Suggested Reading  On Solid Ground Sharon Taberski Looking to move your reading instruction from center-based to a workshop model? Sharon Taberski writes from the perspective of a first and second grade teacher working in a crowded city classroom without para-professional support and against a tapestry of multiple languages. She makes the workshop process believable. Recommended For: Primary Teachers  Mosaic of Thought: Teaching Comprehension in a Reader’s Workshop--2nd Edition Ellin Oliver Keene & Susan Zimmermann As adult readers we sometimes take for granted the processes which allow us to comprehend and to deeply experience the texts that we read. Mosaic allows you to get in touch with you ‘inner reader’ and guarantees that you will begin to re-experience reading with more depth and clarity than ever before. This new edition reads like a whole new book! Recommended For: All Literacy Teachers  Reading With Meaning Debbie Miller Although this book was written with a primary audience in mind, Miller reaches an audience of workshop teachers across grade level with her clear, reflective descriptions of a calendar year of strategy study. Mosaic may leave you a bit dizzied. Reading with Meaning will help you land both feet firmly in a classroom grounded in strategy instruction. Recommended For: Primary & Intermediate Teachers  The Art of Teaching Reading Lucy McCormick Calkins Few books achieve the position this one has on my book shelves. It is worn tenderly from repeated readings, the margins emphatically scrawled with reactions and re-affirmations and the book itself is layered with sticky notes. A few years ago Lester Laminack talked about the joys of re-reading the professional books which impacted us most in our earliest days of teaching. Taking him up on that advice, I began re-reading this one on a regular basis. Recommended For: Primary & Intermediate Teachers  Becoming Literate: The Construction of Inner Control Marie M. Clay This is not reading for the faint of heart but it is worth the work of reading. Clay writes from the perspective of a researcher but brings all of the wisdom and ‘secrets’ of her work in developing the Reading Recovery Program into light for all of us to ponder and examine. Save it for the summer or for a determined reading resolution, but read it nevertheless. It will make you a much stronger teacher of reading. Recommended For: Primary & Secondary Teachers  Reading Process & Practice Constance Weaver This is a very popular book for use in graduate reading programs and one of my all time favorites. Weaver is immensely readable and intensely applicable. She manages to combine accuracy, critique and explanation to inform practice and help teachers understand the merit and rationale for resisting mandates misimposed on teachers and institutions. Recommended For: All Literacy Teachers  Running Records for Classroom Teachers Marie M. Clay One of my favorite principals calls this ‘running records for dummies.’ I am no dummy and neither is she, but she is absolutely on the money. This is very clear and concise text written to make taking, scoring and analyzing running records an easy undertaking. Unlike so many straight forward explanations, Clay does not neglect the importance of analyzing and using running records to guide classroom decision-making. While I feel strongly that reading teachers should be trained in miscue, a strong background in taking and using running records to guide classroom instruction is an essential pre-requisite skill for all classroom teachers. Recommended For: Primary Teachers  Going with the Flow: How to Engage Boys (and Girls) in Their Literacy Learning Michael W. Smith and Jeffrey D. Wilhelm Authors of Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys, Smith and Wilhelm revisit their research and crystalize ii into classroom practice with precise and vividly described classroom vignettes. Each author writes from an established base of experience in the English classroom. After seeing Wilhelm speak at NCTE in the 2006, I was immediately inspired to revisit the Heinemann booth and purchase it on the spot. Chapter three alone is worth the price of the book! Recommended For: Intermediate & Secondary Teachers  Yellow Brick Roads: Shared and Guided Paths to Independent Reading 4-12 Janet Allen The elements of sound literacy teaching remain the same in effective classrooms across grade level. How then do teachers bring these practices to our growing readers without insulting their budding notions of young adulthood? What does shared reading look like in middle school or high school? Allen, speaking from her experience first and foremost as a classroom teacher and later as consultant and university educator, brings it into clear perspective. As a former teacher of primary students, I would not hesitate to recommend this book to any literacy teacher. Recommended For: Intermediate & Secondary Teachers  When Kids Can’t Read: What Teacher Can Do Kylene Beers Feeling frustrated as a teacher of intermediate and secondary readers? Beers describes three different kinds of struggling or at-risk older readers and devotes the book to addressing strategies for working with each of them in a Language Arts Classroom. Beyond offering top-notch strategies for at-risk readers, Beers has plenty to offer in terms of applicable teaching strategies for all kind of readers. Recommended For: Intermediate & Secondary Teachers WARNING: This book list is reflects the unabashed personal bias of TCSD District Literacy Coach and Mentor, Lori Jackson. If you have a must read for writing teachers, please send the title, author and a brief summary to ljackson@tcsdk12.org.mailto:ljackson@tcsdk12.orgshapeimage_2_link_0