For those who truly wish to leave no child behind, the racial achievement gap in literacy is one of the most difficult issues in education today, and nowhere does it manifest itself more perniciously than in the case of black adolescent males.

Approaching the problem from the inside, Alfred Tatum brings together his various experiences as a black male student, middle school teacher working with struggling black male readers, reading specialist in an urban elementary school, and staff developer in classrooms across the nation. His new book," Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males "offers teachers and schools a way to reconceptualize literacy instruction for those who need it most.

Alfred bridges the connections among theory, instruction, and professional development to create a roadmap for better literacy achievement. He presents practical suggestions for providing reading strategy instruction and assessment that is explicit, meaningful, and culturally responsive, as well as guidelines for selecting and discussing nonfiction and fiction texts with black males.

The author's first-hand insights provide middle school and high school teachers, reading specialists, and administrators with new perspectives to help schools move collectively toward the essential goal of literacy achievement for all.

Research from the special education community provides an resource that can influence instruction for students with disabilities, as well as other students at risk for reading difficulties. This special issue features the work of four researchers and their teams who have contributed to this research base.

Survival Reading Skills for Secondary Students is your guide for working with struggling students in grades 5-12 no matter what their reading ability. This valuable resource is a down-to-earth guide that contains countless classroom-tested strategies that reading and content area teachers can use to reinforce skills that students must master to read effectively. In addition, the book offers ready-to-use activity sheets designed to improve competency in a number of relevant reading skills. Students will learn how to fill in a job application, read an airline schedule, apply for a driver's license, and practice many more useful real-life skills.

For quick access and easy use, the book is organized in seven sections and printed in a big 8 ½" X 11" lay-flat format for easy photocopying. The following is just a small sample of the many strategies, assessments, inventories, and activities featured in each section:

1. INFORMAL READING ASSESSMENT TOOLS FOR OLDER STUDENTS: Includes a Content Reading Inventory. . . lists of sample words from a range of content areas including English, social studies, science, and mathematics&an informal assessment to determine a student's approximate instructional reading level.

2. STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES FOR IMPROVING SKILLS TO IDENTIFY CONTENT SIGHT WORDS: Provides reproducible copies of words needed for computer literacy . . . strategies for improving students' ability to recognize and identify important content and daily-living words . . . activities that include a reversed crossword puzzle and a magic square from science.

3. STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES FOR IMPROVING BASIC PHONIC SKILLS: Contains the basic phonic elements in which older students should be competent . . . seven helpful phonic generalizations . . . activity sheets that challenge students to complete a shopping list and discover a secret code.

4. STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES FOR IMPROVING ABILITY IN WORD STRUCTURE: Includes an explanation of the usefulness of word roots, prefixes, and suffixes . . . comprehensive lists of the most useful elements of word structure that help students read and study content materials effectively . . . activity sheets that help students determine word etymologies and correct accents.

5. STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES FOR IMPROVING USE OF CONTEXT CLUES: Presents a useful classification scheme for context clues . . . method of teaching context clues, cryptology, and mutilated messages . . . activities that direct students to choose the correct word in sentence context.

6. STRATEGIES AND MATERIALS FOR IMPROVING COMPREHENSION SKILLS WHILE READING CONTENT MATERIAL: Contains an explanation of levels of reading comprehensiontextually explicit, textually implicit, and critical or evaluative . . . myriad classroom-tested strategies for improving comprehension . . . activity sheets that engage students to figure out which is the better invention and complete a job application form.

7. STRATEGIES AND MATERIALS FOR IMPROVING STUDY SKILLS IN THE CONTENT AREAS: Offers a description of the specialized study skills that students need to read specific content material . . . a multitude of classroom-tested strategies for improving study skills . . . activities that help students to use the Dewey Decimal System and read the newspaper more effectively.

Focusing on enhancing the writing skills of the pupils whom you support, Sylvia Edwards analyzes how you can develop their skills, offers advise and guidance on a variety of learning styles and a breakdown of writing principles.

Sylvia Edwards' book concentrates on enhancing the spelling skills of the pupils whom you support; analyzing how you can develop their spelling skills, offering advise and guidance on a variety of learning styles, and a breakdown of spelling principles.

Wilson and Scanlon focus on enhancing the reading skills of the pupils whom you support, analyzing how you can develop their skills, offering advise and guidance on a variety of learning styles and a breakdown of reading principles.

