What Do I Teach Readers Tomorrow? Fiction, Grades 3-8: Your Moment-to-Moment Decision-Making Guide

by Gravity Goldberg, Renee W. Houser

Overview

Streamline formative assessment for readers in just minutes a day

With What Do I Teach Readers Tomorrow? Fiction, discover how to move your readers forward with in-class, actionable formative assessment. The authors provide a proven, 4-step process—lean in, listen to what readers say, look at what they write, and assess where they need to go next.

Next-step resources for whole-class, small-group, and one-on-one instruction, include

• Reproducible Clipboard Notes pages for quick assessments
• More than 30 lessons to get you started
• Reading notebook entries and sample classroom conversations
• Online video clips of Renee and Gravity teaching and debriefing

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781506351230
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	03/24/2017
Series:	Corwin Literacy
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	7.30(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Gravity Goldberg is an international educational consultant and author of eight books on teaching. Mindsets & Moves (Corwin Literacy, 2015) put her on the world stage with its practical ways to cultivate student agency, leading to speaking engagements and foreign translations of her work. She has almost 20 years of teaching experience, including positions as a science teacher, reading specialist, third grade teacher, special educator, literacy coach, staff developer, assistant professor, educational consultant, and yoga teacher. Gravity holds a B.A. and M.Ed. from Boston College and a doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is the founding director of Gravity Goldberg, LLC, a team that provides side-by-side coaching for teachers.

Renée Houser is a lifelong educator, literacy consultant, and co-author of the series What Do I Teach Readers Tomorrow? Her entire career has been dedicated to supporting students and teachers. She taught in New York City public schools, worked as a staff member at the Reading and Writing Project at Teachers College, and holds graduate degrees from Old Dominion University and Fordham University. In 2019, she founded Read. Write. Think. with Renee where she serves as an educational thinking partner for schools around the country. In this role, she is able to facilitate collaborative professional learning opportunities, create relevant resources for educators, and be a champion for student success.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Acknowledgments
A Quick-Start Guide for Easy Access
Chapter 1: Each Classroom Moment Is an Instructional Decision
Acting Without a Script: Embracing Our Role as Improvisers
Answering the “What Next?” Question
Intentional Teaching: Decision Making With Students at the Center
Self-Reflection Questionnaire: What Type of Decision Maker Are You?
Decision-Making Styles
Three Common Teaching Habits
Let Students Be Your Guide
Getting Started: An Action Plan
Chapter 2: Decisions About Book Selection
Making a Choice to Read Aloud a Fiction Text
Thin-Slicing Fiction Texts
Picture Books and Wordless Books
Short Story Collections
Novels
Graphic Novels
Ways to Engage Students in Fiction Read Alouds
Chapter 3: Decisions About Reading Notebooks
Why We Really Use Writing as a Tool for Understanding
Current Reality: Why Students Write About Reading in School
Lessons That Wake Up Writing About Reading
How to Collect Thinking in Notebook Entries
Self-Reflection Questionnaire: Reading Notebooks
What We Might Let Go of When Asking Students to Write About Reading
Reading Notebooks: An Action Plan
Chapter 4: Decisions About Discussion
The Benefits: Finding What’s True for Us in Texts and Life
Teach Students to Have Meaningful Conversations
Making Decisions Based on Student Conversations
Effective Fiction Conversation Characteristics
Moves for Analyzing Text in Diverse Ways
Self-Reflection Questionnaire: Student Conversations
What We Might Let Go of When Asking Students to Talk About Their Reading
Authentic Fiction Discussions: An Action Plan
Chapter 5: Decisions About Understanding Characters
Why Understanding Characters Is So Important
What Other Reading Skills Fit With Understanding Characters?
What to Look for When Students Study Characters
Thin-Slicing Students’ Thinking About Characters
Decide What to Teach Next
Studying More Than One Character
Harnessing the Power of Partnerships and Book Clubs
Understanding Characters: An Action Plan
Chapter 6: Decisions About Interpreting Themes
Why Interpreting Themes Is Important
What Other Reading Skills Fit With Interpreting Themes?
What to Look for When Students Interpret Themes
Decide What to Teach Next
Interpreting Themes in Multiple Texts
Interpreting Themes: An Action Plan
Chapter 7: Becoming Confident and Intentional Decision Makers
Appendices
Appendix A. Fiction Book Rating System
Appendix B. Some Favorite Fiction Texts
Appendix C. Clipboard Notes: Reading Notebook Entries
Appendix D. Clipboard Notes: Student Conversations
Appendix E. Understanding Characters
Appendix F. Clipboard Notes: Types of Thinking About Understanding Characters
Appendix G. Interpreting Themes
Appendix H. Clipboard Notes: Types of Thinking About Interpreting Themes
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

