Chapter 1 Creating Classrooms That Work
Observing in the Classrooms of Unusually Effective Teachers 3
Observing in the Most Successful Schools 7
What We Know About Effective Classrooms 9
Common Core Raises the Bar 11
Creating Your Classroom That Works in the Common Core Era 12
Chapter 2 Creating Independent Readers
Assess and Document Your Students’Independent Reading 14
Make a Teacher Read-Aloud an Everyday Event 14
Schedule Time Every Day for Independent Reading 20
Accumulate the Widest Possible Variety of Reading Materials 21
Schedule Conferences So You Can Talk with Your Students
About Their Reading 22
Make Time for Sharing and Responding 24
Summary 26
Chapter 3 Building the Literacy Foundation
Concepts That Form the Foundation for Literacy 30
Activities for Building the Foundation 33
Summary 44
Chapter 4 Fluency
Mandate Easy Reading for Everyone 47
Model Fluent, Expressive Reading 49
Provide Engaging Rereading Opportunities 51
Use a Word Wall to Teach High-Frequency Words 53
Summary 57
Chapter 5 Teaching Phonics and Spelling Patterns
Guess the Covered Word 61
Using Words You Know 64
Making Words 67
The Nifty-Thrifty-Fifty 76
Summary 80
Chapter 6 Meaning Vocabulary
How Do We Learn All the Words We Know? 84
Teach Vocabulary with “Real Things” 86
Talking Partners 88
Maximize Word Learning from Reading 90
Teach Independent Word Learning Strategies 96
Promote Word Wonder 99
Summary 100
Chapter 7 Comprehension
Comprehension Strategies 103
Think-Alouds to Teach Comprehension Strategies 104
Lesson Frameworks for Comprehending Narrative Text 109
Summary 118
Chapter 8 Reading Informational Text
Lesson Frameworks for Close Reading and Making Inferences 122
Summary 148
Chapter 9 Writing
Writer’s Workshop 152
Adding Editing to Writer’s Workshop 155
Adding Conferencing, Publishing, and Author’s Chair to Writer’s Workshop 159
Adding Revising to Writer’s Workshop 163
Focused Writing 170
Summary 175
Chapter 10 Reading and Writing Across the Curriculum
Reading-Writing Connections 178
Main Idea Trees 178
Time Lines 180
Compare/Contrast Bubbles 181
Think-Writes 183
Summary 191
Chapter 11 Assessment
What Is Assessment? 193
Determining Student Reading Level 193
Identifying Good Literacy Behaviors and Documenting Student Progress 196
Summary 203
Chapter 12 Differentiation and Interventions for Struggling Readers
Targeted Tier 2 Interventions for Struggling Readers 209
Summary 226
References 227
Index 229