LikeToRead.com

A Bibliography of Favorites
from Karen Haag

What's NEW? ...and ...GREAT Book-Study Books!

1. NEW:-)Thinking Out Loud on Paper: Student Daybooks as a Tool for Learning, Lilian Brannon, Sally Griffin, Karen Haag, Tony Iannone, Cynthia Urbanski and Shana Woodward, Heinemann, 2008. ISBN: 0-325-01229-6: Five of my colleagues and I detail personal journeys introducing and sustaining daybooks in our classrooms. We are indebted to Donald Murray who coined the term "daybook," a notebook teachers and students write in all day. Maintaining a daybook is a responsibility that rests on the shoulders of students: a place to write, think, reflect, set goals and assess their work in any subject matter and at any grade level K-college. Students can use daybooks effectively if shown how as we explain in our book.
2. Do I Really Have To Teach Reading? Content Comprehension, Grades 6-8, my new favorite. Tovani shares ideas for teaching middle and high school students. For those of us who have wondered what are the next steps or how can I teach high-achieving students, I like this book. It helps me see the possibilities for teaching beyond my beginning lessons. For me, the book is a model for teaching older intermediate and gifted students how to think more deeply about texts, even though Cris Tovani intended the book to help teachers struggling with middle and high school challenges. Stenhouse Publishers, 2004, 138 pages. ISBN: 1571103767.
3. 7 Keys To Comprehension: How To Help You Kids Read It and Get It! Three Rivers Press, ISBN: 0761515494, 2003. Susan Zimmermann and Chryse Hutchins wrote this book for parents. It is a wonderful resource for all of us. If you are new to teaching the proficient reader strategies, then this book outlines possibilites for teaching each strategy. Easy to read. Easy to implement. Great to recommend to parents. My copy is covered in sticky notes. 224 pages.
4. Improving Comprehension with Think-Aloud Strategies by Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Scholastic, ISBN: 0-439-21859-4. If as Keene and Zimmermann assert that think aloud is the bread-and-butter strategy for teaching proficient reader strategies, then this book should be read by every teacher! I didn't really feel like I modeled thinking aloud very well. I read Wilhelm's book and it answered my questions. I especially like the continuum he lays out for scaffolding children from listening to their teacher think aloud, to thinking along with their teachers, and through 6 other steps before working independently. I believe now that I'd been skipping my children too fast from listening to me to working on their own. I like the way he designs modeling in a way that more gradually releases the responsibility.
5. NEW:-) Comprehension Connections: Bridges to Strategic Reading, Tanny McGregor, Heinemann, 2007, ISBN: 0325008876: If you want some concrete lesson ideas for teaching the proficient reader strategies to younger students or new-to-reading-strategies students, THIS IS YOUR BOOK! Use bowls, lint brushes, shells, and old shoes to create "launching lessons," anchor lessons which stick. Build bridges from there to thinking about reading using every strategy. The author writes a chapter on each. I just read it. I can't wait to try McGregor's ideas plus create some of my own.
6. Mosaic of Thought, Second Edition: The Power of Comprehension Strategy Instruction, Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann, Heinemann, 2007. ISBN: 0325010358: Keene and Zimmerman updated Mosaic of Thought: Teaching Comprehension in a Reader's Workshop on the 10th anniversary of the first edition (ISBN: 0-435-07237-4). The authors once again take the teacher-reader on a chapter-by-chapter journey through the proficient reader strategies. The teacher thinks about her use of each strategy as a reader of challenging texts. She then learns how others created classrooms which fostered an understanding of the strategies for their students. The 2007 edition is well-worth the investment as Keene and Zimmermann share what they've refined over the last decade.
7. Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement, Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis, Stenhouse Publishers, 2007, ISBN: 1-57110-481-X: Like Keene and Zimmermann, authors Harvey and Goudvis updated their first book from 2000. These authors bring us over forty lesson ideas for teaching the proficient reader strategies. The appendix is filled with ready-to-use ideas that guide children through the use of strategies when reading PLUS an extensive list of books that work for each reading strategy. If you need to see how lessons can be structured for teaching students to use the proficient reader strategies, you need this book. 339 pages.
8. Comprehending Math: Adapting Reading Strategies to Teach Mathematics, K-6, Arthur Hyde, Heinemann, 2006. ISBN: 0-325-00949-X. 186 pages. I'm just reading this book now and I'm so excited. I knew the processes for thinking about any content area are the same. Now, Hyde makes it easy to take the proficient reader strategies to thinking about math. He argues that we should be using the same terminology from grade level to grade level and content to content. He shows us how.
9. Where have all the bluebirds gone? how to soar with flexible grouping by JoAnne Schudt and Michael P. Ford. As my teachers struggled with ways to group children other than by ability, we found this book. As a group, we chose to study one chapter a month and try the recommended grouping style: whole, small, individualized, cooperative, paired, interest and multi-aged groups. The book got us out of the rut of grouping the children for reading in August and keeping the groups the same all year. Heinemann Books, ISBN: 0-325-00437-4
10. Good-bye Round Robin: 25 Effective Oral Reading Strategies by Michael F. Opitz and Timothy V. Rasinski, Heinemann, 1998. This book explains why round robin reading is actually harmful to reading development. In it's place, the authors suggest 25 other ways to give students opportunities to read aloud that are much more effective.
11. A Teacher's Guide to Standardized Reading: Knowledge is Power by Lucy Calkins, Kate Montgomery and Donna Santman, Heinemann, 1998. ISBN: 0-325-00000-X: These authors explain everything teachers should know about standardized testing. They provide a staff development model for teachers who want to study tests and how to help kids be successful on them. I loved the way the authors engaged their colleagues and students in an inquiry study of testing in order to understand what each test required of test takers. Knowing how the tests were scored affected the test-taking tips the teachers taught. Know your state's test; knowledge is power. 185 pages.