Published in 1984. The more we know about young writers, the more we observe them as they write, discuss the composing process with them, talk to them about the sources of their ideas and the difficulties which they encounter as they try to captures thoughts and feelings in words, the greater will be our understanding of imaginative activity and the part it plays in children's personal and social development. This is the essential theme of the book and the contributors stress the importance of sympathetic and sensitive guidance by teachers and parents in encouraging the imaginative process in young children. The personal diaries, stories and conversations with young writers which appear in this book illustrate how children can use imaginative writing as a means of coming to terms with social and emotional issues in their lives. The book presents first a theoretical analysis of the imaginative writing process and then goes on to explore children's growing awareness of themselves and others through their perception of sex-roles, their way of dealing symbolically with illness and death, fear and separation, religious and spiritual experiences, and their understanding of social relationships with family and friends. The writing process itself is examined in detail and parallels drawn between the adult and child writer. The final part of the book presents children's own reflections on writing, shows one classroom community in action and discusses the extent to which children themselves can gain control of their own writing process.

Presenting a powerful and stimulating approach to writing, "Location Writing" allows children to escape the confines of the classroom and develop written responses to their environment. The book features: activities covering prose, poetry, non-fiction and faction; examples of written work by both children and professional writers; detailed lesson plans and ideas; advice on establishing writers' trails; cross-curricular links; and lists of resources and suggestions for location writing around the UK.

Primary-grade teachers face an important challenge: teaching children how to read while enabling them to build good habits so they fall in love with reading. Many teachers find the independent reading workshop to be the component of reading instruction that meets this challenge because it makes it possible to teach the reading skills and strategies children need and guides them toward independence, intention, and joy as readers.

In "Growing Readers," Kathy Collins helps teachers plan for independent reading workshops in their own classrooms. She describes the structure of the independent reading workshop and other components of a balanced literacy program that work together to ensure young students grow into strong, well-rounded readers. Kathy outlines a sequence of possible units of study for a yearlong curriculum. Chapters are devoted to the individual units of study and include a sample curriculum as well as examples of mini-lessons and reading conferences. There are also four "Getting Ready" sections that suggest some behind-the-scenes work teachers can do to prepare for the units. Topics explored in these units include: print and comprehension strategies;reading in genres such as poetry and nonfiction;connecting in-school reading and out-of-school reading;developing the strategies and habits of lifelong readers.

A series of planning sheets and management tips are presented throughout to help ensure smooth implementation.

We want our students to learn to read, and we want them to love to read. To do this we need to lay a foundation on which children build rich and purposeful reading lives that extend beyond the school day. The ideas found in "Growing Readers" create thekind of primary classrooms where that happens.

Beyond Tolerance is a hopeful, optimistic book focused on creating positive and sustained social change through engagement with beautiful, sometimes complex, and consistently interesting multiethnic children's literature. It presents a fresh perspective on race and ethnicity. Additionally, it features an innovative approach to literacy teaching and learning through the use of multiethnic children's literature in our preschools and throughout the elementary school grades.

This volume of Ready-to-Use Writing Proficiency Lessons & Activities gives classroom teachers and language arts specialists a powerful and effective tool for addressing the curriculum standards and competencies at the fourth-grade level. Writing Proficiency Lessons & Activities are also available from the publisher at the Eighth Grade Level and the Tenth Grade Level.

Included are a variety of easy-to-use, reproducible activity sheets at the Fourth Grade Level are printed in a big 8-1/4" x 11" spiral-bound format that folds flat for photocopying. The activities are organized into 10 sections. Following is just a sample of the activities youll find in Sections 1-5:

CHOOSING THE RIGHT WORD: synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, action verbs, main verbs and helping verbs, adjectives, words often confused, sensory words, similes, and metaphors

MAKING MECHANICS AND USAGE WORK FOR YOU: capitalization, abbreviations, compound words, prefixes, suffixes, end marks, commas, punctuation of titles, irregular plurals, and spelling

WRITING SENTENCES: subjects and predicates, simple and compound sentences, complex sentences, combining sentences, sentence fragments, run-on sentences, and sentence types

WRITING PARAGRAPHS: writing a topic sentence, writing a concluding sentence, developing the topic, using tense consistently, using transitional words, and staying on the topic

ESSAY-WRITING TECHNIQUES: brainstorming, clustering, outlining; stating the topic; writing an introductory paragraphs with a question, with a surprising statement, or with an anecdote; developing the topic by using examples; avoiding unrelated details; writing a concluding paragraph

The activities in Section 6-10take the students through the steps in the writing process to develop from eight to ten writing samples on various age-appropriate topics in each of the following genres required on state tests:

• WRITING INFORMATIVE ESSAYS
• WRITING PERSUASIVE ESSAYS
• WRITING NARRATIVE/DESCRIPTIVE ESSAYS
• WRITING LETTERS
• WRITING STORIES

Each section is followed by sample test items focusing on the concepts and skills covered in the section plus answer keys and scoring guides with student writing samples. These practice tests will help students prepare for the types of questions they will be asked on the actual test.

