About the Book
The comprehensive guide you can trust for evidence-based reading practices
It′s settled science: developing skilled readers can enhance students’ lives. That’s why renowned educators Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Diane Lapp wrote this resource with the urgency of a code blue in an ER—because too many children, for many reasons, struggle with learning to become strong readers.
Designed to be a one-stop shop for best practices, Teaching Reading is concise, encyclopedic, and essential. Thirteen interactive modules provide easy to read ideas to support you teaching every child to read very well. You will learn how to:
- Focus on two critical aspects of reading—word recognition and language comprehension.
- Select the best activities to support students in grades K-6 to learn letters and sound relationships.
- Provide developing readers with the most effective oral, written, and reading experiences.
- Recharge your confidence and craft with uplifting new research findings from neuroscience, cognitive science, and child development.
- Clear up confusions about phonics progressions, reading fluency, morphology, text selection, grammar, and more.
- Develop background knowledge, vocabulary, and comprehension instruction.
- Be up to date on how to help students attain deeper levels of comprehension by applying Theory of Mind and other cutting-edge ideas.
Reading is a thrilling but complex process. It involves a heady mix of skills, schema, self-concept, and social dimensions. To give all students the chance to reap its rewards, we need a go-big kind of resource. This is it.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Module 1. How Reading Develops
PART I. WORD RECOGNITION
Module 2. Phonological Awareness
Module 3. Alphabetics
Module 4. Phonics and Decoding
Module 5. Sight Word Recognition
Module 6. Reading Fluency
PART II. LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION
Module 7. Background Knowledge
Module 8. Vocabulary Knowledge
Module 9. Morphological Awareness
Module 10. Text and Language Structures
Module 11. Literacy and Text Knowledge
Module 12. Verbal Reasoning
Module 13. Theory of Mind
Appendices
About the Author :
Douglas Fisher is professor and chair of educational leadership at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College. Previously, Doug was an early intervention teacher and elementary school educator. He is a credentialed English teacher and administrator in California. In 2022, he was inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame by the Literacy Research Association. He has published numerous articles on reading and literacy, leadership, and curriculum design, as well as books such as The Teacher Clarity Playbook (2nd ed.), Your Introduction to PLC+, The Illustrated Guide to Teacher Credibility, Instructional Strategies to Move Learning Forward: 50+ Tools That Support Gradual Release of Responsibility, and Welcome to Teaching!
Nancy Frey is a professor in educational leadership at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College. She is a credentialed special educator, reading specialist, and administrator in California. She is a member of the International Literacy Association’s Literacy Research Panel. Her published titles include 50 Strategies for Activating Your PLC+, The Illustrated Guide to Visible Learning, Welcome to Teaching Multilingual Learners, Teaching Foundational Skills to Adolescent Readers, and RIGOR Unveiled: A Video-Enhanced Flipbook to Promote Teacher Expertise in Relationship Building, Instruction, Goals, Organization, and Relevance.
Diane Lapp, EdD, is a distinguished professor of education at San Diego State University where her work continues to be applied to schools. She is also an instructional coach and teacher at Health Sciences High & Middle College. Throughout her career, Diane has taught in elementary, middle, and high schools. Her major areas of research and instruction regard issues related to the planning and assessment of very intentional literacy instruction and learning. A member of both the California and the International Reading Halls of Fame, Diane has authored, coauthored, and edited numerous articles, columns, texts, handbooks and children’s materials on instruction, assessment, and literacy related issues. Diane is the recipient of the ILA 2023 William S. Gray Citation of Merit, a prestigious award reserved for those who have made outstanding contributions to multiple facets of literacy development. Diane can be reached at lapp@sdsu.edu. Follow her on twitter @lappsdsu
Review :
"Teaching Reading: A Playbook for Developing Skilled Readers through Word Recognition and Language Comprehension is destined to become a "stock and trade" for teachers in preparation and practicing teachers who want an updated, easy-to-read, and practical guide for assessing and teaching reading. The modules are predictably organized with practical classroom applications aplenty! The style and tone are accessible for classroom practitioners while communicating the best and most applicable current research evidence available. I would say this new "playbook" is just the right mix of tactics, strategy, and content to deliver a winning gameplan for teaching reading to all students."
"In their inimitable way, Fisher, Frey, and Lapp have organized a great deal of practical, evidence-based information into a readable, accessible book! It will become a veritable "go-to" resource with its comprehensive information."
Three preeminent literacy scholars, Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Diane Lapp, have done a masterful job of presenting to teachers, preservice and inservice, an actionable guide for implementing the science of reading. Teaching Reading is comprehensive coverage of the major competencies required to achieve proficiency in reading. With several unique features that allow readers to take an active role in going from anticipating to understanding to planning and applying the evidence-based strategies presented, this book is a major contribution to the field of literacy education.
Possibly the most imaginative and informative resource on teaching reading on the market, this book engages readers through thoughtful interactive features that make you reflect, question, and further consider practices as it relates to your daily instruction. These authors and colleagues clearly know classroom instruction, and it shows in their writing. Want to know about the science of reading? This is your resource!
Wondering how to make sense of all you’ve been reading about the science of reading? Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Diane Lapp offer us a text that makes gaining this knowledge our reality. These authors have the unique ability to write professional development books for teachers about current issues exactly at the time they are needed, and this new text reminds us that we must teach skills to children in addition to social and emotional and culturally responsive instruction. This reader-friendly book emphasizes skill development we have neglected to emphasize over the past few years and presents the information in a creative playbook format just right for teachers. Written with evidenced-based practice and thoughtfully organized in a manner that will enable teachers to improve their craft and consequently student achievement, this is a great resource for professional development in schools or as a text for university literacy courses.
Organized around an expanded adaptation of Scarborough′s reading rope, this user-friendly resource expertly translates scientific research findings into a comprehensive guide for reading instruction. Practical Illustrations and classroom examples abound throughout the playbook, allowing research-based recommendations to come to life to foster both word recognition and language comprehension in young learners. This book also encourages teachers to reflect on their own practice at many points and in many ways. A terrific resource!
Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Diane Lapp reduce the clamor around the teaching of reading and bring clarity to how to develop strong readers. The authors not only give the what and the why but, more importantly, also provide interactive examples of the how to teach reading—and what our teachers need most is the how. The text is broken into neat learning modules that can be used in PLCs or study/book groups. I plan to use Teaching Reading as the core text in an interactive professional learning series for our staff. You should too!
Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Diane Lapp have done the tremendous work of bringing depth and clarity to the foundational skills of reading. They provide a wealth of clear and intentional guidance that will support us [early elementary educators] in providing quality phonemic awareness, phonics instruction, word reading skills, and so on, so that children are confident in their ability to decode and contextualize what they’ve read.
