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Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Reading for Enjoyment
I love many different types of books. In the summer, I like a light read such as a young adult book or a classic novel. In the winter, I tend to lean toward a drama or a mystery.
Recommended Websites
There are so many great educational websites out there.
A few of my favorites are:
Reading Rockets
readingrockets.org
Starfall's Learn to Read with Phonics
starfall.com
Owl at Purdue Writing Lab
owl.english.purdue.edu
My Read
myread.org/index
PBS Teachers
pbs.org/teachers
A few of my favorites are:
Reading Rockets
readingrockets.org
Starfall's Learn to Read with Phonics
starfall.com
Owl at Purdue Writing Lab
owl.english.purdue.edu
My Read
myread.org/index
PBS Teachers
pbs.org/teachers
Professional Development Library
1. Jones, Fred. Tools for Teaching. 2nd Edition. Fred H. Jones and Associates, Inc. 2007. Print. Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: This book is all about what it takes to be a successful teacher. The book spoke about classroom management, classroom structure, and creating independent learners. Fred Jones makes teaching “feel real.” Some books may “candy coat” teaching but Fred Jones puts a real perspective on everything in a humorous way.
Brief Rationale of Choice: I read this book during an undergraduate class. It was one of those books that I wanted to keep out and not to hide it in the closet to never be seen again. I like it because it is an easy read and it explains plainly what to do and what to avoid.
2. Diller, Debbie. Spaces and Places. Steinhouse Publishers, 2008. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: I obtained this book last year. A fellow teacher had suggested it to me because she said it had great ideas that I could use in my classroom. The first time I opened the book I was amazed. I had never seen a book with so many visual aids. I was marking different ideas from the chapters and ready to incorporate these ideas in my classroom. Debbie Diller talks about designing an effective literacy classroom. She elaborated on everything that I had ever heard such as small groups, whole groups, and organizing.
Brief Rationale of Choice: This book was suggested to me because I was a new teacher. I loved all of the great ideas and implemented a few in my classroom such as sentence strip storage, reorganized my student work area, and resituated my classroom library to be more effective.
3. Fox, Dana L., and Kathy G. Short. Stories Matter. National Council of Teachers of English, 2003. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: This book is all about multicultural children’s literature. The book covers every cultural group. The book’s contributors vary in occupations and ethnicities. This book provides examples from different cultural books. Many of the contributors speak from personal experiences. At the beginning of chapter 9 it says, “I have struggled with the issue of cultural identity and cultural borrowings all my life.” The contributors all have strong feelings about multicultural literature. In chapter 13 it says, “Multicultural literature is best considered a pedagogical construct with the goal of “challenging the existing canon by expanding the curriculum to include literature from a variety of cultural groups.””
Brief Rationale of Choice: I used this book in a previous graduate class. I love reading about different cultures and this book helped me see the intricacy of multicultural literature. It also let me see the struggles that multicultural literature has faced throughout the years. The book is a great book to read if you work in an area that has wide variety of cultures.
4. Routman, Regie. Reading Essentials. Heinemann, 2003. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: The book is about showing teachers how to teach reading, teaching tips, and how to make reading enjoyable to students. The book includes detailed lessons by Regie Routman and ideas that can be turned into obtainable goals to aim for in a classroom. The book includes information such as organizing a classroom library, shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading.
Brief Rationale of Choice: I used this book in a previous class with Dr. Anderson. I grew to enjoy this book even more after my global leader study that I did last semester. Last year when I taught kindergarten, I dealt with lack of comprehension. This book says, “If we want kids to wind up with comprehension, we have to begin with comprehension.” I reevaluated the way reading was working and stared to go into more detail with the students such as asking them to give me a summary of what was just read.
