Independent Reading Inside The Box

This thoughtful guide illustrates how students can use a single sheet of paper to track their comprehension and thinking as they read independently.

The best-selling first edition of this popular book showed teachers how to use a single sheet of paper to add value, authenticity, and accountability to independent reading programs. It emphasized students reading books they love rather than filling reading time with busy work. In this second edition of Independent Reading Inside the Box, Lisa Donohue shares what she has learned from the many teachers who have used her simple approach to reading response. Lisa describes how teachers can do even more to strengthen student comprehension, language, and thinking skills. Full of new ways to monitor, assess, and support students as they are actively engaged in their reading, the book remains committed to the premise that independent reading time is purposeful and directly connected to classroom instruction. This highly awaited second edition explores critical literacy to promote higher-order thinking skills, individualized goal-setting, feedback and monitoring, and personalizing learning. This remarkable book introduces proven strategies for * providing effective feedback and assessment * relating independent reading response to the instructional core * fitting independent reading into the literacy block * using reading-response as prompts and for blended learning tasks * making thinking visible during independent reading * encouraging student choice among reading-response tasks Independent Reading Inside the Box argues for classrooms that offer students choice among the very best material, as well as innovative ways to nurture the value of becoming lifelong readers.

"The best-selling first edition of this popular book showed teachers how to use a single sheet of paper to help students focus on reading books they love rather than filling reading time with busy work. The simple approach offers students an easy way to build and strengthen their comprehension, language, and thinking skills. This highly awaited second edition explores critical literacy to promote higher-order thinking skills, individualized goal setting, feedback and monitoring, and personalizing learning. The author argues for giving students choice and exploring innovative ways to make thinking visible during independent reading."--

Reading for pleasure urgently requires a higher profile to raise attainment and increase children’s engagement as self-motivated and socially interactive readers. Building Communities of Engaged Readers highlights the concept of ‘Reading Teachers’ who are not only knowledgeable about texts for children, but are aware of their own reading identities and prepared to share their enthusiasm and understanding of what being a reader means. Sharing the processes of reading with young readers is an innovative approach to developing new generations of readers. Examining the interplay between the ‘will and the skill’ to read, the book distinctively details a reading for pleasure pedagogy and demonstrates that reader engagement is strongly influenced by relationships between children, teachers, families and communities. Importantly it provides compelling evidence that reciprocal reading communities in school encompass: a shared concept of what it means to be a reader in the 21st century; considerable teacher and child knowledge of children’s literature and other texts; pedagogic practices which acknowledge and develop diverse reader identities; spontaneous ‘inside-text talk’ on the part of all members; a shift in the focus of control and new social spaces that encourage choice and children’s rights as readers. Written by experts in the literacy field and illustrated throughout with examples from the project schools, it is essential reading for all those concerned with improving young people’s enjoyment of and attainment in reading.

Turn any student into a bookworm with a few easy and practical strategies Donalyn Miller says she has yet to meet a child she can’t turn into a reader. No matter how far behind Miller's students might be when they reach her 6th grade classroom, they end up reading an average of 40 to 50 books a year. Miller's unconventional approach dispenses with drills and worksheets that make reading a chore. Instead, she helps students navigate the world of literature and gives them time to read books they pick out themselves. Her love of books and teaching is both infectious and inspiring. In the book, you’ll find: Hands-on strategies for managing and improving your own school library Tactics for helping students walk on their own two feet and continue the reading habit after they’ve finished with your class Data from student surveys and end-of-year feedback that proves how well the Miller Method works The Book Whisperer includes a dynamite list of recommended "kid lit" that helps parents and teachers find the books that students really like to read.

In the series debut The Testing, sixteen-year-old Cia Vale was chosen by the United Commonwealth government as one of the best and brightest graduates of all the colonies . . . a promising leader in the effort to revitalize postwar civilization. In Independent Study, Cia is a freshman at the University in Tosu City with her hometown sweetheart, Tomas--and though the government has tried to erase her memory of the brutal horrors of The Testing, Cia remembers. Her attempts to expose the ugly truth behind the government's murderous programs put her--and her loved ones--in a world of danger. But the future of the Commonwealth depends on her.

This reference provides a comprehensive, up-to-date levelled reading list. Created with the input of hundreds of early literacy teachers, it compiles more than 7000 caption books, natural language texts, series books, and children's literature for kindergarten through grade three.