Comprehension Going Forward

"The real genius of this book is that it is written by teachers, for teachers. All of the authors in this book know what classrooms are like. This means that authenticity and integrity pervade every chapter in the book. Teachers will immediately sense this authenticity on their way to realizing that the book offers an endless supply of useful suggestions."
―From the Coda by P. David Pearson

For those of us who teach comprehension strategies, Comprehension Going Forward is as near to the ultimate PD experience as we can get. Imagine a professional learning community where you could sit in as…

• Ellin Keene and Debbie Miller swap best practices
• Stephanie Harvey and Harvey “Smokey” Daniels compare instruction across the grades
• Anne Goudvis and Tanny McGregor share ways to infuse comprehension into every subject area
• Cris Tovani and Nancy Commins apply the strategies to help struggling readers, English learners, and special-needs students.

In Comprehension Going Forward, you’ll meet up with 17 leading practitioners and researchers for an energetic, personal, and frequently irreverent conversation on what great comprehension instruction looks like, what an amazing range of applications it has for all students, and what we can do better. Not only do figures such as Susan Zimmerman and P. David Pearson include their own chapters, but, like any exciting conversation, they point out their favorite parts of one another’s chapters―highlighting discussion topics for teacher study groups along the way.

Read Comprehension Going Forward and RSVP to a get-together that no one who teaches reading will want to miss. Enter this powerful, lively conversation about how we can improve all readers’ comprehension today and join some of your favorite authors as they reach for a tomorrow where every child reads with deep understanding.

“Each author takes the comprehension strategies as a starting point, and then reaches out toward a different set of applications, extensions, and practices. But everyone is connected by the research base on comprehension instruction and by our common goal:  to provide every child in America with an “All-Access Pass” to literacy.”
―From the editor’s introduction by Harvey “Smokey” Daniels

 

Ellin Oliver Keene has been a classroom teacher, staff developer, non-profit director and adjunct professor of reading and writing.  For sixteen years she directed staff development initiatives at the Denver-based Public Education & Business Coalition.  She served as Deputy Director and Director of Literacy and Staff Development for the Cornerstone Project at the University of Pennsylvania for 4 years. Ellin works with schools and districts throughout the country and abroad.  Her emphasis is long-term, school-based professional development and strategic planning for literacy learning.

Ellin recently published The Literacy Studio: Redesigning the Workshop for Readers and Writers which is focused on an up-to-date conceptualization of Readers/Writers’ workshop. She is the author of Engaging Children: Igniting the Drive for Deeper Learning (2018), is co-editor and co-author of The Teacher You Want to Be: Essays about Children, Learning, and Teaching (Heinemann, 2015); co-editor of the Not This, but That series (Heinemann, 2013 - 2018); author of Talk About Understanding: Rethinking Classroom Talk to Enhance Understanding (Heinemann, 2012), To Understand: New Horizons in Reading Comprehension (Heinemann, 2008), co-author of Comprehension Going Forward (Heinemann, 2011), co-author of Mosaic of Thought: The Power of Comprehension Strategy Instruction, 2^nd edition (Heinemann, 2007, 1^st edition, 1997) and author of Assessing Comprehension Thinking Strategies (Shell Educational Books, 2006) as well as numerous chapters for professional books and journals on the teaching of reading as well as education policy journals. 

An internationally-known speaker, workshop leader, and consultant, Susan Zimmermann is coauthor of educational bestsellers Mosaic of Thought (1997 and 2007 2nd edition), 7 Keys to Comprehension, and Comprehension Going Forward (2011), books that are changing the way reading is taught in classrooms throughout America. She cofounded and served as the Executive Director of the Denver-based Public Education and Business Coalition, an organization that has spearheaded ground-breaking comprehension work. During her time there, she initiated numerous programs to improve the quality of public schools, including the Reading Project, which provides many of the examples in Mosaic of Thought and 7 Keys.

Susan is also the author of Keeping Katherine; Writing to Heal the Soul, winner of the Colorado Book Award; and Grief Dancers, finalist for the Colorado Book Award and winner of the Exceptional Parent symbol of excellence for its "profound contribution to human understanding and dignity." These wise and inspiring books grew out of Susan's personal experience raising her profoundly handicapped daughter Katherine who had Rett syndrome.