The NEW Classics: Must-Haves!

1. Reading With Meaning: Teaching Comprehension in the Primary Grades by Debbie Miller. 2002. ISBN: 1 57110 307 4: Miller starts us off with ideas for teaching the youngest readers how to think about thinking while reading. It's a must for intermediate age children who are just learning about these strategies as well. I especially like the visuals of children's work so teachers can see what's possible. 174 pages. I also LOVE her videos, Happy Reading, Stenhouse Publishers, ISBN: 978-157110-357-4. I've watched them so many times I've lost count and yet each time I see and learn more.
2. Nonfiction Matters: Reading, Writing and Research in Grades 3-8 by Stephanie Harvey. 1998. ISBN: 1-57110-072-5. Sixty per cent of our NC reading test is nonfiction material. Harvey's book teaches kids how to read nonfiction, conduct research and write nonfiction with flare. She has many suggestions for double-entry journals and helping students to think through their ideas. 217 pages.
3. What Really Matters for Struggling Readers: Designing Research-Based Programs, Richard L. Allington, Longman Publisher, 2000, ISBN: 0321063961, Need facts and figures to make you a believer? Richard Allington is the one who delivers. After reading this book, you will be compelled to make changes. 176 pages.
4. Subjects Matter: Every Teacher's Guide to Content Area Reading by Harvey Daniels and Steven Zemelman, Heinemann, ISBN: 0-325-00595-8, 2004: 288 pages. Daniels and Zemelman write in an entertaining, folksy style about reading strategies. They make you "get it." Plus, they include lesson plans to help you teach strategies to struggling students. The focus is on high school students, but I use it for elementary!
5. Knee to Knee, Eye to Eye: Circling in On Comprehension by Ardith Davis Cole, Heinemann, 2003, ISBN: 0-325-00494-3: Students aren't coached on conversations any more. Families have moved away from eating dinners together and entertaining one another with stories. Cole makes the case that teachers need to model how conversations about books work. The author lays out detailed steps to help students talk to one another about ideas. 176 pages.