All three grade level volumes a Fourth Grade, Eight Grade, and Tenth Grade a provide a wealth of useful and practical lessons to help students master the basic language skills and prepare to demonstrate their knowledge of effective writing at a particular level.

There is no research-based text that provides a model for teaching and learning in a virtual environment with literacy learners. Therefore, this book will focus on preparing challenging students to be successful independent learners for the twenty first century. This will involve one where students are constructing their own meaning not only within the traditional brick and mortar environment with the assistant of the classroom teacher, but also in an online environment scaffolded by a virtual tutor. Today, virtual environments are a common alternative space for students in K-12 to engage in meaningful online literacy learning with their tutors (Boxie, 2004; Hurst, 2007; Williams & Casale, 2015; Witte, 2007).

Differentiating Instruction With Menus: Literature (Grades 3-5):

Differentiating Instruction With Menus: Literature (Grades 6-8):

Differentiating Instruction With Menus: Literature (Grades 9-12):

This set of "Ready-to-Use Reading Proficiency Lessons & Activities" gives classroom teachers and reading specialists a dynamic and progressive way to meet curriculum standards and competencies at the fourth-grade level. "Reading Proficiency Lessons & Activities" are also available from the publisher at the Eighth Grade Level and Tenth Grade Level.

Youll find the lessons and activities at each level actively help students improve their reading and language skills and facilitate their mastery of other school subjects. They were developed and tested by an experienced teacher who sought to give his students positive learning experiences while at the same time preparing them for district and statewide proficiency exams.

For easy use, the lessons and activities at the Fourth Grade Level are printed in a big 8-1/4" x 11" spiral-bound format that folds flat for photocopying of over 150 study sheets, student activity sheets, and practice tests, and are organized into six sections:

1. ANALOGIES
2. VOCABULARY
3. READING COMPREHENSION
4. SPELLING
5. LANGUAGE MECHANICS & USAGE
6. LANGUAGE EXPRESSION

Each section covers 7 to 26 objectives with reproducible activity sheets for teaching basic concepts and skills in one main area of reading/language arts at this level. It includes:

• Teaching Suggestions identifying skills to highlight, noting study sheets that complement the activity sheet, and offering tips on implementation.
• Study Sheets with concise information on specific topics, such as "How to Solve Analogies," "Ways to Build Your Vocabulary," and "Breaking Down a Story into Parts."
• Activity Sheets that are presented sequentially with an emphasis on thoseskills that appear on standardized tests. For example, Section 3 presents reading skills through selections on realistic fiction, persuasive essays, biographical sketches, poetry, and more.
• Practice Tests concluding each section and based on the activity sheets and skill areas addressed in that section. Tests are set up in a standardized format.
• Answer Sheets accompanying the tests to give students practice in completing the answer sheets for standardized tests.
• Answer Keys for each answer sheet that help you correct tests and explain any questions your students found confusing. Students can also self-correct their own tests with these keys.

Whats more, an Appendix contains useful information for teachers, parents, and students. For example, youll find tips on creating a positive test-taking environment, handouts designed to inform parents about standardized tests, and test words students should know.

All three grade level volumesFourth Grade, Eighth Grade, and Tenth Gradegive you stimulating and effective ways to help students master basic reading and language content and prepare to demonstrate their knowledge at the particular level.

Parents can teach their children to read--no expertise required! Parents can take charge of their children's literacy with this updated, easier-to-use edition of the classic jargon-free phonics guide. Too many parents watch their children struggle with early reading skills - and don't know how to help. Many phonics programs are too often complicated, overpriced, gimmicky, and filled with obscure educationalese. The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, Revised Edition cuts through the confusion, giving parents a simple, direct, scripted guide to teaching phonics and reading- from short vowels through supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. A new layout makes understanding and teaching the concepts even easier. With the accompanying Student Book, parents will have everything they need to take their children from the basics all the way to a fourth-grade reading level. Features a new introduction by Dr. Susan Wise Bauer.

This is a guide to teaching creative writing to primary school children aged 8-11. The 22 classroom-tested exercises encourage students to explore their emotions, their senses, and the world around them. Activities are designed to get children thinking about and describing what they see, hear, smell, taste and the thoughts which pass through their minds, re-enforcing their basic grammar and widening their vocabulary. The aim is to get children writing for enjoyment. The assignments are a springboard from which ideas are formed and then developed. They are structured to encourage spontaneous thought and to allow the writer to follow ideas; freeing the conscious mind from restraint to simply write. Above all, they are for children to have fun, to help them tap into emotions and imagination - which may well surprise both them and you. Get Children Writing brings together clear objectives, teachers' notes, and examples of techniques, styles, and formats drawn from classic children's literature into one classroom-ready sourcebook. Many of the assignments can be adapted to suit children younger or older than 8-11. We all love a story.