5. Cecil, Nancy Lee. Activities for a Comprehensive Approach to Literacy. Holcomb Hathaway, Publishers, Inc., 2004. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: Activities for a Comprehensive Approach to Literacy is a great hands-on text. It gives the suggested grade level, purpose, materials, procedure, and assessment for all of the activities. It also has a space so you can write notes about the activity. My favorite activity that I used last year was “Shopping for Sounds.” The students loved this activity because they got to choose their object. They got their creative juices flowing after they had to think about other words that start with a certain letter.
Brief Rationale of Choice: Last year in Kindergarten, I was struggling to create good, quality activities for my students. I searched for books that I could use to give me a few suggestions. This book is great. This book is great for any new teacher or a teacher that has changed grade levels. The activities get the students engaged in literacy and help the teacher make literacy exciting.
6. Fields, Marjorie V., Lois A. Groth, and Katherine L. Spangler. Let's Begin Reading Right. 6th ed. Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: The book focuses on the beginning stages of literacy. The book is all about reading and writing. This book is great for developing a positive reading program. The book discusses oral language development, reading, writing, literature selection process, and assessment of readers. The book is an easy read with many illustrations to help with any confusion.
Brief Rationale of Choice: I had this book for a class last Spring. This is a book that I plan on reading again this summer. The book is filled with significant instruction. I currently work with developmental college students and I keep seeing the same problems which are fluency and comprehension. I want to use this book as a tool to be able to help adult readers who lack the necessary literacy skills.
7. Bentley, Michael L., Edward S. Ebert 2, and Christine Ebert. Teaching Constructivist Science. Corwin Press, 2007. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: The book is great for anyone who teaches any science in their elementary or middle school classroom. It contains teaching strategies and activities for hands-on learning. The book talks about science as an inquiry-oriented approach. The book gives teachers insight into ways that they can make science fun and understandable.
Brief Rationale of Choice: I used this book in my Science methods and enjoyed it so much that I decided to keep in to help integrate quality science lessons. The book showed many new ideas. The idea that I made sure to remember was the idea of changing the types of your investigations. I was used to doing experiment in middle school that consisted of mostly trial and error and experimenting. I learned that there are other ways to investigate such as documenting, prediction testing, product testing, reflecting, generating models, and inventing. Even in Kindergarten, I made sure that the students were not using the same type of science methods with every science topic we covered. I believe that science is neglected in the early grades and this book would give teachers ideas to improve science in their classrooms.
8. Espinsoa, Linda M. Getting It Right. Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: The book’s focus is teaching children from diverse backgrounds. The book shows you how to guarantee all children are given the same education without regards to ethnicity or culture. The author also displays knowledge that with the proper education any student can succeed even if they have a language barrier. The text also talks about education in the past and present. It lists the future challenges of early childhood education such as a new group of children that face challenges that require new ideas and approaches then the current school age children require.
Brief Rationale of Choice: This book is a simple read. My favorite chapter is chapter 2. It says, “research has repeatedly shown that cultural groups vary in their early socialization patterns, their earliest language and literacy practices, as well as their beliefs and approaches to parenting. [. . .] All families differ in some respects from another.” The beginning of the book starts with diversity and new pitfalls. By the end of the book, you are seeing all of the struggles that children from diverse backgrounds and how these students can be successful too by using different strategies then you might use with a traditional learner.
9. Cunningham, Patricia M., and Dorothy P. Hall. Making Words. Frank Schaffer Publications, 1994. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: This book is helpful for a teacher to use to teach phonics and spelling. The book has lessons for grades first through third. This book helps build up spelling and vocabulary skills. The lessons that the book has are ready and easy to use. This book will help students be able to make their own words out of random letters.
Brief Rationale of Choice: My mom is a secretary at an elementary school and she acquired this book from a teacher. I took this book and used this quite often last year while I was in Kindergarten. I had a clear chart hanging on the wall. I put in preselected letters and the students had to write down as many sight words that they could make with those letters. I could see a big jump the student’s vocabulary. I loved it when a student would say examples to me that showed that their vocabulary was building such as, “look, I can add a ‘c’ in front of the word ‘at’ to make ‘cat’.” As I look at it more often, I can see how this would be good for a struggling older reader. It would bring the book to help learn some of the beginning literacy skills.
