Resources For Middle Grade Reluctant Readers

An orphan and thief, Hugo lives in the walls of a busy train station. He desperately believes a broken automaton will make his dreams come true. But when his world collides with an eccentric girl and a bitter old man, Hugo's undercover life are put in jeopardy. Turn the pages, follow the illustrations and enter an unforgettable new world!

“Moving . . . Readers will nod their heads in sympathy with this guy who breaks the rules for all of the right reasons.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books A Bank Street College of Education Best Book of the Year Indiana Too Good to Miss State Reading List 2018 Timothy is on probation. It’s a strange word—something that happens to other kids, to delinquents, not to kids like him. And yet, he is under house arrest for the next year. He must check in weekly with a probation officer and a therapist, and keep a journal for an entire year. And mostly, he has to stay out of trouble. But when he must take drastic measures to help his struggling family, staying out of trouble proves more difficult than Timothy ever thought it would be. By turns touching and funny, and always original, House Arrest is a middle grade novel in verse about one boy’s path to redemption as he navigates life with a sick brother, a grieving mother, and one tough probation officer. “This gripping novel in verse evokes a wide variety of emotional responses, as it is serious and funny, thrilling and touching, sweet and snarky.” —School Library Journal “Touches of humor lighten the mood, and Holt’s firsthand knowledge of the subject adds depth to this poignant drama without overwhelming it.” —Publishers Weekly “Readers . . . will appreciate Holt’s lessons of compassion and family above all.” —Booklist “House Arrest will hit home with young boys and girls, especially if they have ever dealt with an ill relative. The story is touching, warm, and impressive.” —Kid Lit Reviews

When a family takes a boating trip, the last thing they expect is to be shipwrecked on an island-especially an island with weird, otherworldly plants and animals. Now, what started out as a bad vacation turns into a terrible one as Lyle, Karen, and their two kids, Janie and Reese, must find a way off the island while they dodge its strange and dangerous inhabitants. Is the island alive? Is it from another world? In this rousing, Swiss-Family-Robinson tale with a twist, the answers to these questions could save them... or spell their doom.

Jesse Rigsby hates video games—and for good reason. You see, a video game character is trying to kill him. After getting sucked in the new game Full Blast with his friend Eric, Jesse starts to see the appeal of vaporizing man-size praying mantis while cruising around by jet pack. But pretty soon, a mysterious figure begins following Eric and Jesse, and they discover they can't leave the game. If they don't figure out what's going on fast, they'll be trapped for good!

In this new edition of their groundbreaking book Strategies That Work, Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis share the work and thinking they've done since the second edition came out a decade ago and offer new perspectives on how to explicitly teach thinking strategies so that students become engaged, thoughtful, independent readers. Thirty new lessons and new and revised chapters shine a light on children's thinking, curiosity, and questions. Steph and Anne tackle close reading, close listening, text complexity, and critical thinking in a new chapter on building knowledge through thinking-intensive reading and learning. Other fully revised chapters focus on digital reading, strategies for integrating comprehension and technology, and comprehension across the curriculum. The new edition is organized around three sections: Part I provides readers with a solid introduction to reading comprehension instruction, including the principles that guide practice, suggestions for text selection, and a review of recent research that underlies comprehension instruction. Part II contains lessons to put these principles into practice for all areas of reading comprehension. Part III shows you how to integrate comprehension instruction across the curriculum and the school day, particularly in science and social studies. Updated bibliographies, including the popular "Great Books for Teaching Content," are accessible online. Since the first publication of Strategies That Work, more than a million teachers have benefited from Steph and Anne's practical advice on creating classrooms that are incubators for deep thought. This third edition is a must-have resource for a generation of new teachers--and a welcome refresher for those with dog-eared copies of this timeless guide to teaching comprehension.

Presents a variety of of research-based instructional strategies for use with struggling readers in the grades three through eight.