Describes how teachers can make writing an important part of everyday life within the school community by: conferring with students about purpose and audience; elevating genres particular to schools; designing community service assignments; expecting that artwork will be accompanied by text; weaving writing into student government; creating…

In a new compact and easy-to-use edition, this book presents a program that provides students with a developmentally appropriate framework in which students become proficient spellers and at the same time develop as readers and writers. The book includes the original spelling instruction program; spelling dictation lists for grades 1 to 3; an…

Middle school teacher describes a framework that gives inexperienced, anxious writers the confidence to write. The process, called doing prompts, stems from analyzing prompts or writing assignments that outline the topic for a piece of writing. The process involves analyzing the prompt being called for, completing a graphic organizer, composing…

Developed from actual classroom need and field-tested with primary teachers across the country, this how-to book presents the "nuts and bolts" of how to implement a writing program that turns kids on to writing. Throughout the book, three teachers share vignettes about writing sessions in their classrooms. After an introduction and…

This book provides insight into the interrelationship among students' writing, their thinking about their writing processes, and the language of instruction. It offers information on both common and diverse patterns of understanding among children experiencing the same instructional program and explores the influence of instructional language on…

Designed for teachers, parents, and teacher educators who are looking for an accessible text on the topic of learning to read, this book's comprehensive scope encompasses standards for early literacy instruction, instructional strategies, alternative assessment procedures, strategies for making connections, and ways to integrate children's home…

Drawing on stories from classrooms, examples of student writing, and illustrations, this book explains in practical terms the theoretical underpinnings of how elementary school students learn to write from their reading. Beginning with the concepts that underlie how writing teachers teach students to write by studying other writers, it goes on to…

The first edition of this book in 1987 examined how teachers teach and how learners learn in the context of reading and writing workshops for middle school students. This revised edition still stresses the workshop approach to writing and English instruction, but it calls for a more activist approach by the teacher, encouraging more direction and…

A teacher of preschool and kindergarten students with hearing impairments recounts her increasing use of whole language, process-oriented teaching methods. Considers the teacher's new role, the classroom environment, use of thematic units, emergent reading, emergent writing, and evaluation. (DB)

This book describes the special way one teacher, Jeanette Amidon, approaches children's thinking, with a particular focus on reading and writing instruction. The root value of her first-grade classroom in Massachusetts is respect for children's ideas, with the children's art and writing as visible signs of the teacher's respect for their thinking.…