Connecting Theory and Practice in Middle School Literacy

Connecting Theory and Practice in Middle School Literacy
Author: Jason DeHart
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2021-12-27
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1000511901

Bringing together the voices of researchers and teachers, this volume addresses how teachers connect theory to practice in the middle school English Language Arts education setting and explores how to teach and engage with young adults in a way that treats them as ethical and thoughtful citizens. The book bridges the gap between educational theory and real-world implementation and covers a range of timely topics in middle level education through a focus on text choice, identity, and practice. Contributors acknowledge and balance the challenges associated with the reality of teaching, including time constraints, sudden shifts, and fast-paced work, with real-world guidance on key topics, such as supporting multilingual students, queering middle grade pedagogies, teaching diverse texts, examining racial bias in the classroom, and critical digital literacy. Ideal for courses on middle level education and literacy education, this book encourages and equips pre-service teachers to engage in meaningful conversations with their students that foster reflection and transformative learning.

Reading-Writing Connections

Reading-Writing Connections
Author: Mary F. Heller
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 410
Release: 1999-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1135662851

Reading-Writing Connections: From Theory to Practice is an extraordinary language arts methods text that enables elementary and middle school teachers to create classroom environments where all students can become lifelong readers and writers. Focusing on developmentally appropriate methods and materials, this remarkably readable book empowers a new generation of teachers to integrate reading, writing, listening, and speaking in K-8 classrooms. Heller's highly accessible writing style makes this book suitable as a primary text for undergraduate and graduate courses in language arts, reading, writing, and literacy. Special features of this second edition include: * a vision of how to transform cutting-edge theory and research into classroom practice that utilizes integrated language arts instruction; *a unique developmental perspective with separate chapters on teaching methods and materials for kindergarten, primary (1-3), intermediate (4-6), and middle grades (7-8); * instructional guidelines that offer generous, detailed suggestions for applying theory to practice, plus "For You to Try" and "For Your Journal" exercises that encourage critical thinking and reflection; and * a wealth of classroom vignettes, examples of students' oral and written language, illustrations, and figures that accentuate interesting and informative theory, research, and practice. In addition, Reading-Writing Connections offers expanded content on the impact of sociocultural theory and the whole language movement on the teaching of reading and writing across the curriculum; greater emphasis on cultural diversity, including new multicultural children's literature booklists that complement the general children's literature bibliographies; and current information on alternative assessment, emerging technologies, the multiage classroom, reader response to literature, and thematic teaching.

Handbook of Reading Research

Handbook of Reading Research
Author: P. David Pearson
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 1108
Release: 1984
Genre: Reading
ISBN: 9780805824162

"The Handbook of Reading Research is the research handbook for the field. Each volume has come to define the field for the period of time it covers ... When taken as a set, the four volumes provide a definitive history of reading research"--Back of cover, volume 4.

Best Practices in Literacy Instruction, Sixth Edition

Best Practices in Literacy Instruction, Sixth Edition
Author: Lesley Mandel Morrow
Publisher: Guilford Publications
Total Pages: 489
Release: 2018-11-23
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1462536778

Many tens of thousands of preservice and inservice teachers have relied on this highly regarded text from leading experts, now in a revised and updated sixth edition. The latest knowledge about literacy teaching and learning is distilled into flexible strategies for helping all PreK–12 learners succeed. The book addresses major components of literacy, the needs of specific populations, motivation, assessment, approaches to organizing instruction, and more. Each chapter features bulleted previews of key points; reviews of the research evidence; recommendations for best practices in action, including examples from exemplary classrooms; and engagement activities that help teachers apply the knowledge and strategies they have learned. New to This Edition *Incorporates the latest research findings and instructional practices. *Chapters on new topics: developmental word study and the physiological, emotional, and behavioral foundations of literacy learning. *Chapters offering fresh, expanded perspectives on writing and vocabulary. *Increased attention to timely issues: classroom learning communities, teaching English learners, and the use of digital tools and multimodal texts.

Funds of Knowledge

Funds of Knowledge
Author: Norma Gonzalez
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2006-04-21
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1135614059

The concept of "funds of knowledge" is based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge. The claim in this book is that first-hand research experiences with families allow one to document this competence and knowledge, and that such engagement provides many possibilities for positive pedagogical actions. Drawing from both Vygotskian and neo-sociocultural perspectives in designing a methodology that views the everyday practices of language and action as constructing knowledge, the funds of knowledge approach facilitates a systematic and powerful way to represent communities in terms of the resources they possess and how to harness them for classroom teaching. This book accomplishes three objectives: It gives readers the basic methodology and techniques followed in the contributors' funds of knowledge research; it extends the boundaries of what these researchers have done; and it explores the applications to classroom practice that can result from teachers knowing the communities in which they work. In a time when national educational discourses focus on system reform and wholesale replicability across school sites, this book offers a counter-perspective stating that instruction must be linked to students' lives, and that details of effective pedagogy should be linked to local histories and community contexts. This approach should not be confused with parent participation programs, although that is often a fortuitous consequence of the work described. It is also not an attempt to teach parents "how to do school" although that could certainly be an outcome if the parents so desired. Instead, the funds of knowledge approach attempts to accomplish something that may be even more challenging: to alter the perceptions of working-class or poor communities by viewing their households primarily in terms of their strengths and resources, their defining pedagogical characteristics. Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms is a critically important volume for all teachers and teachers-to-be, and for researchers and graduate students of language, culture, and education.

Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain

Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain
Author: Zaretta Hammond
Publisher: Corwin Press
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2014-11-13
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1483308022

A bold, brain-based teaching approach to culturally responsive instruction To close the achievement gap, diverse classrooms need a proven framework for optimizing student engagement. Culturally responsive instruction has shown promise, but many teachers have struggled with its implementation—until now. In this book, Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compatible culturally responsive instruction. The book includes: Information on how one’s culture programs the brain to process data and affects learning relationships Ten “key moves” to build students’ learner operating systems and prepare them to become independent learners Prompts for action and valuable self-reflection

Trauma-Sensitive Literacy Instruction

Trauma-Sensitive Literacy Instruction
Author: Rachelle S. Savitz
Publisher: Teachers College Press
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2023
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0807782017

It is vital for educators to be aware of how traumatic experiences affect today’s students, yet few teachers learn the tools needed to successfully teach these students. This book highlights how English Language Arts teachers, who are typically not licensed or specifically trained to work with trauma issues, can design and implement instruction that helps students see that they are supported. This book provides specific strategies for teaching literacy based on the authors’ extensive knowledge and experience in trauma-sensitive instruction, adolescent literacy, and culturally responsive–sustaining pedagogies. The authors show how to support middle and high school students with specific literacy practices (reading, speaking, listening, and writing) that build resilience. Trauma-Sensitive Literacy Instruction is for the many teachers who are unsure how to invite students and their traumas into classroom instruction and embed critical discussions and learning within their teaching practices and pedagogy. It will help ELA teachers navigate student trauma in a way that empowers both students and teachers. Book Features: Responds to research that consistently shows how schools are often places that marginalize—and sometimes traumatize or retraumatize—children. Offers specific information related to literature, writing, discussion, and inquiry activities focused on various traumatic experiences. Provides rationales and research, along with examples, teacher vignettes, and steps for incorporating relevant practices in classrooms (grades 6–12). “In this book, ELA teachers will find actionable pedagogical practices toward the transformative teaching trauma demands and the respect, care, and support along the way that ELA educators need and deserve.” —From the Foreword by Elizabeth Dutro, professor, University of Colorado Boulder

The Five Practices in Practice [Elementary]

The Five Practices in Practice [Elementary]
Author: Margaret (Peg) Smith
Publisher: Corwin Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2019-08-14
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1544321147

Take a deep dive into the five practices for facilitating productive mathematical discussions Enhance your fluency in the five practices—anticipating, monitoring, selecting, sequencing, and connecting—to bring powerful discussions of mathematical concepts to life in your elementary classroom. This book unpacks the five practices for deeper understanding and empowers you to use each practice effectively. • Video excerpts vividly illustrate the five practices in action in real elementary classrooms • Key questions help you set learning goals, identify high-level tasks, and jumpstart discussion • Prompts guide you to be prepared for and overcome common challenges Includes planning templates, sample lesson plans and completed monitoring tools, and mathematical tasks.

The Leader in Me

The Leader in Me
Author: Stephen R. Covey
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2012-12-11
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 147110446X

Children in today's world are inundated with information about who to be, what to do and how to live. But what if there was a way to teach children how to manage priorities, focus on goals and be a positive influence on the world around them? The Leader in Meis that programme. It's based on a hugely successful initiative carried out at the A.B. Combs Elementary School in North Carolina. To hear the parents of A. B Combs talk about the school is to be amazed. In 1999, the school debuted a programme that taught The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Peopleto a pilot group of students. The parents reported an incredible change in their children, who blossomed under the programme. By the end of the following year the average end-of-grade scores had leapt from 84 to 94. This book will launch the message onto a much larger platform. Stephen R. Covey takes the 7 Habits, that have already changed the lives of millions of people, and shows how children can use them as they develop. Those habits -- be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek to understand and then to be understood, synergize, and sharpen the saw -- are critical skills to learn at a young age and bring incredible results, proving that it's never too early to teach someone how to live well.

How Learning Works

How Learning Works
Author: Susan A. Ambrose
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2010-04-16
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0470617608

Praise for How Learning Works "How Learning Works is the perfect title for this excellent book. Drawing upon new research in psychology, education, and cognitive science, the authors have demystified a complex topic into clear explanations of seven powerful learning principles. Full of great ideas and practical suggestions, all based on solid research evidence, this book is essential reading for instructors at all levels who wish to improve their students' learning." —Barbara Gross Davis, assistant vice chancellor for educational development, University of California, Berkeley, and author, Tools for Teaching "This book is a must-read for every instructor, new or experienced. Although I have been teaching for almost thirty years, as I read this book I found myself resonating with many of its ideas, and I discovered new ways of thinking about teaching." —Eugenia T. Paulus, professor of chemistry, North Hennepin Community College, and 2008 U.S. Community Colleges Professor of the Year from The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education "Thank you Carnegie Mellon for making accessible what has previously been inaccessible to those of us who are not learning scientists. Your focus on the essence of learning combined with concrete examples of the daily challenges of teaching and clear tactical strategies for faculty to consider is a welcome work. I will recommend this book to all my colleagues." —Catherine M. Casserly, senior partner, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching "As you read about each of the seven basic learning principles in this book, you will find advice that is grounded in learning theory, based on research evidence, relevant to college teaching, and easy to understand. The authors have extensive knowledge and experience in applying the science of learning to college teaching, and they graciously share it with you in this organized and readable book." —From the Foreword by Richard E. Mayer, professor of psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara; coauthor, e-Learning and the Science of Instruction; and author, Multimedia Learning