This practical book offers teachers a comprehensive approach to literacy instruction that puts students at the centre of the learning process. Based on the latest learning theories, the book provides: an overview of the nuts and bolts of reading instruction ; techniques for supporting writers ; poetry, storytelling, and drama activities that foster alternate ways of learning ; language experiences that guide students from traditional learning to our complex digital world. This book offers the background and strategies teachers need to encourage students to question, discover, and learn. Thoughtful and inspiring, the book helps educators reflect on their role as teacher and better meet the literacy needs of all their students.

In her practical and inspirational book,Literacy Essentials: Engagement, Excellence, and Equity for All Learners , author Regie Routman guides K-12 teachers to create a trusting, intellectual, and equitable classroom culture that allows all learners to thrive as self-directed readers, writers, thinkers, and responsible citizens. Over the course of three sections, Routman provides numerous Take Action ideas for implementing authentic and responsive teaching, assessing, and learning. This book poses akey question: How do we rise to the challenge of providing an engaging, excellent, equitable education for all learners, including those from high poverty and underserved schools?Teaching for Engagement: Many high performing schools are characterized by a a thriving school culture built on a network of authentic communication. Teachers can strengthen classroom engagement by building a trusting and welcoming environment where all students can have a safe and collaborative space to grow and develop.Pursuing Excellence: Routman identifies 10 key factors that describe an excellent teacher, ranging from intellectual curiosity to creativity, and explains how carrying yourself as a role model contributes to an inclusive, caring, empathic, and fair classroom. She also stresses the importance for school leaders to make job-embedded professional development a top priority.Dismantling Unequal Education: The huge gap in the quality of education in high vs low income communities is the civil rights issue of the 21st century, according to Routman. She spells out specific actions educators can take to create more equitable schools and classrooms, such as diversifying texts used in curriculums and ensuring all students have access to opportunities to discuss, reflect, and engage with important ideas.From the author, I wroteLiteracy Essentials , because I saw a need to simplify teaching, raise expectations, and make expert teaching possible for all of us. I saw a need to emphasize how a school culture of kindness, trust, respect, and curiosity is essential to any lasting achievement. I saw a need to demonstrate and discuss how and why the beliefs, actions, knowledge we hold determine the potential for many of our students. Equal opportunity to learn depends on a culture of engagement and equity, which under lies a relentless pursuit of excellence.

All the tips and tools you need to realize the goal of balanced literacy learning. Students learn to read and write best when their teachers balance literacy instruction. Best-selling authors Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Nancy Akhavan help you strike the right balance of skills and knowledge, reading and writing, small and whole group instruction, and direct and dialogic instruction, so that all students can learn to their maximum potential. Using this essential guide, tap your intuition, collaborate with your peers, and put the research-based strategies embedded within to work in your classroom for a strong and successful balanced literacy program.

How to Reach and Teach All Children Through Balanced Literacy offers you a handbook for teaching literacy to diverse students in grades 3-8. The balanced literacy method combines the best practices of phonics and other skill-based language instruction with the holistic, literature-based approach in order to help you teach reading, writing, and speaking in a clear and approachable format. This dynamic resource offers an easily accessible research-based approach to balanced literacy that is grounded in the innovative ideas developed by authors Sandra F. Rief and Julie A. Heimburge. The book includes detailed descriptions of what a balanced literacy classroom looks like and shows how to create a program from the ground up or give your existing program a boost. The book can be used across content areas and is filled with reproducible worksheets, activities, and other handy classroom tools. Some topics covered include: Shared book experiences Reading aloud Oral language and vocabulary development Guided reading for comprehension Modeled writing Reading and writing conferences Book clubs Content area reading and writing Ongoing assessments Enhancing literacy through technology

How do we ensure that all students are engaged each day in meaningful, challenging, and joyful work and have equal opportunity to learn? That is the central question Regie Routman addresses in Literacy Essentials Engagement, Excellence, and Equity for All Learners. Her response is that such an outcome is only possible within a culture of empowerment in which all students and teachers feel encouraged and supported to let their voices be heard, explore their passions and interests, develop deep knowledge, and become their fullest and truest selves. Based on her ongoing teaching, leading, and coaching in diverse schools and districts, Regie offers K-12 teachers and leaders practical, easy-to-implement tools to help students develop as self-determining readers, writers, and learners including: - Take Action sections with specific suggestions for authentically teaching, assessing, and learning - Extensive research that is easily accessible and actionable - Personal stories that connect to literacy teaching and learning - Rich online resources including a comprehensive lesson plan, an easy-to-use study guide, downloadable Appendices, and more. Literacy Essentials shows what's possible when teachers and schools raise expectations for all students and create an intellectual culture based on trust, collaborative expertise, and celebration of learners' strengths.

Linda Chen and Eugenia Mora-Flores examine how to lead ELLs toward independence through basic frameworks and techniques you know and may already teach with. Their integrated, comprehensive approach focuses on seven specific aspects of balanced instruction that help students learn, expand, and extend their literacy skills, including: interactive read-aloud, emergent story book read-aloud, shared reading, reading workshop, writing workshop, guided reading, and word work. --From publisher's description.

How parents and educators can teach kids to love reading in the digital age Everyone agrees that reading is important, but kids today tend to lose interest in reading before adolescence. In Raising Kids Who Read, bestselling author and psychology professor Daniel T. Willingham explains this phenomenon and provides practical solutions for engendering a love of reading that lasts into adulthood. Like Willingham's much-lauded previous work, Why Don't Students Like School?, this new book combines evidence-based analysis with engaging, insightful recommendations for the future. Intellectually rich argumentation is woven seamlessly with entertaining current cultural references, examples, and steps for taking action to encourage reading. The three key elements for reading enthusiasm—decoding, comprehension, and motivation—are explained in depth in Raising Kids Who Read. Teachers and parents alike will appreciate the practical orientation toward supporting these three elements from birth through adolescence. Most books on the topic focus on early childhood, but Willingham understands that kids' needs change as they grow older, and the science-based approach in Raising Kids Who Read applies to kids of all ages. A practical perspective on teaching reading from bestselling author and K-12 education expert Daniel T. Willingham Research-based, concrete suggestions to aid teachers and parents in promoting reading as a hobby Age-specific tips for developing decoding ability, comprehension, and motivation in kids from birth through adolescence Information on helping kids with dyslexia and encouraging reading in the digital age Debunking the myths about reading education, Raising Kids Who Read will empower you to share the joy of reading with kids from preschool through high school.