Books for Teachers
Reading ~ Guided Reading ~ Reader's
Workshop
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Reading ~ Guided Reading ~ Reader's
Workshop
If you're looking for information on how to
do Guided Reading, take Running Records, start a Reader's Workshop, create
Literacy Centers, set up a leveled bookroom at your school or build your
own set of leveled books for a program like my Home
Reading Connection program, you've come to the right place.
Here are all the books you'll need to create
the Balanced Literacy
classroom you've been dreaming of, with thriving readers and writers who
are able to do independent and meaningful Literacy Center activities, instead
of doing busywork at their seats while you read with small groups.
Also on this page:
How to level your books
How Reading Recovery Levels
and Guided Reading Levels compare
Read To Me
By Jane Yolen
Read to me riddles and read to me rhymes,
Read to me stories of magical times.
Read to me tales about castles and kings.
Read to me stories of fabulous things.
Read to me pirates and read to me knights,
Read to me dragons and dragon-book fights.
Read to me spaceships and cowboys and then,
When you are finished -- please read them again.
Professional Books
Guided
Reading:
Good
First Teaching for All Children
by Gay Su Pinnell and Irene C. Fountas
I've practically worn out my copy of this terrific book on developing
a guided reading program. Contains great information on creating
a set of leveled books (with wonderful indexes of hundreds of pre-leveled
books sorted by both level and title for easy reference), setting up a
school bookroom, how to take a Running Record, managing your classroom
during guided reading (or "what are the rest of the kids doing?"), creating
Literacy Centers, and more. Perfect for Four Blocks teachers, too. |
Literacy
at the Crossroads
Critical
Thinking About Reading, Writing,
and
Other Teaching Dilemnas
by Regie Routman ~ from Heinemann
Another book that has taken changed the way I teach. Routman
asserts that teachers can no longer remain silent as the campaign for "back
to basics" teaching grows stronger. So much of the criticism is based
on misconceptions about what constitutes good teaching -- here is a book
that clarifies, offers suggestions, and provides the impetus to make a
difference. Should be required reading for all teachers, regardless
of grade level or subject taught ... there's so much here to learn from!
|
Mosaic
of Thought ~ Teaching Comprehension in a Reader's Workshop
by Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann
(Heinemann 1997)
This was the first selection for our online
professional reading group, and it's a thrilling book to read and use,
regardless of the grade you teach. Using Keene's suggestions, you'll
guide your students in making connections between what they're currently
reading, things they've read in the past, their personal experiences, and
their knowledge of the world at large. By discussing literature,
you'll model how to create sensory images, ask questions, draw inferences,
determine what's important, synthesize ideas, and solve problems, and soon
your students will be doing it themselves. Sound too simple?
I put Keene's methods into use in my classroom as I read each chapter,
and my kids became extremely excited about the connections they were making!
These techniques merge seamlessly into your Guided Reading, Shared Reading,
Independent Reading, and Literature Circle programs, modeling and encouraging
students to think for themselves and share their thoughts with other students.
Their conversations will surprise you after a few short weeks with this
book. It will definitely change the way you think about teaching
reading.
|
Flexible
Grouping in Reading:
Practical
Ways to Help All Students Become Better Readers
By Michael F. Opitz
|
Goodbye
Round Robin
Twenty-Five
Effective Oral Reading Strategies
By Michael F. Opitz ~ from Heinemann
An excellent resource for first grade and up, with classroom-tested
strategies that will work for all teachers. There's something for
everyone in this terrific book.
|
The
Read-Aloud Handbook
(4th Ed) by Jim Trelease
Another one of my most-loved and most-used reference books.
Amazon.com says "Since its initial publication in 1979, this highly acclaimed
reference has informed parents and teachers across the nation and around
the world of the importance of reading aloud to their children. This updated
edition features lists of more than 12,000 titles, from picture books to
novels, that are great for reading aloud." Also available on tape.
|
Hey!
