Joyful Literacy Interventions

About This Book: Joyful Literacy Interventions describes a research-based, comprehensive classroom intervention approach that promises over 90% literacy success for all children by the end of third grade when implemented in its entirety.The stage is set in a playful primary classroom learning environment. While play is critical in early learning classrooms where child development theories must prevail, vulnerable children need more than play. Play is simply not enough! This book is also about explicit skill instruction in preschool, kindergarten and first and second grade-as a top priority. What makes this book unique is that Janet describes how to implement a skill-mastery model invisibly in a play-based environment through games, play, inquiry and targeted small group instruction. Janet's passion and determination to make a difference for disadvantaged children shines through in Joyful Literacy Interventions. Her book is based on the most recent literacy research such as the NELP (National Early Literacy Panel, 2008) report, which is a meta-analysis of 500 exemplary literacy studies conducted in the last decade. This compelling research highlights the factors that have the most lasting effect on future reading success if implemented in the early years. Alphabetic principles, phonological awareness, shared reading and shared writing, rapid automatized naming, and use of children's names as a key instructional strategy are featured prominently.In Joyful Literacy Interventions Janet has merged the recommendations of the NELP Report with her 40 years of experiences as a primary teacher and administrator; her recent PhD in Language, Literacy and Early Learning and the experiences of 200 classroom sites where her approach was field-tested.She has designed a unique assessment and tracking system that facilitates skill development and differentiated instruction in the midst of a playful and inquiry-based learning center classroom. It elegantly provides the teacher with detailed data to inform daily instruction for small "like-need" groups. Vulnerable children get the "catch-up" instruction they require while feeling safe and happy. Janet describes how to joyfully implement play and the essential literacy skills so that vulnerable children will thrive in classroom-based interventions. The book weaves nine essential research-based components into practical classroom applications. Each chapter describes essential skills, concepts and experiences needed for literacy success for all children. Implemented together the result is a holistic classroom experience that promises literacy success for many disadvantaged children.The first seven chapters provide the reader with: Janet's wisdom that evolved over 40 years in her experiences as teacher, principal, superintendent and professor; a synopsis of the latest, persuasive research; key references to other popular authors; teacher implementation stories from Janet's pilot sites; hundreds of practical ideas for the reader to implement; and colored photos throughout the book that illustrate possibilities and results. The chapters' topics address: a dynamic classroom environment; assessment and tracking; the essential literacy skills; learning center design; word recognition; shared reading and writing; and involving families in practice literacy activities at home.Chapter 8 provides a checklist that describes the ideal classroom by listing the research-based criteria and observable indicators in a classroom when full implementation is achieved. Chapter 9 describes a district and a classroom case study from Janet's 200 pilot sites. Joyful Literacy Interventions weaves the essential components together into practical classroom applications that are already proving to be highly effective for disadvantaged children.This book is a "must-read" for advocates of vulnerable children.

Putting On the Blitz (Part Two) is about an intervention system that works! It is a sequel to Joyful Literacy Interventions (Part One), which was published three years ago. Joyful Literacy Interventions proposed a researched-based system for achieving a 90% success rate in literacy for all children by the end of grade 2. For the past three years hundreds of teachers have been implementing the Joyful Literacy strategy in their classrooms. Putting On the Blitz: Our Breakthrough Methodology documents teachers' stories of actual implementation, describing their successes and challenges. Chapter One details the anatomy of a "Blitz" - an innovative, dynamic and playful strategy for targeting essential literacy skills and closing gaps quickly - in a matter of two or three weeks. The Blitz can be an in-classroom implementation or a cross-grade and school-wide system. Thirty-one teachers describe how they have used the Blitz successfully in their classrooms. They provide data to prove it works! In most classrooms over 90% of children are reading at grade level in kindergarten and grade one in two years of implementation. Chapter Two introduces a new and powerfully simple assessment and tracking system that is used to inform daily classroom instruction. The targeted skills were identified in the NELP (2009) research as those essential to future literacy success. The system is presented in reproducible form for immediate use. Chapter Three describes each skill set and provides teachers with an understanding about why the skill set is important, how to assess individual children quickly and efficiently and provides concrete examples so teachers don't have to research further but can apply the assessments with a moment's notice. Once the assessments are complete, grouping is simplified and small group instruction becomes efficiently implemented with mastery as a focus. Chapter Four is a treasure-trove of over 30 tried-and-true captivating games that will last teachers a full year as they implement the Blitz system playfully and with excitement. Children have so much fun they don't want to 'graduate' from the Blitz. Putting on the Blitz is a practical and proven NEW and joyful strategy for meeting all students' needs as described by committed classroom professionals. It is about the joy in the faces of struggling readers as they discover they can learn to read and write just like everyone else. For a description of how to design classroom strategies for learning in an active learning-center joyful classroom - the centerpiece for Blitz strategies - purchase our companion book Joyful literacy Interventions (2014).