This book provides teachers of children at Key Stages 1 and 2 with a much-needed source of exciting and creative drama-based activities, designed to improve literacy. As useful for the drama novice as for the busy literacy co-ordinator, these flexible activities are designed to help teachers meet National Curriculum and National Literacy Strategy (NLS) requirements, particularly through speaking and listening.
The book is divided into three parts:

Part 1 looks at literacy and the power of drama as a 'brain-friendly' medium for teaching and learning.
Part 2 contains ten structured, practical units of work, each based on a different story, poem, play or traditional tale or rhyme and each linked directly to the requirements and objectives of the NLS and the QCA objectives for speaking and listening.
Part 3 contains photocopiable Literacy Support Sheets for teachers to use and adapt for their own classroom needs.

All units of work have been tried and tested by the authors, giving teachers a springboard from which to enhance and extend their literacy lessons, and engage the imagination of their pupils. The book is also the ideal resource for student teachers.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203166981

Teaching students how to write more effectively is a goal that English teachers of all levels share. How can you motivate your students to produce their best writing, think critically, and participate more actively in class? How can you conduct workshops in your classroom that create a more dynamic, interactive, student-centered environment? This practical, comprehensive guide to teaching writing offers English teachers a variety of new, classroom-tested instructional activities, workshops, lesson plans, journal entries, teaching strategies, and creative assignments to use in their classrooms, including modified mini-lessons and group discussions that engage students and stimulate critical thinking. Emphasizing the proven benefits of cooperative learning, the book includes step-by-step instructions for special writing workshops on invention strategies, critical reading, thesis statements, draft feedback, narrative writing, debates, outlining, introductions, proofreading and editing, and much more. Additional topics include how to coach students, manage problematic students, attack plagiarism, and deal with student evaluations.

Originally published in 1982. This book charts the reading progress of ten children through their first three years at school, concentrating particularly on their problems and the ways they coped with them. The author uses these case studies to analyse the children's understanding, experience of behaviour associated with literacy, and developing knowledge of spelling in the early stages of learning to read. Her analysis of the children's difficulties and successes, against the background of their home experience, classroom activities and teachers' methods, calls in question any simplistic generalisations about the ways that background and teaching method can affect reading progress.

Originally published in 1986. The traditional approach to teaching writing concentrates on mastering the different aspects of writing in the hope that these will eventually unite as a set of integrated skills. More 'progressive' teachers emphasise that writing is a total process which is 'caught' intuitively rather than explicitly taught. Both models are partially unsatisfactory, and consequently a third approach has evolved which seeks to combine the best of both. This book considers this 'systematic' approach, which seeks to retain the emphasis on writing as a total process but identifies within each communicative context the set of sub-skills involved. The author discusses and illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of this approach and the changes in professional thinking and practice that are essential to its successful adoption. He presents an overview of the nature of the writing process, to enable teachers to make clearer and more explicit statements about their objectives in setting classroom writing tasks.

Originally published in 1976. How do children learn to write? What stages to they pass through in mastering this skill? What part can teachers play in aiding their development? These are some of the questions that this book sets out to answer. This book offers a perspective on writing which places children's language resources and their development at its centre. It discusses the purpose of writing, ways of classifying its variety, providing contexts for writing, its treatment in schools and methods for helping children to overcome difficulties. A section explores the arguments for a writing policy or programme in schools, and offering guidance on considerations that shape policy making.

"Spelltrack" is a practical approach to spelling, developed to help children who have specific difficulties with phoneme awareness, segmenting, blending and phoneme-letter correspondences. It helps to maintain a systematic progression through the process of learning to read and spell.
This book presents activities using tracking techniques to help those learners who have particular difficulty in memorizing high frequency words. By circling (tracking) each letter in one continuous movement, at the same time as saying the letter name, the learner is using visual and kinesthetic senses as well as learning the phonic components of the word. Writing out the spelling from memory, saying the letter names or mnemonic as he or she does so, provides reinforcement of correct letter formation and good handwriting.
The workbook focuses on helping children to learn 'tricky' words that are not phonically regular. Words in common everyday sequences have been included too, to give learners confidence with these words as quickly as possible.
Using Spelltrack activities can help children to scan a line of type effectively, improving reading, letter recognition and discrimination skills; correct problems of left-to-right directionality, omissions and reversals; improve visual recognition, matching and selecting; improve graphic knowledge and phoneme/graphic correspondence; work on fine motor control; consolidate phonic skills and early spelling strategies; and learn proofreading skills.