Listen to This
Stories
to Read Aloud
by Jim Trelease, editor
Trelease presents a collection of fifty read-aloud selections from
such well-loved tales as Bambi, Charlotte's Web, Ozma of Oz, Ramona the
Pest, Where the Red Fern Grows, James and the Giant Peach, and Gentle Ben.
Visit Jim Trelease's Website by
clicking
here. |
Three
Voices:
An
Invitation to Poetry
Across
the Curriculum
One of my favorite resources! Many suggestions for using poetry
in Science, Math, and other subject areas.
Amazon sometimes has it back-ordered, but it's worth waiting for!
|
|
Now That I Can Read
I used to need somebody
To sit and read to me.
I'd look at every page they read
And listen carefully.
But now that I am in first grade,
I'm filling up a shelf
With stories, poems, and other books
That I can read myself.
Reading
A story is a special thing.
The ones that I have read,
They do not stay inside the books,
They stay inside my head.
How
to Level Your Own Books
and
the books and stories in your basal series
There are two basic systems for assigning levels
to books: Reading Recovery (a copyrighted program, but they do NOT
publish books) and Guided Reading levels as outlined by Fountas and Pinnell
in Guided
Reading. That book is my teaching bible when it comes to leveling
books.
There is absolutely no reason why you can't
level your books yourself. Start with the books you already own,
including trade books, books from the bookclubs, your basal series
books, etc. My suggestion is that you level everything
you own and write the level on the back cover in black marker, where it's
easy to see. In my classroom, I put a square of either red or blue
masking tape on the upper left corner of the front of each book (blue for
my personal books, red for school-owned books). I write the level
on the tape, for quick reference, and use the colors to quickly return
the books to the correct baskets (my first graders do this for me).
To level books yourself, read the guidelines
in Guided
Reading (pp. 117-130) and use the charts in the back of the book, which
list hundreds of books by title and level. When I need to level a
new book, I check to see if it's in the Guided Reading book. If it's
not there, I check the Reading Recovery lists that I have, to see if the
book was already leveled for the Reading Recovery program. If so,
I have a good starting point, and I convert the R.R. level to a Guided
Reading Level using the chart below as a general guideline. My next
step for all books -- whether they were listed or not -- is to compare
them to several other books I already own (usually at 3 levels) to see
where they seem to fit best.
If you're not a Reading Recovery teacher, absolute
accuracy is unnecessary -- your students will read more than 100 books
during the year, so you don't have to fuss too much about getting each
book perfectly and concisely leveled. The important thing is that
you get your books out and level them as soon as possible, to make your
reading instruction and independent reading time more efficient and effective.
You can obtain lists of Reading Recovery leveled books from the various
publishers by calling and requesting them. Click here
for a list of publishers and how to contact them.
How
Do Reading Recovery Levels
and
Guided Reading Levels Compare?
Guided Reading
Level
|
Reading Recovery
Level
|
|
A
|
1
|
|
B
|
2
|
|
C
|
3 & 4
|
|
D
|
5 & 6
|
|
E
|
7 & 8
|
|
F
|
9 & 10
|
|
G
|
11 & 12
|
|
H
|
13 & 14
|
|
I
|
15 & 16
|
|
J
|
17 & 18
|
|
K
|
19 & 20
|
|
L
|
21
|
|
M
|
22
|
Looking for more ideas?
My bookstore pages have lots of information on how I use
various materials in my classroom, and on activities you can do with your
students. The thematic pages are complete unit resources, with lots
of poems, songs, and links on each page. Make yourself comfortable
and take a look around!
Choose from the categories below.
Underlined subjects are links, the other ones are coming
soon!
These pages are updated often,
so
please come back soon to see
what's new at KinderKorner!
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to browse for books.
Kinder Korner and all non-credited text materials
on this page
are copyright by Victoria Smith, 1998 &
1999.
All rights reserved.
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