Reading Without Limits: Teaching Strategies to Build Independent Reading for Life, a practical guide to developing and sustaining lifelong readers, “almost brought me out of retirement,” says veteran middle grades teacher Beverly Maddox.
Teacher Mark A. Domeier likes the concept behind Teri Lesesne’s reading ladders in Reading Ladders: Leading Students from Where They Are to Where We’d Like Them to Be, but he says they’ll have to be adapted to the realities of middle school class size.
This teacher-friendly book, Pathways to the Common Core: Accelerating Achievement by Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth, and Christopher Lehman, helps us understand what the ELA CCSS really say and how to bring them to life in classes, writes reviewer Julie DeMicco.
Penny Kittle, says Kevin Hodgson, offers an ode to the power of reading to expand our intellects and a guide to encouraging our most reluctant readers in Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina and Passion in Adolescent Readers.
Fully aligned with CCSS, Common Core Literacy Lesson Plans: Ready-to-Use Resources, 6-8 is valuable resource for all 6-8 teachers, says reviewer Linda Biondi. The book offers well-researched, fully developed lesson plans.
Book Review Festival / Book Reviews / MiddleWeb
by John Norton · Published 10/04/2012 · Last modified 07/19/2023
Our Fall Book Review Festival features 15 brand-new reviews of professional books – each one written by and for middle grades educators – on teaching strategies, visual & media literacy, test preparation, the Common Core, academic icebreakers, RTI & special education, social studies, mathematics, teacher research, ESL students, and student motivation.
Reviewer Rebecca Crockett praises Charles Fuhrken’s What Every Middle School Teacher Needs to Know About Reading Tests (From Someone Who Has Written Them), a book of practical, teaching-friendly advice about prepping students for reading tests.
Reviewer Ellen Berg finds 2009’s The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller to be a refreshing glint of sunshine in the gathering CCSS storm – with ways teachers can support students’ journeys to love affairs with books.
Book Reviews / Teaching Research Skills / Writing
by MiddleWeb · Published 09/10/2012 · Last modified 02/26/2014
Though Christopher Lehman offers strategies to make the research process interesting to gr 4-8 students in Energize Research Reading and Writing: Fresh Strategies to Spark Interest, Develop Independence, and Meet Key Common Core Standards, his approach may prove too difficult, says reviewer Brooke Schultz.
Book Reviews / Teaching with Graphics & Media
by MiddleWeb · Published 09/05/2012 · Last modified 12/15/2019
6th grade teacher Kevin Hodgson says The Graphic Novels Classroom by Maureen Bakis is not just about reading engagement but opening doors to student expression.