"I love this series! Goldberg and Houser succeed at something difficult: freeze-framing their intentional decisions about teaching readers in a way that we can all “see”—and then do in our own classrooms. They provide a decision-making model that helps teachers feel confident in letting their own observations of students’ written and spoken responses to text guide them. They distill the ever-present what-do-I-teach-next question into three choices, and these choices all center on furthering students’ ways of thinking as they read fiction and nonfiction. Through classroom videos and notebook entries, we learn the authors’ intuitive process. They don’t just leave us pondering, but scaffold our ability to be responsive teachers by providing lesson ideas that work for every kind of tomorrow—every reading next step. For fiction, they share lessons on character and theme; for nonfiction, on synthesizing information and understanding perspectives. The bonus is this: when we study and reflect on the authors’ decision-making process, we enhance and improve our own. These books should become seminal works. "

Laura Robb

"Goldberg and Houser offer an insider’s view of intentional decision making in action by making us front-row observers of their thinking process. We stand beside them as they show us student-centered reading instruction at its best, listening in on book conversations, gazing over their shoulders to analyze writing in reading notebooks. This step-by-step journey yields explanations of why, what, and how that we can use to plan next lessons for our readers. The What Do I Teach Readers Tomorrow? series is a testament to our professional responsibility to keep students as our compass, their 'right now' needs and wishes as readers as the destination, and engaging books as the vehicle that takes us there. "

Dr. Mary Howard

"We know of no resource that promotes responsive teaching as well as these books do. Goldberg and Houser like teaching to improve, and then describe how teachers can learn to be fully in the moment of instructional decision making by focusing on a handful of things. From the detailed lessons to boxes titled, 'Decide to teach this tomorrow if your students . . .' these authors anticipate the content teachers want and the questions they raise. These thoughtful books show teachers how to make children’s reading needs central to instructional planning. "

Kim Yaris and Jan Burkins

"This series is a must-have for every elementary language arts teacher! Goldberg and Houser have created a comprehensive support for teachers who want to provide their students with rigorous, thinking-centered experiences in reading and writing. Having these books is like having ongoing coaching and guidance from these two outstanding literacy experts at your fingertips. "

Jerry Harris

Goldberg and Houser—both former staff developers at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project—have perfectly combined theory and practice to help teachers put students first in their decision-making process. Best of all, they’ve provided the tools necessary to assist teachers in making those decisions become a reality right away.

Pam Hamilton

"These books exemplify the intersection of excellent scholarship and practical application for teachers in the field. They beautifully illustrate those essential metacognitive processes in a progression, and this helps teachers see how instructional decisions become instructional moves that translate into high cognitive demand learning experiences for students. This series an invaluable teaching tool for those who want to implement authentic Balanced Literacy experiences for their students. "

Dr. Akida Kissane Long

"I love the we-are-right-there-with-you tone. It’s so clear these authors have been there, and remain right in the trenches. And I love the teacher checklists and quizzes—just the right light touch to use in professional development time. But perhaps most of all, I admire that Houser and Goldberg have taken a complex process—daily instructional decision making— and broken it into doable steps for teachers to try. Deciding what each reader in your room is ready for next will never be something a teacher gets good at overnight, but with these outstanding resources, educators are armed with the right questions to ask themselves, a progression of strategies that enhance the readers relationship with the text, and the theory and research from in and out of the literacy field that will help them build a community of readers. "

Joyce Friedman

"Making decisions about reading in our classroom is not easy, even though we make hundreds every day. Often, we don’t give much thought to how we decide what we do, but with this book, we are taken on a guided tour of what it means to make super-intuitive decisions about what our readers need next. Each chapter addresses decisions about key aspects of building a literature-rich environment and a community of readers, including reading notebooks, teaching students how to synthesize ideas, and understanding perspective. The chapters on great nonfiction and fiction texts and on helping readers learn how to select involving books are favorites, as they give me a more focused method to rely on. The books are practical, friendly, and chockfull of ideas and lessons that can be readily implemented. "

Grace White