Faculty Initiative on Teaching Reading

A Map to the Magic of Reading Stop for a moment and wonder: what's happening in your brain right now--as you read this paragraph? How much do you know about the innumerable and amazing connections that your mind is making as you, in a flash, make sense of this request? Why does it matter? The Reading Mind is a brilliant, beautifully crafted, and accessible exploration of arguably life's most important skill: reading. Daniel T. Willingham, the bestselling author of Why Don't Students Like School?, offers a perspective that is rooted in contemporary cognitive research. He deftly describes the incredibly complex and nearly instantaneous series of events that occur from the moment a child sees a single letter to the time they finish reading. The Reading Mind explains the fascinating journey from seeing letters, then words, sentences, and so on, with the author highlighting each step along the way. This resource covers every aspect of reading, starting with two fundamental processes: reading by sight and reading by sound. It also addresses reading comprehension at all levels, from reading for understanding at early levels to inferring deeper meaning from texts and novels in high school. The author also considers the undeniable connection between reading and writing, as well as the important role of motivation as it relates to reading. Finally, as a cutting-edge researcher, Willingham tackles the intersection of our rapidly changing technology and its effects on learning to read and reading. Every teacher, reading specialist, literacy coach, and school administrator will find this book invaluable. Understanding the fascinating science behind the magic of reading is essential for every educator. Indeed, every "reader" will be captivated by the dynamic but invisible workings of their own minds.

For Kylene Beers, the question of what to do when kids can't read surfaced abruptly in 1979 when she began teaching. That year, she discovered that some of the students in her seventh-grade language arts classes could pronounce all the words, but couldn't make any sense of the text. Others couldn't even pronounce the words. And that was the year she met a boy named George. George couldn't read. When George's parents asked her to explain what their son's reading difficulties were and what she was going to do to help, Kylene, a secondary certified English teacher with no background in reading, realized she had little to offer the parents, even less to offer their son. That defining moment sent her on a twenty-three-year search for answers to that original question: how do we help middle and high schoolers who can't read? Now in her critical and practical text When Kids Can't Read - What Teachers Can Do: A Guide for Teachers 6-12, Kylene shares what she has learned and shows teachers how to help struggling readers with comprehension vocabulary fluency word recognition motivation Here, Kylene offers teachers the comprehensive handbook they've needed to help readers improve their skills, their attitudes, and their confidence. Filled with student transcripts, detailed strategies, reproducible material, and extensive booklists, this much-anticipated guide to teaching reading both instructs and inspires.

Being literate in an academic discipline means more than simply being able to read and comprehend text; it means you can think, speak, and write as a historian, scientist, mathematician, or artist. Doug Buehl strips away the one-size-fits-all approach to content area literacy and presents a much-needed instructional model for disciplinary literacy, showing how to mentor middle and high school learners to become "academic insiders" who are college and career ready. This thoroughly revised second edition of Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines shows how to help students adjust their thinking to comprehend a range of complex texts that fall outside their reading comfort zones. This book --a natural companion to Buehl's Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning, which has been bolstering student comprehension for almost three decades--provides the following supports for teachers: Instructional tools that adapt generic literacy practices to discipline-specific variations Strategies for frontloading instruction to activate and build background knowledge New approaches for encouraging inquiry around disciplinary texts In-depth exploration of the role of argumentation in informational text Numerous examples from science, mathematics, history and social studies, English/language arts, and related arts to show you what vibrant learning looks like in various classroom settings Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines introduces teachers from all disciplines to new kinds of thinking and, ultimately, teaching that helps students achieve new levels of understanding.  

I Read It, but I Don't Get It is a practical, engaging account of how teachers can help adolescents develop new reading comprehension skills. 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.