10. Day, Frances Ann. Multicultural Voices in Contemporary Literature. 2nd ed. Heinemann, 1999. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: The book focuses on the biographies of a wide range of multicultural authors and illustrators. The book gives the biography, suggestions for classroom use, book titles, and summaries of the books that were written or illustrated. The book gives you insight on many popular multicultural authors and illustrators.
Brief Rationale of Choice: I did a study over one of the book’s African American authors, Sharon Bell Mathis. I was also intrigued by many other authors and loved reading all of their biographies because they were so diverse. This book would be great for young adult students to do an author study or to learn more about multicultural literary icons. This is a book that I will look at again soon to help gain suggestions on what multicultural text to read next.
11. Cooter Jr., Robert B. and D. Ray Reutzel. Strategies for Reading Assessment and Instruction. 4th ed. Pearson Education, Inc, 2011. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: The book is about reading diagnosis and assessments. The book gives suggestions and strategies for a teacher to use in their classroom. It also talks about organizing and improving your reading instruction and being able to assess your student’s reading skills.
Brief Rationale of Choice: The book one of the more difficult to read text in my library but I believe that it is still a good read. The book builds on everything that I have learned throughout college. This book elaborates on the running record, RTI, intervention strategies, and reading fluency; just to name a few. It cleared up many questions that I had about running records and it gave me a better understanding. Just about any question a teacher could have; this book covers. There are examples which are helpful if you are a visual learner like myself.
12. Hoffman, James V. and Yetta M. Goodman. Changing LIteracies for Changing Times. Routledge, 2009. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: This book is very similar to other texts because it talks about the past, present, and future of education. The book is written by a distinguished reading researcher. The book talks about teaching literacy, how literacy is continuously changing, and the ever evolving role of the literacy professionals. It is a collection of works from various literacy professionals.
Brief Rationale of Choice: I love the different articles from the different authors. Chapter 6: Then and Now and Chapter 8: The Lamplighters are my favorite chapters. I like chapter 6 because I love to learn about the history of education and how it has changed to rapidly in the last 40 years. Chapter 8 is all about the early pioneers of Adult Education. Adult education is what I am interested in teaching and I was able to see how it began, learned about the early pioneer supporters of adult education, and how it continues to evolve. The articles are all well written and very enjoyable.
Brief Rationale of Choice: I read this book during an undergraduate class. It was one of those books that I wanted to keep out and not to hide it in the closet to never be seen again. I like it because it is an easy read and it explains plainly what to do and what to avoid.
2. Diller, Debbie. Spaces and Places. Steinhouse Publishers, 2008. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: I obtained this book last year. A fellow teacher had suggested it to me because she said it had great ideas that I could use in my classroom. The first time I opened the book I was amazed. I had never seen a book with so many visual aids. I was marking different ideas from the chapters and ready to incorporate these ideas in my classroom. Debbie Diller talks about designing an effective literacy classroom. She elaborated on everything that I had ever heard such as small groups, whole groups, and organizing.
Brief Rationale of Choice: This book was suggested to me because I was a new teacher. I loved all of the great ideas and implemented a few in my classroom such as sentence strip storage, reorganized my student work area, and resituated my classroom library to be more effective.
3. Fox, Dana L., and Kathy G. Short. Stories Matter. National Council of Teachers of English, 2003. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: This book is all about multicultural children’s literature. The book covers every cultural group. The book’s contributors vary in occupations and ethnicities. This book provides examples from different cultural books. Many of the contributors speak from personal experiences. At the beginning of chapter 9 it says, “I have struggled with the issue of cultural identity and cultural borrowings all my life.” The contributors all have strong feelings about multicultural literature. In chapter 13 it says, “Multicultural literature is best considered a pedagogical construct with the goal of “challenging the existing canon by expanding the curriculum to include literature from a variety of cultural groups.””