REALLY nice to have

1. Revisit, Reflect, Retell: Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension, Linda Hoyt, Heinemann, 1998, ISBN: 0-325-00071-9: Here's a handbook of ideas for helping children to retell stories. Easy-to-use activities challenge us as teachers to think of reader response in light of the proficient reader strategies. 90 reproducible activities that help kids get to the heart of the story: summarizing and retelling the most important parts. 194 pages.
2. Snapshots: Literacy Minilessons Up Close, Linda Hoyt, Heinemann, 2000, ISBN: 0-325-00272-X: Hoyt creates a handbook of minilessons which teach the proficient reader strategies from visualization to determining most important ideas. 262 pages.
3. Make It Real: Strategies for Success with Informational Texts, Linda Hoyt, Heinemann, 2002, ISBN: 0-325-00537-0: Hoyt writes a truckload of nonfiction lessons and writing-response ideas for thinking. Again, I like the visuals and the simple format that makes it very teacher-friendly. I use it every month as I plan my strategy lessons. 272 pages.
4. I Read It but I Don't Get It: Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers by Cris Tovani and Ellin Oliver Keene, Stenhouse, 2000, ISBN: 157110089X: This book came out in the initial stages and so the focus is on questioning, summarizing, and inferring. Tovani teaches high school students and so this book is a compilation of her best lesson plans. 140 pages.
5. It's Never Too Late: Leading Adolescents to Lifelong Literacy, Janet Allen, University of Central Florida, Heinemann, 1995, ISBN: 0-435-08839-4: Allen details the story of her journey alongside reluctant high school readers. She includes lesson ideas, activities, and surveys. Her book is an inspiring read for anyone who could use a mentor to lead you step by step through the difficulties of working with readers who hate reading. 218 pages.
6. The SSR Handbook: How to Organize and Manage a Sustained Silent Reading Program by Janice Pilgreen, Heinemann, 2000, ISBN: 0-86709-462-1 Silent Sustained Reading is not 30 minutes of children reading while the teacher sits at her desk. This book helps the teacher understand how to manage the time effectively and make the students accountable for their own reading choices. 160 pages.

DAYBOOKS, Writer's Notebooks, Response Journals

1. Thinking Out Loud on Paper: Student Daybooks as a Tool for Learning, Lilian Brannon, Sally Griffin, Karen Haag, Tony Iannone, Cynthia Urbanski and Shana Woodward, Heinemann, 2008. ISBN: 0-325-01229-6: Five of my colleagues and I detail personal journeys introducing and sustaining daybooks in our classrooms. We are indebted to Donald Murray who coined the term "daybook," a notebook teachers and students write in all day. Maintaining a daybook is a responsibility that rests on the shoulders of students: a place to write, think, reflect, set goals and assess their work in any subject matter and at any grade level K-college. Students can use daybooks effectively if shown how as we explain in our book.
2. Breathing In, Breathing Out: Keeping a Writer's Notebook, by Ralph Fletcher, Heinemann, 1996. This book is the best books for helping teachers learn more about keeping daybooks. This book is for adults but the concept can be taught to students. He has a student book out also, A Writer's Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You that I highly recommend for ages 9-12. Many of my teachers start the year by reading the chapters aloud and trying the strategies he recommends for finding topics, revising stories and, in general, living the writer's life.
3. Notebook Know How: Strategies for the Writer's Notebook, by Aimee Buckner, fourth-grade teacher. Buckner's book is similar to our book, Thinking Out Loud on Paper, in that the author suggests strategies for launching writer's notebooks. Her focus is on intermediate children and writer's workshop whereas our book is for K-12, writer's workshop, and all content areas including a technology chapter. I found Notebook Know How to be a very useful resource to share with new-to-the-concept teachers. The book was first published by Stenhouse in 2005. ISBN: 157-1104-135. It's short and filled with writing-lesson ideas that I find useful. 136 pages.
4. Response Journals: Inviting Students to Think and Write About Literature (Teaching Strategies) by Julie Wollman-Bonilla. Scholastic Books, 1996, ASIN: 0590491377: an easy summary of various journal responses and managing the paper load. 79 pages.

Vocabulary Instruction

1. Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction by Donald Bear, Shane Templeton, Marcia Invernizzi and Francine Johnston. Stepping Stone Publishers. If ever there was a complete guide for helping kids unlock the reading code, this book is it for me. It starts with activities for kids in the emergent stage and moves toward lessons for helping intermediate kids. The whole book is a compilation of strategies that makes word study interesting. 432 pages.
2. Words, Words, Words: Teaching Vocabulary in Grades 4-12 by Janet Allen. Stenhouse Publishers, 1999, ISBN: 1-57110-085-7: Explicit vocabulary instruction spelled out for those of us who don't know what to do to actually help children learn and retain new words. 160 pages.