The Fourth Edition of Literacy and Learning in the Content Areas: Enhancing Knowledge in the Disciplines provides readers with the knowledge, motivation, tools, and confidence for integrating literacy in their disciplinary classrooms. Offering an original, literature-based approach to teaching disciplinary literacy, the new edition shares important ways in which teachers of courses in the disciplines can enhance student learning of subject matter and skills while also fostering their growth in the many facets of literacy. Throughout each chapter, Kane provides engaging and creative strategies and activities to make literacy come alive in discipline-specific courses and to encourage students to explore and learn in the classroom. Embedded in each chapter are examples, resources, and strategies to help readers actively engage with and implement literacy practices. These features include Teaching in Action examples by subject area; Activating Prior Knowledge activities to stimulate critical thinking to prepare readers to learn complex theoretical and conceptual material about teaching, learning, and literacy; and end-of-chapter Application Activities to apply field experiences to classroom use. New to the Fourth Edition Every chapter of this new edition is updated to reflect the current approaches, standards, and benchmarks for discipline-specific literacy. Enhanced Companion Website with BookTalks to introduce relevant books in many genres and subjects, encouraging readers to explore the books for themselves and providing a model for BookTalks in their own classrooms. Expanded practical instructional strategies for teaching literacy in math, science, and social studies. Updated to include newly published titles in children¿s literature, young adult literature, and nonfiction.

Securing a Place for Reading in Composition addresses the dissonance between the need to prepare students to read, not just write, complex texts and the lack of recent scholarship on reading-writing connections. Author Ellen C. Carillo argues that including attention-to-reading practices is crucial for developing more comprehensive literacy pedagogies. Students who can read actively and reflectively will be able to work successfully with the range of complex texts they will encounter throughout their post-secondary academic careers and beyond. Considering the role of reading within composition from both historical and contemporary perspectives, Carillo makes recommendations for the productive integration of reading instruction into first-year writing courses. She details a ?mindful reading? framework wherein instructors help students cultivate a repertoire of approaches upon which they consistently reflect as they apply them to various texts. This metacognitive frame allows students to become knowledgeable and deliberate about how they read and gives them the opportunity to develop the skills useful for moving among reading approaches in mindful ways, thus preparing them to actively and productively read in courses and contexts outside first-year composition. Securing a Place for Reading in Composition also explores how the field of composition might begin to effectively address reading, including conducting research on reading, revising outcome statements, and revisiting the core courses in graduate programs. It will be of great interest to writing program administrators and other compositionists and their graduate students.

Pre-service and in-service middle and secondary school teachers get a wide variety of instructional techniques they can use to foster comprehension of materials in their content areas.   The core set of instructional techniques included in this evidence-based, practical resource help middle and secondary teachers incorporate reading-related approaches into their classrooms. The authors show how to implement the approaches in an easy manner that avoids diverting time from content learning. Some of the approaches covered include vocabulary techniques (e.g., graphic organizers, feature analysis, list-group-label), comprehension techniques (e.g., reading guides, questioning strategies), and study techniques. The book also addresses issues of assessment, motivation, and cultural and linguistic diversity.

50 Instructional Routines to Develop Content Literacy, 3/e helps adolescents read more and read better. Middle and high school teachers can immediately put to use its practical information and classroom examples from science, social studies, English, math, the visual and performing arts, and core electives to improve students' reading, writing, and oral language development. Going above and beyond basic classroom strategies, the instructional routines recommend simple changes to teachers' everyday procedures that foster student comprehension, such as thinking aloud, using question-answer relationships, and teaching with word walls.

Reading, Writing, and Digitizing offers a new theoretical proposal concerning expert and novice readers and writers based on the psycholinguistics of literacy. This book has five specific goals. First, it presents a theory of meta-reading and writing that describes what literacy experts are able to do with written text. They do what the word meta describes: go before and after, into and around, beyond and beside written text to understand and create meaning. Second, the case studies presented reveal differences between literacy novices and experts in terms of their awarenesses about texts and their skills; these are clarified as the discussion unfolds. Third, the book provides an analysis of the processing mechanisms people use and the features that texts contain that make literacy possible. A fourth goal is to examine how experts understand and produce texts in both traditional and digital venues. Finally, the book ends with focused strategies for instruction that will be useful to any reader working with people engaged in literacy development. Readers of this book will be better equipped to support the literacy development of others through their enhanced understanding of the psycholinguistics of reading and writing and of the differences between literacy novices and experts.

In this book Bronwyn T. Williams explores how perceptions of agency; whether a person perceives and feels able to read and write successfully in a given context; are critical in terms of how people perform their literate identities. Drawing on interviews and observations with students in several countries, he examines the intersections of the social and personal in relation to how, and crucially why, people engage successfully or struggle painfully in literacy practices and what factors and forces they regard as enabling or constraining their actions. Identifying such moments and patterns can help teachers and researchers rethink their approaches to teaching to help facilitate students; sense of agency as writers and readers.

