The Teacher's Guide to Big Blocks(tm), Grades 4 - 8: A Multimethod, Multilevel Framework

I have always enjoyed the Four Blocks approach, and this book is a great way to see how to use it in the upper grades. "Four Blocks" is meant for grades 1-3, "Building Blocks" is for Kindergarten, and now there's the "Big Blocks" for grades 4-8. Older students do not need as much time with decoding, so the Working with Words Block becomes smaller, and the other three blocks- Guided Reading, Writing, and Self-Selected Reading become "bigger blocks". Though this model was designed to be used in classrooms with the elementary school setting (one teacher for most subjects)there is some information at the end of each chapter in this book for application to middle schools. I find the games, strategies, and lists from each of the blocks to be useful even if you are not a Four Blocks classroom or school. Middle school content area teachers can use the guided reading strategies to make textbooks more comprehensible and better engage the older students in the curriculum. Great ideas!

I plan to implement Big Blocks in my classroom next year. This is a great resource to help anyone get started.