Deepening Literacy Learning

Stories surround us, support us, and sustain us. We see and hear them when walking down the street, on our digital newsfeeds, in our interactions with one another, in the ways our students play, and in literature, poetry, music, images, multimedia, and dramatic works. While acknowledging the importance of teaching students strategies to read different kinds of text, to write across genres, and to speak and listen with purpose, Katie Egan Cunningham reminds us that when we bridge strategy with the power of story, we deepen literacy learning and foster authentic engagement. Story: Still the Heart of Literacy Learning compels us to ask crucial questions: Why do stories matter? Whose stories count? Where do stories live? How do stories come alive? How do we build stories? How do we talk about stories? And why does this work take courage? Katie shares her story as a classroom teacher, literacy specialist, staff developer, and professor. She shows teachers how to create classrooms of caring and inquisitive readers, writers, and storytellers. Katie explains specific ways to build a classroom library that reflects our diverse society through rich, purposeful, and varied texts. She also provides numerous examples of multigenre and multimodal stories from children's and young adult literature, poetry, songs, and multimedia. The practical toolkit at the end of each chapter demonstrates how to make stories come alive in any classroom.

"Presents some outcomes of a major professional learning project undertaken by ALEA Tasmania which provided teachers with opportunities to design, monitor and implement research based on powerful, accessible ideas about reading comprehension in their own classrooms"--Publisher.

How do we prepare students for a world that's changing so rapidly that a majority of those sitting in classrooms today will go on to hold jobs that don't yet exist, using technologies that haven't yet been invented to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet? For Vicki Vinton, the answer is to help build students' capacities as critical and creative thinkers by shifting to a problem-based approach for teaching reading. Problem-based teaching has taken hold in STEM classes across the country, but it's not common in reading, where we tend to think of problems as existing only at the word level. Dynamic Teaching for Deeper Reading, however, will help you become more aware of the problems texts pose for readers at the literal, inferential, and thematic levels, and then show you how to create opportunities for students to read closely and think deeply as they wrestle with those problems. Additionally, you'll learn how to: - Develop a repertoire of dynamic teaching moves that will help you probe student thinking and provide responsive feedback when students most need it. - Shift your focus from the teaching of complex texts to complex thinking. - Help students develop lines of inquiry as readers. Chock-full of classroom examples and the voices of students figuring things out, Dynamic Teaching for Deeper Reading connects the practices in the book to all sorts of current thinking and trends-from growth mindsets to the Common Core State Standards and from productive struggle to educational neuroscience. That breadth and depth ensures that Vicki's book is one that educators will be talking about-and you don't want to miss.

Tired of hearing about “complex text”? Bothered by the pushy messages about “challenge”? This book is for you! Unlike the many other materials on text complexity, this one focuses on specific comprehension skills that students need in order to really engage with text. This book will help elementary school teachers equip their students with practical tools and understandings of the structures and conventions that allow them to excel, including concrete tools, passages, games, lessons, and examples to teach anaphora, connectives, paragraph structure, gathering evidence (fiction and nonfiction), and text challenge. A final chapter specifies how to stretch students in texts while attending to their stamina, executive skills, and interests. Book Features: Text-based lessons for grades 3–5.Opening vignettes which provide classroom context for each skill.Key objectives and Common Core Standards. Think-aloud language to guide strategy development.Research-based strategies and games. “Real-life scenarios of comprehension breakdowns all teachers will recognize are followed by detailed guidelines for best practice and step-by-step directions for activities to combat and remedy these pitfalls. This book is a valuable resource for all teachers supporting intermediate graders’ reading comprehension.” —Tisha Hayes, University of Virginia “I highly recommend this book for classroom teachers, reading specialists, and interventionists who are looking for ways to deepen students’ comprehension. Additionally, this book provides a rich toolkit for supporting professional development in schools.” —Kelly B. Cartwright, Christopher Newport University “This book is a must-have for any teacher who strives to meet the standards in meaningful, engaging ways.” —Jennifer Powell, Radford University

Inquiry based play; Centers for reading; writing; mathematics and science

This book provides a wealth of enactment techniques that help students apply their social, physical, and intellectual selves to the books they read to help improve their comprehension.