By Judy Ameline & Judy Chyung
In this issue we are sharing a few of the rich new titles we’ve recently acquired on reading and writing. This list was curated by Librarians at the TDSB Professional Library in the Library Learning Resources and Global Education Department of the Toronto District School Board. Links to TDSB Professional Library Catalogue records have been provided, however, items are available for loan or licensed online access to TDSB staff only.
Akhavan, N. (2018). The big book of literacy tasks, grades K-8: 75 balanced literacy activities students do (not you!). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. (eBook)
Nancy Akhavan provides 75 tasks to ensure gradual release of responsibility by facilitating the transition from teacher modelling to independent practice and application by the student. Supported by research and arranged to simplify lesson planning, this book provides:
- Reading and writing tasks organized into 3 sections: everyday skills, weekly practices, and occasional engagements requiring greater complexity
- Essential mini-lessons
- Teaching charts showing the highlights of each lessonA clear structure for introducing and managing the stages as students move toward independence
- Scaffolding tips for meeting the needs of diverse learners
- Exemplars that offer suggestions on how to use the tasks as formative assessments.
Boushey, G., & Behne, A. (2020). The CAFE book: Engaging all students in daily literacy assessment and instruction. 2nd ed. Portsmouth, NH: Stenhouse. (eBook).
The CAFE Book gives teachers a variety of tools to structure their literacy block and create an environment where students are engaged readers and writers with resources that set them up for success. This second edition provides:
- A new process of planning data-driven instruction;
- Resources to help with lesson planning, assessment, goal setting, and parent involvement;
- A checklist of skills for emerging readers;
- New and improved forms for both the online conferring notebook and a pencil/paper notebook to support more effective conferring with students;
- A resource to guide understanding of student-focused instruction;
- And new and revised guides that explain when to teach a strategy, and provide options for differentiating instruction, and partner strategies.
Burkins, J., & Yates, K. (2021). Shifting the balance: 6 ways to bring the science of reading into the balanced literacy classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Stenhouse. (eBook)
Shifting the Balance offers readers the opportunity to examine the research behind reading instruction, reevaluate current teaching practices, and embrace new possibilities for a truly balanced literacy program. Each chapter discusses a common instructional practice and explores various misconceptions surrounding it. The authors share scientific research and describe instructional routines to support the “shifting” of instructional practice. By highlighting gaps and overlaps in addition to common misunderstandings between the competing philosophies of reading instruction, the authors offer teachers direction for integrating science and balance into their daily literacy instruction.
Chavez, F. (2021). The anti-racist writing workshop: How to decolonize the creative classroom. Chicago: Haymarket Books. (eBook)
The Antiracist Writing Workshop is a call to create healthy, sustainable, and empowering communities for a new generation of writers. Chavez outlines a 21st-century workshop model that both nurtures and gives a platform to writers of colour. This essential resource describes how to:
- Deconstruct our biases to achieve a cultural shift in perspective.
- Design a democratic teaching model to create safe spaces for creative concentration.
- Cultivate and strengthen students of colour to best empower them to effectively use their voice.
- Empower our students to self-advocate as responsible citizens in a global community.
Fisher, D, Frey, H., & Law, N. (2020). Comprehension: The skill, will, and thrill of reading. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. (eBook)
This resource proposes a comprehensive model of reading instruction that emphasizes the need to foster student engagement and motivation. Using a structured approach, students learn that reading is a purposeful act and appreciate that struggle is a natural part of the learning process. Instruction occurs in three phases:
- Developing skills and strategies essential for students to understand text, such as predicting, summarizing, questioning, and inferring.
- Creating the attitudes, incentives, and habits required for students to actively engage with texts.
- Fostering the excitement of comprehension, so that students share their thinking with others and apply their knowledge in other contexts.
Fisher, D., Frey, N., & Akhavan, N. (2019). This is balanced literacy, grades K-6. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. (eBook)
In this hands-on guide, the authors help teachers implement balanced literacy in their classroom. The resource encourages the integration of evidence-based approaches that include: the inclusion of both informational and narrative texts; proven teaching methods; differentiation for diverse learners; and instruction in essential skills such as oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency.
