The Multiple Intelligences of Reading and Writing: Making the Words Come Alive

We normally think of reading and writing as skills that are a part of linguistic intelligence. In The Multiple Intelligences of Reading and Writing: Making the Words Come Alive, Thomas Armstrong shows how involving the other seven intelligences—logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic—will help students acquire reading and writing skills, especially those students who are not particularly strong in linguistic intelligence.

The Multiple Intelligences of Reading and Writing appeals to all educators who work with reading and writing skills, from the preschool teacher leading the class in phonemic awareness activities to the post-graduate professor helping students examine kinesthetic imagery in Shakespeare's plays. The book combines Howard Gardner's MI theory and recent brain research on reading and writing with historical, anthropological, biographical, and psychological perspectives on literacy. Armstrong pulls the research together to show you how to engage students by infusing the study of words with imagery, logic, oral language, physical activity, emotion, music, social involvement, and nature experiences.

Armstrong provides hundreds of ideas, strategies, tips, and resources for teaching everything from grammar and spelling to word decoding and reading comprehension. His strategic approach synthesizes the best reading and writing methods for application in preK-12 classrooms, literacy programs, speech and language pathology groups, one-to-one tutoring sessions, and all other settings where words are the focus of learning. Armstrong shows you how to empower your students with literacy skills for life.

Thomas M. Armstrong is a veteran of the early 1960s civil rights movement in his native Mississippi. He was at the forefront of early protests led by black Southerners for voting rights and equal public accommodations from 1958-1961, resulting in threats that had him running for his life. Mr. Armstrong moved to Chicago where he has resided since 1964. He remains closely allied with other former Freedom Riders and civil rights workers around the country and often speaks at schools and civic organizations such as the African American Leadership Roundtable in Chicago. He has been the subject of scholarly research by respected academics, sought after for major media interviews, and featured in print from critically acclaimed books to a Forbes magazine publication. The documentary "Freedom Riders" will be broadcast nationally on PBS in May 2011 and has been pre-screened at locations around the country from New York to Denver to Los Angeles. The movie is receiving rave reviews and Mr. Armstrong will be a featured panelist at well-publicized events where he will promote his memoir Autobiography of a Freedom Rider.