Literacy in Grades 4-8: Best Practices for a Comprehensive Program

Comprehensive yet succinct and readable, Literacy in Grades 4-8, Third Edition offers a wealth of practical ideas to help preservice and practicing teachers create a balanced and comprehensive literacy program while exploring the core topics and issues of literacy in grades 4 through 8. It addresses teaching to standards; differentiating instruction for readers and writers; motivating students; using assessment to inform instruction; integrating technology into the classroom; working with English learners and struggling readers; and connecting with caregivers. Selected classroom strategies, procedures, and activities represent the most effective practices according to research and the many outstanding classroom teachers who were observed and interviewed for the book.

The Third Edition includes added material connecting the Common Core State Standards to the instruction and assessment of literacy skills; a combined word study and vocabulary chapter to help readers integrate these important topics in their teaching; more on technology, including comprehension of multimodal texts, enhancing writing instruction with technology tools, and teaching activities with an added technology component; added discussion of teacher techniques during text discussions, strategic moves that help students become more strategic readers.
Key features: In the Classroom vignettes; more than 50 activities,some with a technology component; questions for journal writing and for projects and field-based activities; troubleshooting sections offering alternative suggestions and activities for those middle-grade students who may find a particular literacy focus challenging.

Nancy Cecil's philosophy of teaching is: I believe one of the greatest tragedies of the present age is that most people do not recognize the life and death nature of teaching. Every moment in the lives of teachers and pupils brings critical decisions of motivation, reinforcement, reward, ego enhancement, and goal direction. The proper professional decisions of great teachers enhance learning and quality of life. We must begin to understand that doctors and lawyers have neither more nor less to do with life, death, and freedom than do teachers. Teaching, therefore, should be entrusted to only the most thoroughly prepared professionals. Joan Gipe's philosophy of teaching is: Teaching is an intellectual enterprise that demands constant study, problem-solving, and decision-making. For me, the most important goal of teaching is building relationships; relationships between intended outcomes and teaching practices and relationships among students and teacher. I am most concerned with facilitating my students' personal and professional development. I believe students learn best through a transactional, or social constructivist, model that encourages collaboration and conversation in a risk-free, supportive environment. I further believe students are motivated to learn when they experience choice, voice, and relevance. These beliefs are made explicit in the structure and activities I use in my courses and my teaching.