Hennessy, N. L. (2021). The reading comprehension blueprint: Helping students make meaning from text. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing. (eBook)
This resource offers a blueprint for understanding the complexities of reading comprehension and helps teachers deliver evidence-based instruction that enables students to construct meaning from challenging texts. The author provides classroom activities, sample lesson plans, and questions that help teachers reflect on and strengthen their practices, and the photocopiable teaching resources give teachers practical guidance and tools for planning their units, and enable them to adapt their program to the needs of individual students and effectively assess their progress.
Meehan, M. (2020). Every child can write, grades 2-5: Entry points, bridges, and pathways for striving writers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. (eBook)
The author, with a firm belief that every child can write, has written this book to help all students become confident and independent writers. The book shows teachers how to guide striving writers to achieve success in writing using principles of differentiated instruction with adequate entry points, bridges and pathways.
Moomaw, S., & Hieronymus, B. (2020). More than letters: Literacy activities for preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. St Paul, MN: Redleaf Press. (eBook)
This updated version is written for early literacy teachers with a focus on developing the skills needed to decode literature and informational text. The book describes the foundational literacy skills in the learning standards and provides classroom activities with detailed instruction and materials to implement in order to reinforce those skills in early literacy learners.
Muhammad, G. (2020). Cultivating genius: An equity framework for culturally and historically responsive literacy. New York: Scholastic.
The author has a passion for helping students find the genius within themselves by teaching them using a four-layered equity framework derived from the study of literacy development in 19th-century Black literacy societies. This book describes an equity framework that has literacy as its foundation with a focus on human and social issues in teaching all subjects.
Robb, L., & Harrison, D. L.(2021). Guided practice for reading growth, grades 4-8: Texts and lessons to improve fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. (eBook)
This book is written to help developing readers, those students who are reading below their grade level, become independent readers by different strategies including guided reading practices. The book features lesson ideas for teachers with original poems and short texts as reading materials for these students to develop a confident mindset in reading.
Serravallo, J. (2015). The reading strategies book: Your everything guide to developing skilled readers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
This book, written for reading teachers in the elementary grades, provides 300 reading strategies for how teachers can guide their students to read better. The 300 strategies are divided into thirteen main goals for differentiated instruction that delivers the right level at the right time for students’ reading development.
Serravallo, J. (2017). The writing strategies book: Your everything guide to developing skilled writers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
In this book on writing strategies for elementary teachers, the author offers over 300 practical writing strategies grouped under ten goals. Each chapter focuses on one of the ten goals and shows an array of strategies organized by grade level, genre and process. The author also offers advice on how to teach writing goals over time, classroom set-up and how the strategies in the book might fit into your classroom.
Tyner, B. (2019). Climbing the literacy ladder: Small-group instruction to support all readers and writers, preK-5. Newark, Del.: ILA. (eBook)
This practical book helps classroom teachers plan and implement differentiated literacy instruction in small groups for all students from pre- kindergarten through 5th grade. The book provides lesson plans for each of the six stages of students’ reading and writing development (emergent, beginning, fledgling, transitional, fluent, and independent) that target each of the research-based instructional components (fluency, word study, vocabulary, and comprehension).
Judy Ameline is a librarian at the Toronto District School Board Professional Library with almost 30 years experience providing reference service. She is passionate about providing TDSB teachers and leaders access to current, cutting edge information in the field of education to support their professional development needs. Check out the Library’s Pinterest Boards and follow her on Twitter @AmelineJudy
Judy Chyung has extensive experience providing Education Reference and Online Services to the educators and leaders of Toronto District School Board at the TDSB Professional Library. She enjoys reading and learning about the trends in education literature, and assisting TDSB educators with their information needs whether for their classroom support or for their professional learning. One of the initiatives that she leads is the curated Resource Guides for Heritage Months celebrated by TDSB. You can check out the Guides at http://bit.ly/DirectoryHeritageMonthListsPL. Currently she is deeply involved in developing Subject Guides to support TDSB educators and students with their curriculum resource needs. These Subject Guides can be found in the TDSB Virtual Library under the FIND tab.