.
Guided Reading was written for K-3 classroom teachers, reading resource teachers, teacher educators, preservice teachers, researchers, administrators, and staff developers. Based on the authors' nine years of research and development, it explains how to create a balanced literacy program based on guided reading and supported by read aloud, shared reading, interactive writing, and other approaches. While there is an entire chapter devoted solely to the process by which children become literate, every chapter clearly presents the theoretical underpinnings of the practices it suggests. Also included are guidelines for:
Best of all, there are well over 2,500 leveled books in the Appendixes, along with many other reproducible resources that teachers will use for years to come.
"Good first teaching is the foundation of education and the right of every child," assert the authors. With the publication of this book, educators themselves will find the foundation in reading skills instruction they so rightly deserve.
The Gift of Dyslexia
by Ronald D. Davis
from Perigee Trade
The author shares the startling discovery that enabled him to overcome his own dyslexia, reveals how dyslexia can be related to high levels of intelligence, and offers a plan that anyone with dyslexia can use to conquer the common disability. Tour.
7 Keys to Comprehension: How to Help Your Kids Read It and Get It!
by Susan Zimmermann
from Three Rivers Press
It's simple: If children don't understand what they read, they will never embrace reading. And that limits what they can learn while in school. This fact frightens parents, worries teachers, and ultimately hurts children.
7 Keys to Comprehension is the result of cutting-edge research. It gives parents and teachers—those who aren't already using this valuable program—practical, thoughtful advice about the seven simple thinking strategies that proficient readers use:
• Connecting reading to their background knowledge
• Creating sensory images
• Asking questions
• Drawing inferences
• Determining what's important
• Synthesizing ideas
• Solving problems
Easily understood, easily applied, and proven successful, this essential educational tool helps parents and teachers to turn reading into a fun and rewarding adventure.
Creating Literacy Instruction for All Students (6th Edition)
by Thomas G. Gunning
from Allyn & Bacon
With its careful balance between the theory and the practice, this book always gives readers the theories behind the methods, encouraging them to choose, adapt, and construct their own approaches as they create a balanced program of literacy instruction. Special emphasis has been given to adapting instruction for English language learners, struggling readers and writers and special needs students throughout the book. Unlike comparable texts, the new edition stresses effective steps for closing the gap between achieving and struggling readers as mandated by the No Child Left Behind legislation and Reading First. Reading Methods, Comprehension, Assessment, Emergent Literacy, Reading for student with special needs. Elementary Reading Methods.
Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach (4th Edition)
by Gail E. Tompkins
from Prentice Hall
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