Barbara M. Taylor

P. David Pearson

This vol. explores reading practices in sch's where at-risk stud's beat the odds in learning to read. Some chapters take a broad view, compar. practices across sch's & classrooms, while others deal with the story of a single project over multiple sites.

Effective Schools, Accomplished Teachers

Teaching Reading

Michael F. Graves

Paulus Willem van den Broek

Reading comprehension is of great concern to many Americans, as evidenced by the mandate in most states today for graduation standards in reading and for assessments aligned to those standards. This book focuses on what has been learned from research about fostering reading comprehension in the middle grades, providing a broad overview of current educational and psychological research about effective strategies for teaching reading to middle grade students. Following an introduction by the editors, essays in the book are as follows: (1) "The Mind in Action: What It Means to Comprehend during Reading" (Paul van den Broeck and Kathleen E. Kremer); (2) "Comprehension Instruction in Elementary School: A Quarter-Century of Research Progress" (Michael Pressley); (3) "Explicit and Implicit Instruction in Comprehension" (Janice A. Dole); (4) "Balancing Literature and Instruction: Lessons from the Book Club Project" (Taffy E. Raphael); (5) "Building Student Capacity to Work Productively during Peer-Assisted Reading Activities" (Lynn S. Fuchs and Douglas Fuchs); (6) "A Vocabulary Program to Complement and Bolster a Middle-Grade Comprehension Program" (Michael F. Graves); (7) "Classroom Talk about Texts: Is It Dear, Cheap, or a Bargain at Any Price?" (Donna E. Alvermann); (8) "Literacy Lessons Derived from the Instruction of Six Latina/Latino Teachers" (Robert T. Jimenez); and (9) "Beyond Balance: Goal Awareness, Developmental Progressions, Tailoring to the Context, and Supports for Teachers in Ideal Reading and Literacy Programs" (Jere Brophy). (NKA)

Fostering Comprehension in the Middle Grades

Reading for Meaning

This unique book tells the story of a select group of schools and teachers who have managed to beat the odds in terms of improving elementary students reading achievement. Originating with the CIERA School Change Project directed by Barbara Taylor and David Pearson, it was subsequently expanded to include the work of other research teams doing similar work. It combines large scale studies of effective schools and teachers (Part I) with case studies of individual schools and teachers who have successfully transformed research findings into situation-specific strategies appropriate to their schools and classrooms (Parts II and III). The book's distinct contribution is showing that no matter how consistent the research findings on effective school and classroom practice, groups of teachers must improvise their own situation-specific programs and practices. In short, they must be able to create variations on a common theme. Key features of this outstanding new volume include: *Integration of research and cases--One cannot fully understand research-based general principles without knowing how they play themselves out in specific settings. Similarly, one cannot fully understand cases without seeing the commonalities across different schools and classrooms sharing similar goals. This book provides both perspectives. *Diverse cases--The schools and classrooms depicted in this book are urban, rural, and suburban; poor and middle class; and English-only and bilingual. Rather than telling readers how to beat the odds, it provides them with a wide variety of cases from which they can extrapolate to build their own customized teaching programs and practices. *Summarizing section--The final section contains a summary of research on effective schools and teachers and a concluding chapter by Gerry Duffy and Jim Hoffman in which they reflect on the book's content and possible directions for future research. The book is targeted to both in-service elementary teachers and literacy students in advanced college courses.

Barbara Taylor

Elfrieda H. Hiebert

This edited book brings together descriptions of seven literacy intervention programs used by experts to prevent early reading failure in grades K-1. Programs focus on story book reading and writing with attention to word-level strategies, and are developmental, not remedial. Early childhood literacy, diagnosis and treatment of reading difficulties.

Barbara M. Taylor

Books

Your next favorite book is out there