The Classics

1. Supporting Struggling Readers and Writers: Strategies for Classroom Intervention 3-6 by Dorothy Strickland, Kathy Ganske, & Joanne K. Monroe, Stenhouse Publishers, 2002, ISBN 0-87207-176-6: I love this book. If you have struggling-reader questions, these authors have answers. Their ideas make sense and give affirmation and structure to your instincts.
2. In the Middle: New Understandings About Writing, Reading and Learning by Nancie Atwell, Heinemann, 1998, ISBN: 0-86709-374-9, for the upper grade students, written for middle-schoolers. I use this book over and over again. It takes the reader page by page through the how-tos of setting up effective reading and writing workshop time. The author shares classroom-tested management tools, assessment tools, book lists, and relevant strategies. 507 pages.
3. Lifetime Guarantees: Toward Ambitious Literacy Teaching, Shelley Harwayne, Founding Principal, The Manhattan New School, NY, Deputy Superintendent of NY School District #2, Heinemann, 2000, ISBN: 0-325-00241-X: Harwayne gives us an ambitious, comprehensive, literacy bible with ideas, surveys, pictures, samples, definitions, and a wonderful guarantee: children will love to read and write for life. Shelly teaches children to live the life of the writer and sees reading and writing as one. Her book is filled with ideas and sources!
4. Conversations: Strategies for Teaching, Learning, and Evaluating by Regie Routman, Heinemann, ISBN: 0-325-00109-X. Regie has published a reading bible that should sit on every teacher's desk. Every possible reading strategy is defined and explained. Just the blue pages - resources for teachers - are worth perusing. Over 800 pages.
5. Guiding Readers and Writers (Grades 3-6): Teaching Comprehension, Genre, and Content Literacy, Irene C. Fountas, Lesley College, Gay Su Pinnell, The Ohio State University, Heinemann, 2000, ISBN: 0-325-00310-6: Fountas and Pinnell lead us through an extensive detailing of each strategy with definitions, explanations and examples.
6. Improving Reading: A Handbook of Strategies by Jerry L. Johns and David Lenski. Got a child with a reading problem? Strategies for helping are in this book. Look up lesson plans by the problem you face: identifying and understanding words, promoting comprehension, developing strategic readers, and even fostering study skills and test-taking strategies. 560 pages.
7. Reading Strategies: Focus on Comprehension, Goodman, Watson and Burke, Richard C. Owen Publishers. The authors lead students to discover the reading strategy they use to comprehend. I love the activities from a constructionist approach that provides the springboard for discussion about reading and how it works.

My Favorite Theory Books

1. Reading Without Nonsense by Frank Smith, Teachers College Press: Smith deals with all kinds of issues in regards to reading: making sense of reading, problems and possibilities of memory, comprehension, readers, defining reading, learning to read, the teacher's role. Just a good basic read but not for the light-hearted. 161 pages.
2. Reading To, With and By Children, Margaret E. Mooney, Richard C. Owen Publishers, 1990. ISBN: 0-913-46118-0: Mooney lays out a philosophy for teaching reading: children should read books that are easy to understand, texts that require the skillful assistance of an instructor, and read alouds every day. So many books refer to Mooney's work that everyone should read the original. Chapters take the reader through read aloud, shared reading, guided reading, language experience, independent reading, and reader response. An easy read, it's 92 pages.
3. Beyond Traditional Phonics: Research Discoveries and Reading Instruction by Maragaret Moustafa - another basic read. Heinemann, 1997. ISBN: 0-435-07247-1: Moustafa helped clear up the phonics debate for me. She explains the research in a way I could understand and provided practical activities that helped me apply it. 96 pages.
4. Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children by the National Research Council - the report by the National Research Council of the latest effective, substantiated best practices by which reading experts should abide. Dry reading but worth the effort! We are the experts!
5. The I-Search Paper: Revised Edition of Searching Writing, Ken Macrorie, Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1988, ISBN: 0867092238, Macrorie's idea was fresh in the 80s: Students choose a topic to research. Unfortunately, it is still a new idea in all too many cases today. Macrorie leads students through how to select a topic, think through why the topic is important, write the story of the hunt, and share what is learned. He includes sample of completed I-Search papers. 359 pages.
6. "Supporting a strategic stance in the classroom," by Sarah L. Dowhower, Reading Teacher, April 1999: Dowhower provides teachers with a comprehension strategy framework lesson plan in order to be intentional about including proficient reader strategies in our lessons.