This compelling new book provides a deep examination of the experience of African American males in schools. Moving beyond basic culturally relevant instruction, A Walk in Their Kicks offers new understandings that will assist educators in developing instruction that respects these young men and fosters their participation and success. Through research data and conversations among teachers, readers will explore the impact that trauma has on the lives of African American students, examine how their own identities and perceptions of these students influence their text selections and instruction and identify the conditions that need to be present to engage African American male students in literacy. Chapters end with "What Teachers Can Do Right Now" and "What Administrators Can Do Right Now," sections that provide easy-to-implement, practical strategies. The author believes that literacy gave him a future as an African American male and, at the same time, recalls school friends who never go that chance. He calls for educators to transform schools into environments that are free of negative assumptions about African American males and provides recommendations for engaging in this work. Book Features: a brief history of schooling in the United States, particularily as it relates to African American children; a powerful framework for engaging African American males in school-based literacy; recommendations to help teachers plan lessons, build equitable classroom environments, and foster positive relationships with all students; recommendations to help administrations build school-wide affinity groups, implement and change policy, and plan alongside their teaching staff.

Millions of Americans routinely spend half their working day or more with their hands on keyboards and their minds on audiences - writing so much, in fact, that they have less time and appetite for reading. In this highly anticipated sequel to her award-winning Literacy in American Lives, Deborah Brandt moves beyond laments about the decline of reading to focus on the rise of writing. What happens when writing overtakes reading as the basis of people's daily literate experience? How does a societal shift toward writing affect the ways that people develop their literacy and understand its value? Drawing on recent interviews with people who write every day, Brandt explores this major turn in the development of mass literacy and examines the serious challenges it poses for America's educational mission and civic health.

Arguing that college-level reading must be theorized as foundationally linked to any understanding of college-level writing, editors Patrick Sullivan, Howard Tinberg, and Sheridan Blau continue the conversation begun in _What Is "College-Level" Writing?_ (2006) and _What Is "College-Level" Writing? Volume 2: Assignments, Readings, and Student Writing Samples_ (2010). Measurements of reading abilities show a decline nationwide among most cohorts of students, so the need for writing teachers to thoughtfully address the subject of reading, especially in grades 6-14, has become increasingly urgent. Curriculum and state standards often reflect an impoverished and reductive understanding of reading that views readers as passive recipients of information, fueling the widespread use of standardized tests to measure proficiency in English literacy, and ignoring decades of reading scholarship that positions readers in more complex relationships with the texts they read.

Contributors to this collection--high school teachers, college students who discuss the challenges they faced as readers and writers, and composition scholars--offer an antidote to this situation. These authors (1) define the challenges to integrating reading into the writing classroom, (2) develop a theory of reading as a specific type of inquiry and meaning-making activity, and (3) offer practical approaches to teaching deep reading in writing courses that can be put immediately to use in the classroom. The volume concludes with letters written directly to students about the importance of reading, not only in the classroom but also as a richly complex social, cognitive, and affective human activity.

Since its first edition, Ways of Reading has offered a uniquely exciting approach to first-year composition, integrating reading, writing, and critical thinking with a challenging selection of readings and editorial support. By engaging students in conversations with key academic and cultural texts, Ways of Reading helps students develop the intellectual skills necessary for academic work; it also bridges the gap between contemporary critical theory and composition so that instructors can connect their own scholarly work with their teaching. With a mix of shorter, more accessible readings from a broader range of academic disciplines, the eleventh edition offers more flexibility for instructors while continuing to help students become better writers by challenging them to be engaged and critical readers.

Bridging the gap between personal and academic writing, The Curious Reader is a composition reader that introduces students to the unique reading strategies used by writers who research. Beginning with essays and creative nonfiction, readings that many students will be surprised to discover are research based, The Curious Reader leads students to see the many connections between all fact-based writing, whether it's a personal essay or an article from a scholarly journal. The Curious Reader invites students to become active researchers as they are encouraged to confront underlying beliefs that either hinder or help their fact-based writing. Questions and assignments ask students to explain, evaluate, explore, and reflect on what they have read and how it has changed their thinking.

