On the Same Page: Shared Reading Beyond the Primary Grades

Maya Angelou says, Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with the shades of deeper meaning. On the Same Page celebrates the use of our voices in shared reading with students to help them gain deeper understanding of the texts we read. If you have enjoyed the increased engagement and motivation that accompany reading with your students and wondered how to extend those benefits throughout the day, this book offers support for using this approach as a foundation for learning across content areas.

On the Same Page explores the use of shared reading as an instructional approach for readers and writers at all levels of language proficiency. Janet Allen provides research, resources, practical ideas, and strategies for building from shared reading to increase students' literate experiences in a variety of curricular and instructional areas:strategic reading and comprehension;building background knowledge for content literacy;personal, academic, and public writing;transitions to independent reading;community knowledge and literature circles;increased vocabulary;modeled fluency.

On the Same Page is enriched with a wide range of student work as well as extensive appendices of additional resources, graphic organizers, suggested reading lists, and teaching guides for implementation of shared reading in your classroom.

Janet Allen (EdD, University of Maine) spends her time researching, writing, and consulting with schools and teachers who are changing their literacy practices. An award-winning teacher, she taught high school English and reading for twenty years in rural Maine, eventually leaving her classroom to teach English education courses as an associate professor at the University of Central Florida. Janet helped create the Orange County Literacy Project, directed the Central Florida Writing Project, and currently works with districts implementing large-scale literacy initiatives. Her first book, It's Never Too Late: Leading Adolescents to Lifelong Literacy, was published in 1995. Stenhouse published There's Room for Me Here: Literacy Workshop in the Middle School, co-authored with Kyle Gonzalez (1998), and Words, Words, Words: Teaching Vocabulary in Grades 4–12 (1999).