Teach Them All to Read: Catching the Kids Who Fall Through the Cracks

Very practical for teachers and easy to read. Lots of hands on suggestions to be used right away in classroom. All my classmates who are veteran teachers like this book the best among all three text books that we use in our ESL classroom.

Before I coordinated an early literacy project for inner city students, I knew that improving the reading achievement of students in high-poverty, low-performing schools was going to be difficult and take every resource and skill my colleagues and I had. Even knowing that reality, it wasn't until a year after we'd rolled up our shirt sleeves and started working in three urban schools, that we TRULY understood the effort behind maintaining fine-tuned curriculum coordination, retaining the ability to duck sudden blockades from administration, and motivating teachers to keep employing the continual academic press needed to develop students' reading and language skills. Elaine McEwan's new book, "Teach Them All to Read: Catching the Kids Who Fall Through the Cracks," is the first book I've come across that truly captures all the necessary ingredients needed to create a reading culture where every student learns to read. I always enjoy McEwan's vivid metaphors and chatty practical tips which won't disappoint in her latest book. Thematically, McEwan uses jigsaw puzzle imagery to help the reader understand the necessary role of phonological awareness, phonics, spelling, reading a lot, a reading culture, language, fluency, knowledge, and cognitive strategies. But wait - this is far more than a book providing information about effective teaching of reading.In addition to her years as a principal who dramatically increased reading performance in her school, McEwan draws upon her years of experience crisscrossing the country to consult with school districts attempting to turn around their reading programs surround by a mishmash of misinformation from the reading establishment that hurls at them from all directions. A strength of this book is her intimate experience with Best Practices that often have no research substantiation.I should mention that I'm not totally impartial about this book and have been eagerly waiting for it to come out in print since our literacy project was used as one example of a comprehensive program, with interview quotes from some of our staff. Those of you who enjoy reading Consumer member Nettie Griffin's commentary and descriptions of her teaching, will also find a section of this book highlighting her teaching. These are my three favorite sections of the book:1. The section that identifies common fallacies in the teaching of reading that frequently surface, boldly exposes myths that have no research basis. I wish that my local whole language curriculum director would read about two of her favorite myths: "The Three-Cueing System: A Genuine Urban Myth" and "The Fat Cat Sat on the Rat is Borrrring and Bad for Kids"2. The comprehensive chapter entitled: "Fluency: The Forgotten Piece of the Puzzle" is a must-read!3. "Why Can't we Just Drop Everything and Read?" details what McEwan calls "reading in the zone," or the intersection between (a) reading a lot and (b) reading at an appropriate or somewhat challenging level of d