A Book Is a Present: Selecting Text for Intentional Teaching - Softcover

Margaret E. Mooney

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1572746726 ISBN 13: 9781572746725

Publisher: Richard C Owen Pub, 2004

Synopsis

This title comes shrink wrapped with two
Presents inside. One copy each of Books for Young Learners title, The Birds at My Barn, and The News title, Minibeasts.

About this title

About the Author

Margaret Mooney s teaching, writing, and publishing career began in New Zealand, but for the past several years she has been dividing her time between New Zealand and the United States, especially the state of Washington. She encourages teachers to view all children as worthy, not needy, emphasizing education as a process of enhancement and not one of compensation. She promotes guided reading as an instructional approach in which children practice, apply, and extend skills and strategies in order to understand text on the first reading. Margaret has written the Books for Young Learners Teacher Resource, Text Forms and Features: A Resource for Intentional Teaching, Reading To, With, and By Children, and Developing Life-long Readers. In 1998, Queen Elizabeth II appointed Margaret as an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to education, particularly the teaching of reading.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction: About This Book

This is not a book about the teaching of reading, but rather a book for teachers of reading. Whether a certain program is mandated or whether teachers have the privilege and responsibility for selecting materials for use in their class reading program, knowing how to determine a text s complexity and how to select the most appropriate resources is critical. The premise underpinning this publication is that we can only make informed choices about which resource to use and how to present it when we know what the selection offers. We are then able to match a book to a student rather than try to manipulate a student s learning or skills to cope with a text unsuited to his or her capabilities, because either it is too easy or it presents so many challenges that the amount of intervention required takes away ownership of the reading and learning.

Knowing how to consider the textual and illustrative features of a book enables the teacher to identify those that would encourage application of strategies and skills that are secure within each learner, those that would offer practice of skills and strategies currently being acquired, and those that would present an achievable challenge. Considering the number of features in this way assists the teacher to make a decision not only about the book s suitability for that student or group of students but also about the most appropriate amount and nature of support that will ensure successful learning. In other words, knowing the learner and knowing the book are prerequisites to determining the most suitable instructional approach for introducing the book.

Labeling a book as suitable for an approach, whether it be read to, shared, guided, or independent; "to, with, or by;" or another set of names distinguishing the focus, is purely a starting point. It is likely that the approach used to introduce the book may change during the lesson as the teacher monitors each student s level of comprehension and fluency or decoding of unfamiliar vocabulary.

I have tried to explain some of the ways I look at books as a teacher and as a fledgling author of material for students and for teachers. Although not all of the ideas are written in first person, it is a personal view. I trust my passion for providing the best possible book for the teaching of reading does not override the practicalities and the realities of the classroom. I hope my writing confirms how much you know about books but may have let slip from the "front burner." I also hope it may trigger some new thoughts, thus making the reading worthwhile at more than the superficial level. Helping teachers help students, at any and all levels, read beyond the surface is the ultimate goal of my efforts in this publication.

The book comprises two main sections. In the first part, "Finding the Present," I share my understandings about various aspects and features of books, and how these support readers and writers. The second half, "Using the Present," details the features of a range of texts and offers suggestions for how they might be presented to young readers and writers. Two of these titles, The Birds at My Barn and Minibeasts, are shrink-wrapped for use with this book. My writing about these books or any other examples included in the book does not endorse a specific level of suitability. The teacher knows the competence, experiences, and interests that the students bring to a book at a particular time, and that must underpin all decisions about selecting and presenting material.

Edition details

• Publisher: Richard C Owen Pub
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1572746726
• ISBN 13: 9781572746725
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 149