This well-rounded collection of research-based reading intervention strategies will support and inform your RTI efforts. The book also includes teacher-friendly sample lesson plans and miniroutines that are easy to understand and adapt. Many of the strategies motivate average and above-average students as well as scaffold struggling readers. Maximize the power of these interventions by using them across grade-level teams or schoolwide.

In this much anticipated follow-up to their groundbreaking book, Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom, authors Jan Burkins and Kari Yates, together with co-author Katie Cunningham, extend the conversation in Shifting the Balance 3-5: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Upper Elementary Classroom. This new text is built in mind specifically for grades 3-5 teachers around best practices for the intermediate classroom. Shifting the Balance 3-5 introduces six more shifts across individual chapters that: Zoom in on a common (but not-as helpful-as-we-had-hoped) practice to reconsider Untangle a number of "misunderstandings" that have likely contributed to the use of the common practice Propose a more science-aligned shift to the current practice Provide solid scientific research to support the revised practice Offer a collection of high-leverage, easy-to-implement instructional routines to support the shift to more brain-friendly instruction The authors offer a refreshing approach that is respectful, accessible, and practical - grounded in an earnest commitment to building a bridge between research and classroom practice. As with the first Shifting the Balance, they aim to keep students at the forefront of reading instruction.

"This book is a place to start creating the classroom of your dreams from the very first minute of school, a classroom that is research based, child centered, and in step with the world today." - Christine Hertz and Kristine Mraz The classroom of your dreams starts with one big idea. From the first days of school to the last, Kids First from Day One shares teaching that puts your deepest teaching belief into action: that children are the most important people in the room. Christine Hertz and Kristi Mraz show how to take that single, heartfelt value and create a cohesive, highly effective approach to teaching that addresses today's connected, collaborative world. With infectious enthusiasm, hard-won experience, and a generous dose of humor, Kids First from Day One shows exactly how Christine and Kristi build and maintain a positive, cooperative, responsive classroom where students engage deeply with their learning and one another. Kids First from Day One strengthens and deepens the connections between your love of working with kids, your desire to impact their lives, and your teaching practice. It shares: plans for designing beautiful classroom spaces that burst with the fun of learning positive language and classroom routines that reduce disruptive behavior-without rewards and consequences suggestions for matching students' needs to high-impact teaching structures a treasury of the Christine and Kristi's favorite "teacher stuff" such as quick guides for challenging behavior, small-group planning grids, and parent letters links to videos that model the moves of Christine's and Kristi's own teaching. Just starting out and want to know what really works in classrooms? Curious about how to make your room hum with learning? Or always on the lookout for amazing teaching ideas? Read Kids First from Day One. You'll discover that the classroom of your dreams is well within your reach.

Play is serious business. Whether it's reenacting a favorite book (comprehension and close reading), negotiating the rules for a game (speaking and listening), or collaborating over building blocks (college and career readiness and STEM), Kristi Mraz, Alison Porcelli, and Cheryl Tyler see every day how play helps students reach standards and goals in ways that in-their-seat instruction alone can't do. And not just during playtimes. "We believe there is play in work and work in play," they write. "It helps to have practical ways to carry that mindset into all aspects of the curriculum." In Purposeful Play, they share ways to: optimize and balance different types of play to deepen regular classroom learning teach into play to foster social-emotional skills and a growth mindset bring the impact of play into all your lessons across the day. "We believe that play is one type of environment where children can be rigorous in their learning," Kristi, Alison, and Cheryl write. So they provide a host of lessons, suggestions for classroom setups, helpful tools and charts, curriculum connections, teaching points, and teaching language to help you foster mature play that makes every moment in your classroom instructional. Play doesn't only happen when work is over. Children show us time and time again that play is the way they work. In Purposeful Play, you'll find research-driven methods for making play an engine for rigorous learning in your classroom.

Literacy is a skill for all time, for all people. It is an integral part of our lives, whether we are students or adult professionals. Giving all educators the breadth of knowledge and practical tools that help students strengthen their literacy skills is the focus of Read, Write, Lead. Drawing on her experience as a mentor teacher, reading specialist, instructional coach, and staff developer, author Regie Routman offers time-tested advice on how to develop a schoolwide learning culture that leads to more effective reading and writing across the curriculum. She explains how every school—including yours—can: implement instructional practices that lead to better engagement and achievement in reading and writing for all students, from kindergarten through high school, including second-language and struggling learners; build Professional Literacy Communities of educators working together to create sustainable school change through professional learning based on shared beliefs; reduce the need for intervention through daily practices that ensure success, even for our most vulnerable learners; and embed the language of productive feedback in responsive instruction, conferences, and observations in order to accelerate learning for students, teachers, and leaders. In their own voices, teachers, principals, literacy specialists, and students offer real-life examples of changes that led to dramatic improvement in literacy skills and—perhaps just as important--increased joy in teaching and learning. Scattered throughout the book are “Quick Wins”--ideas and actions that can yield positive, affirming results while tackling the tough work of long-term change.