Gail E. Tompkins is Professor Emerita at California State University, Fresno. Currently, she works with teachers in their kindergarten through eighth-grade classrooms and leads staff-development programs on reading and writing. Dr. Tompkins, degreed with a language arts focus, was inducted into the California Reading Association’s Reading Hall of Fame in recognition of her accomplishments in the field of reading. She received the prestigious Provost’s award for Excellence in Teaching at California State University, Fresno. Dr. Tompkins is the author of six other books published by Pearson Education: Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product, 50 Literacy Strategies (a balance of language arts and literacy strategies), and Literacy in the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach including two grade-specific versions of this text: Literacy in the Early Grades: A Successful Start for PreK-4 Readers and Writers and Literacy in the Middle Grades: Teaching Reading and Writing to Fourth Through Eighth Graders. During the past three decades, Dr. Tompkins has also worked with kindergarten through college-level writing teachers at National Writing Project sites in California and Oklahoma.