Currently a full-time speaker, writer, and education consultant, Susan has given hundreds of workshops, keynotes, and summer institutes in nearly every state and throughout Canada. She has worked with international schools in Mexico, the Philippines, Romania, Japan, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Visit her Heinemann Speakers page for more information.

A lover of the wilderness and believer in the transformative power of the outdoors, she has been a trustee of the Colorado Outward Bound School and served as the board chair of The Women's Wilderness Institute, an organization that provides wilderness learning experiences for adolescent girls and women. Susan is a graduate of Yale Law School and mother of four. She lives in the foothills west of Denver.

For more information on Susan Zimmermann visit her Web site at www.susanzimmermann.com.

Harvey "Smokey" Daniels has been a city and suburban classroom teacher and a college professor, and now works as a national consultant and author on literacy education. In language arts, Smokey is known for his pioneering work on student book clubs, as recounted in Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs and Reading Groups, and Minilessons for Literature Circles. His latest bestselling books on content-area literacy are The Curious Classroom; Comprehension & Collaboration, Second Edition; Upstanders; Subjects Matter, Second Edition; the Texts and Lessons series; and Content-Area Writing. He is also coauthor of Best Practice, Fourth Edition, and The Best Practice Video Companion as well as editor of Comprehension Going Forward.

Smokey works with elementary and secondary teachers throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, offering demonstration lessons, workshops, and consulting, with a special focus on creating, sustaining, and renewing student-centered inquiries and discussions of all kinds. Smokey shows colleagues how to simultaneously build students' reading strategies, balance their reading diets, and strengthen the social skills they need to become genuine lifelong readers.

Connect with Smokey @smokeylit.

READING
Comprehension Going Forward
Mini-lessons for Literature Circles
Subjects Matter, Second Edition
Texts and Lessons for Content-Area Reading
Texts and Lessons for Teaching Literature

WRITING
Community of Writers
Content-Area Writing

LITERACY
The Curious Classroom
Comprehension & Collaboration, Second Edition
Inquiry Circles for Elementary Classrooms
Inquiry Circles for Secondary Classrooms

SCHOOL CULTURE
Best Practice, Fourth Edition
Best Practice Video Companion
Rethinking High School
Rethinking High School Video
Upstanders

Marjorie Larner is coauthor of Comprehension Going Forward and author of Pathways.

While continuing to work with educators across the country in literacy and developing collaborative learning communities, Majorie has worked regularly over time locally at a 6–12 school, the Denver Center for International Studies, through the Asia Society’s International Studies School Network. She also serves as Adjunct Faculty and Site Professor for University of Colorado Denver Urban Teacher Education Program.

A former teacher, administrator, and staff developer with the Denver-based Public Education and Business Coallition, Marjorie’s thinking and writing about how to support professional learning continues to evolve, particularly as we navigate the increasing challenges of the current educational culture. As a consultant, she enjoys being embedded in a school’s culture where she can offer challenge and support in conversations and observations that happen naturally in the course of a regular school day.

P. David Pearson is coauthor of the Heinemann titles Comprehension Going Forward and What Every Teacher Should Need Know About Reading Comprehension Instruction.

He has served President of the National Reading Conference (NRC), Director of the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement, and on the boards of directors for the International Reading Association, NRC, and Association of American Colleges of Teacher Education. He is the author of dozens of influential books and peer-reviewed articles, the founding editor of the Handbook of Reading Research, as well as a former editor of Reading Research Quarterly and the Review of Research in Education.

His many awards include the 1989 Oscar Causey Award (NRC) for contributions to reading research, the 1990 William S. Gray Citation of Merit (IRA) for contributions to reading research and practice, the 2005 Albert J. Harris Award (IRA) for the year’s best reading-disability publication, and the 2003 Alan Purves Award (NCTE) for a publication impacting practice. In 2006 the University of honored him with the Alumni Outstanding Achievement Award, and in 2010 AERA gave him Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award.