Brief Rationale of Choice: I used this book in a previous graduate class. I love reading about different cultures and this book helped me see the intricacy of multicultural literature. It also let me see the struggles that multicultural literature has faced throughout the years. The book is a great book to read if you work in an area that has wide variety of cultures.
4. Routman, Regie. Reading Essentials. Heinemann, 2003. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: The book is about showing teachers how to teach reading, teaching tips, and how to make reading enjoyable to students. The book includes detailed lessons by Regie Routman and ideas that can be turned into obtainable goals to aim for in a classroom. The book includes information such as organizing a classroom library, shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading.
Brief Rationale of Choice: I used this book in a previous class with Dr. Anderson. I grew to enjoy this book even more after my global leader study that I did last semester. Last year when I taught kindergarten, I dealt with lack of comprehension. This book says, “If we want kids to wind up with comprehension, we have to begin with comprehension.” I reevaluated the way reading was working and stared to go into more detail with the students such as asking them to give me a summary of what was just read.
5. Cecil, Nancy Lee. Activities for a Comprehensive Approach to Literacy. Holcomb Hathaway, Publishers, Inc., 2004. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: Activities for a Comprehensive Approach to Literacy is a great hands-on text. It gives the suggested grade level, purpose, materials, procedure, and assessment for all of the activities. It also has a space so you can write notes about the activity. My favorite activity that I used last year was “Shopping for Sounds.” The students loved this activity because they got to choose their object. They got their creative juices flowing after they had to think about other words that start with a certain letter.
Brief Rationale of Choice: Last year in Kindergarten, I was struggling to create good, quality activities for my students. I searched for books that I could use to give me a few suggestions. This book is great. This book is great for any new teacher or a teacher that has changed grade levels. The activities get the students engaged in literacy and help the teacher make literacy exciting.
6. Fields, Marjorie V., Lois A. Groth, and Katherine L. Spangler. Let's Begin Reading Right. 6th ed. Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: The book focuses on the beginning stages of literacy. The book is all about reading and writing. This book is great for developing a positive reading program. The book discusses oral language development, reading, writing, literature selection process, and assessment of readers. The book is an easy read with many illustrations to help with any confusion.
Brief Rationale of Choice: I had this book for a class last Spring. This is a book that I plan on reading again this summer. The book is filled with significant instruction. I currently work with developmental college students and I keep seeing the same problems which are fluency and comprehension. I want to use this book as a tool to be able to help adult readers who lack the necessary literacy skills.
7. Bentley, Michael L., Edward S. Ebert 2, and Christine Ebert. Teaching Constructivist Science. Corwin Press, 2007. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: The book is great for anyone who teaches any science in their elementary or middle school classroom. It contains teaching strategies and activities for hands-on learning. The book talks about science as an inquiry-oriented approach. The book gives teachers insight into ways that they can make science fun and understandable.
Brief Rationale of Choice: I used this book in my Science methods and enjoyed it so much that I decided to keep in to help integrate quality science lessons. The book showed many new ideas. The idea that I made sure to remember was the idea of changing the types of your investigations. I was used to doing experiment in middle school that consisted of mostly trial and error and experimenting. I learned that there are other ways to investigate such as documenting, prediction testing, product testing, reflecting, generating models, and inventing. Even in Kindergarten, I made sure that the students were not using the same type of science methods with every science topic we covered. I believe that science is neglected in the early grades and this book would give teachers ideas to improve science in their classrooms.
8. Espinsoa, Linda M. Getting It Right. Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: The book’s focus is teaching children from diverse backgrounds. The book shows you how to guarantee all children are given the same education without regards to ethnicity or culture. The author also displays knowledge that with the proper education any student can succeed even if they have a language barrier. The text also talks about education in the past and present. It lists the future challenges of early childhood education such as a new group of children that face challenges that require new ideas and approaches then the current school age children require.
