Practical help for providing balanced, comprehensive literacy instruction for all students, particularly those from culturally diverse backgrounds and those who are struggling with reading and writing.

This popular resource provides comprehensive, balanced, practical literacy instruction for all students in today’s increasingly diverse classrooms, especially students from culturally diverse backgrounds and those struggling with reading and writing. As the Common Core raises the bar for all children, Classrooms That Work helps educators meet the challenges by presenting lesson frameworks for providing reading and language arts instruction that helps all children achieve their highest literacy levels. In a clear, friendly writing style, the authors emphasize the importance of promoting the integration of phonics and literature-based process writing and reading instruction to enhance all students’ learning and reading skills. The book clarifies concepts, defines key terms, and offers just the right balance of research and practical coverage to make the content complete without being overwhelming.

Patricia M. Cunningham is a Professor of Education at Wake Forest University. She has over 30 years of experience, taught in various elementary grades and remedial reading, and was a curriculum coordinator and director of reading. Her major professional goal is promoting literacy for all children and currently engages in staff development across the United States.

Richard L. Allington is a Professor of Education at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. He is past president of the International Reading Association and the National Reading Conference, co-recipient of the Albert J. Harris Award, and a member of the Reading Hall of Fame. Dick has extensively researched effective teaching and how schools can develop effective, expert teachers.

Chapter 1 Creating Classrooms That Work

Observing in the Classrooms of Unusually Effective Teachers 3

Observing in the Most Successful Schools 7

What We Know About Effective Classrooms 9

Common Core Raises the Bar 11

Creating Your Classroom That Works in the Common Core Era 12

Chapter 2 Creating Independent Readers

Assess and Document Your Students’Independent Reading 14

Make a Teacher Read-Aloud an Everyday Event 14

Schedule Time Every Day for Independent Reading 20

Accumulate the Widest Possible Variety of Reading Materials 21

Schedule Conferences So You Can Talk with Your Students

About Their Reading 22

Make Time for Sharing and Responding 24

Summary 26

Chapter 3 Building the Literacy Foundation

Concepts That Form the Foundation for Literacy 30

Activities for Building the Foundation 33

Summary 44

Chapter 4 Fluency

Mandate Easy Reading for Everyone 47

Model Fluent, Expressive Reading 49

Provide Engaging Rereading Opportunities 51

Use a Word Wall to Teach High-Frequency Words 53

Summary 57

Chapter 5 Teaching Phonics and Spelling Patterns

Guess the Covered Word 61

Using Words You Know 64

Making Words 67

The Nifty-Thrifty-Fifty 76

Summary 80

Chapter 6 Meaning Vocabulary

How Do We Learn All the Words We Know? 84

Teach Vocabulary with “Real Things” 86

Talking Partners 88

Maximize Word Learning from Reading 90

Teach Independent Word Learning Strategies 96

Promote Word Wonder 99

Summary 100

Chapter 7 Comprehension

Comprehension Strategies 103

Think-Alouds to Teach Comprehension Strategies 104

Lesson Frameworks for Comprehending Narrative Text 109

Summary 118

Chapter 8 Reading Informational Text

Lesson Frameworks for Close Reading and Making Inferences 122

Summary 148

Chapter 9 Writing

Writer’s Workshop 152

Adding Editing to Writer’s Workshop 155

Adding Conferencing, Publishing, and Author’s Chair to Writer’s Workshop 159

Adding Revising to Writer’s Workshop 163

Focused Writing 170

Summary 175

Chapter 10 Reading and Writing Across the Curriculum

Reading-Writing Connections 178

Main Idea Trees 178

Time Lines 180

Compare/Contrast Bubbles 181

Think-Writes 183

Summary 191

Chapter 11 Assessment

What Is Assessment? 193

Determining Student Reading Level 193

Identifying Good Literacy Behaviors and Documenting Student Progress 196

Summary 203

Chapter 12 Differentiation and Interventions for Struggling Readers

Targeted Tier 2 Interventions for Struggling Readers 209

Summary 226

References 227

Index 229