·        Incorporates the Common Core State Standards and the IRA’s Revised 2010 Standards for Reading Professionals, complete with lessons and suggestions for translating standards into practice.
·        Includes more than 30 sample lessons showing the ways in which key techniques can be taught and reinforced.
·        Describes more than a dozen real-life examples of Exemplary Teaching illustrating the ways in which literacy might be developed in a variety of content area classes.
·        Presents the theories and research the techniques or assessment being discussed are built upon, helping readers become better able to adapt or create techniques based on theory.
·        Provides specific suggestions for working with struggling readers and writers, including a detailed discussion of Response to Intervention in Chapter 14, an extensive list of commercial intervention programs, and suggestions for working with students who have a variety of learning difficulties. Also included: a discussion of the Strategic Instruction Model and the Content Literacy Continuum, which are research-based approaches for enhancing content area learning; suggestions for working with students who have difficulty with multisyllabic words; ideas for matching students with materials that are on their appropriate instructional level; and suggestions for differentiating instruction so that the needs of all students are met.
·        Includes extensive suggestions for building academic language and adapting instruction to meet the needs of English language learners, including a list of important academic terms.
·        Emphasizes Assessing for Learning including discussions of a wide range of informal and formal formative and summative assessments, the movement to assess gains in student learning, and holding teachers’ accountable for student learning.
·        Discusses new literacies and digital tools along with suggestions for using a variety of digital tools: blogging, microblogging, sharing forums, wikis, podcasts, subject databases, and social networking.
·        Explores ways of using process writing, writing workshops, rubrics, and discipline specific writing, including a discussion of the highly successful Collins writing program, detailed research-based procedures for teaching the writing of arguments and explanations, and specific techniques for teaching English learners.
·        Incorporates the latest findings from cognitive psychology and describes research-based study, practice, and review techniques.
·        Includes excellent reinforcing pedagogy:
- Each chapter begins with an Anticipation Guide and Using What You Know to help activate students’ prior knowledge and help them connect new information with what they already know.
- Each chapter section ends with a checkup that encourages students to summarize what they learned and to judge whether or not their learning is accurate.
- Each chapter ends with a Reflection and Application activity to give readers a chance to think about and use their learning.