Brief Rationale of Choice: This book is a simple read. My favorite chapter is chapter 2. It says, “research has repeatedly shown that cultural groups vary in their early socialization patterns, their earliest language and literacy practices, as well as their beliefs and approaches to parenting. [. . .] All families differ in some respects from another.” The beginning of the book starts with diversity and new pitfalls. By the end of the book, you are seeing all of the struggles that children from diverse backgrounds and how these students can be successful too by using different strategies then you might use with a traditional learner.
9. Cunningham, Patricia M., and Dorothy P. Hall. Making Words. Frank Schaffer Publications, 1994. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: This book is helpful for a teacher to use to teach phonics and spelling. The book has lessons for grades first through third. This book helps build up spelling and vocabulary skills. The lessons that the book has are ready and easy to use. This book will help students be able to make their own words out of random letters.
Brief Rationale of Choice: My mom is a secretary at an elementary school and she acquired this book from a teacher. I took this book and used this quite often last year while I was in Kindergarten. I had a clear chart hanging on the wall. I put in preselected letters and the students had to write down as many sight words that they could make with those letters. I could see a big jump the student’s vocabulary. I loved it when a student would say examples to me that showed that their vocabulary was building such as, “look, I can add a ‘c’ in front of the word ‘at’ to make ‘cat’.” As I look at it more often, I can see how this would be good for a struggling older reader. It would bring the book to help learn some of the beginning literacy skills.
10. Day, Frances Ann. Multicultural Voices in Contemporary Literature. 2nd ed. Heinemann, 1999. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: The book focuses on the biographies of a wide range of multicultural authors and illustrators. The book gives the biography, suggestions for classroom use, book titles, and summaries of the books that were written or illustrated. The book gives you insight on many popular multicultural authors and illustrators.
Brief Rationale of Choice: I did a study over one of the book’s African American authors, Sharon Bell Mathis. I was also intrigued by many other authors and loved reading all of their biographies because they were so diverse. This book would be great for young adult students to do an author study or to learn more about multicultural literary icons. This is a book that I will look at again soon to help gain suggestions on what multicultural text to read next.
11. Cooter Jr., Robert B. and D. Ray Reutzel. Strategies for Reading Assessment and Instruction. 4th ed. Pearson Education, Inc, 2011. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: The book is about reading diagnosis and assessments. The book gives suggestions and strategies for a teacher to use in their classroom. It also talks about organizing and improving your reading instruction and being able to assess your student’s reading skills.
Brief Rationale of Choice: The book one of the more difficult to read text in my library but I believe that it is still a good read. The book builds on everything that I have learned throughout college. This book elaborates on the running record, RTI, intervention strategies, and reading fluency; just to name a few. It cleared up many questions that I had about running records and it gave me a better understanding. Just about any question a teacher could have; this book covers. There are examples which are helpful if you are a visual learner like myself.
12. Hoffman, James V. and Yetta M. Goodman. Changing LIteracies for Changing Times. Routledge, 2009. Print.
Summary of book’s focus or emphasis: This book is very similar to other texts because it talks about the past, present, and future of education. The book is written by a distinguished reading researcher. The book talks about teaching literacy, how literacy is continuously changing, and the ever evolving role of the literacy professionals. It is a collection of works from various literacy professionals.
Brief Rationale of Choice: I love the different articles from the different authors. Chapter 6: Then and Now and Chapter 8: The Lamplighters are my favorite chapters. I like chapter 6 because I love to learn about the history of education and how it has changed to rapidly in the last 40 years. Chapter 8 is all about the early pioneers of Adult Education. Adult education is what I am interested in teaching and I was able to see how it began, learned about the early pioneer supporters of adult education, and how it continues to evolve. The articles are all well written and very enjoyable.
Philosophy Statement
I believe that reading is a way to open doors around you. Reading is everywhere and needed for every facet of your life. Some people will say "I hate to read." They need to reanalyze how important reading is in their life. People will pass on a love of reading to their children if they enjoy reading themselves. I want students and adults alike to be confident in their reading abilities.
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