The act of reading is a miracle. Every new reader's brain possesses the extraordinary capacity to rearrange itself beyond its original abilities in order to understand written symbols. But how does the brain learn to read? As world-renowned cognitive neuroscientist and scholar of reading Maryanne Wolf explains in this impassioned book, we taught our brain to read only a few thousand years ago, and in the process changed the intellectual evolution of our species. Wolf tells us that the brain that examined tiny clay tablets in the cuneiform script of the Sumerians is configured differently from the brain that reads alphabets or of one literate in today's technology. There are critical implications to such an evolving brain. Just as writing reduced the need for memory, the proliferation of information and the particular requirements of digital culture may short-circuit some of written language's unique contributions--with potentially profound consequences for our future. Turning her attention to the development of the individual reading brain, Wolf draws on her expertise in dyslexia to investigate what happens when the brain finds it difficult to read. Interweaving her vast knowledge of neuroscience, psychology, literature, and linguistics, Wolf takes the reader from the brains of a pre-literate Homer to a literacy-ambivalent Plato, from an infant listening to Goodnight Moon to an expert reader of Proust, and finally to an often misunderstood child with dyslexia whose gifts may be as real as the challenges he or she faces. As we come to appreciate how the evolution and development of reading have changed the very arrangement of our brain and our intellectual life, we begin to realize with ever greater comprehension that we truly are what we read. Ambitious, provocative, and rich with examples, Proust and the Squid celebrates reading, one of the single most remarkable inventions in history. Once embarked on this magnificent story of the reading brain, you will never again take for granted your ability to absorb the written word.

"As elegantly practical as it is theoretically elegant. It is a guided tour, as one examines the tools of expert teachers as they engage students in a journey that is aptly dubbed Reading Apprenticeship'learning how to become a savvy, strategic reader under the tutelage of thoughtful, caring, and demanding teachers.' P. David Pearson, University of California, Berkeley, and founding editor of the Handbook of Reading Research. Reading for Understanding is a monumental achievement. It was a monumental achievement when it came out as a first edition in 1999, bringing years of rigorous reading research together in a framework for teaching that made sense in actual secondary school classrooms. Now, just thirteen years later, Schoenbach and Greenleaf have several randomized clinical trials and multiple on-going studies at their fingertips to demonstrate the effects of this approach for developing the reading and thinking of young people in our nation's middle and high school classrooms, as well as in community college classrooms. Their careful work on developing disciplinary literacy among all students represents a passion for and commitment to supporting students'and their teachers'in reading for understanding, which translates to reading for enjoyment, self-awareness, learning, and for purposeful and informed action in our society. ?Elizabeth Moje, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Associate Dean for Research, School of Education, University of Michigan Reading Apprenticeship has proven to be an inspiration to Renton Technical College faculty and students alike. They have learned together to view themselves as readers in transformative ways, as they embrace powerful techniques to increase reading comprehension. The ideas and strategies in Reading for Understanding anchor this new and broad-based energy around reading and an enthusiasm among our faculty to model effective reading strategies for our students. ?Steve Hanson, President, Renton Technical College, Renton, Washington Reading for Understanding has the finest blend I have seen of research, strategies, and classroom vignettes to deepen teacher learning and help them connect the dots between theory and practice. ?Curtis Refior, Content Area Literacy Coach, Fowlerville Community Schools, Fowlerville, Michigan  A teacher-tested, research-based resource for dramatically improving reading skills Published in partnership with WestEd, this significantly updated second edition of the bestselling book contains strategies for helping students in middle school through community college gain the reading independence to master subject area textbooks and other material. Based on the Reading Apprenticeship program, which three rigorous "gold standard" research studies have shown to be effective in raising students' reading achievement Presents a clear framework for improving the reading and subject area learning of all students, including English learners, students with special needs, as well as those in honors and AP courses Provides concrete tools for classroom use and examples from a range of classrooms Presents a clear how-to for teachers implementing the subject area literacies of the Common Core Standards Reading for Understanding proves it's never too late for teachers and students to work together to boost literacy, engagement, and achievement.