Reading Instruction Books

I bought this book for a class with Flippo last spring and I still find myself using it to assess my students. I have even taught other teachers Flippo's methods. What a vastly useful book. The book is quite lengthy, but there are many methods, instructions, charts and diagrams which makes the length necessary.

I never would have picked up this book had it not been assigned reading for my class. However, once I got into it, I really appreciated what it was setting out to do. Cowen tracks the six major reading research studies conducted since the 1960's that report their findings on what methods/approaches improve reading performance. The nice thing about it is he has done the work to cull through all the detailed research and presents in a succinct format the basic and most important aspects and findings of each study. There is a list in this book of the fifteen elements to a good reading program developed by a group of successful classroom teachers. I loved that! I found myself agreeing whole-heartedly and making mental notes of what to tweak in my classroom for next year. Not only do these studies recommend what practices cultivate successful readers, but also how much time the research says should be devoted to those practices in the classroom. This is really a must read for beginning reading teachers in any grade as well as seasoned teachers looking for meaningful/applicable professional development. Its 80 pages that will really give you a big pictures of the trends in reading instruction and the consensus among researchers and classroom teachers about best practices. One of the greatest aspects of this book is that Cowen presents all this data in a way that validates the classroom teacher. He actually addressed in his introduction that one of the biggest problems in public policy regarding education is that the classroom teacher is seen and treated as the problem and not the solution. He has high regard for the work of classroom teachers, and points out that all of the six studies show that the most important predictor of a child's reading success is their classroom teacher. The methodology and the materials are a distant second. This would be a great book for a curriculum coordinator to use for inservice training.

What a wonderful concept this book projects...taking a moment out of every day to share with your partner a reading that inspires love and passion...wether you choose to do this after a candlelit dinner with soft mood music in the background as you come to the end of that "perfectly romantic evening", or after you have put the children to bed, cleaned the kitchen and watched the 10pm news. This book brings you together for a moment of love and romance at the end of every day...something that I believe is truly important.

Excellent for lower level readers-High school. Elements of a short story review and easy read.

Szymusiak and Sibberson do a great job hitting the needs of the transitional readers. There are so few resources that truly address the unique needs of kids in the transitional stage of becoming more capable readers. This book is very practical and easy to read. Their suggestions are easy to implement in a variety of settings. I highly suggest this book as a resource for all who teach kids how to read as compared to those who just teach reading!

The _Kamasutra_ is a misunderstood book, and it has been misunderstood largely because of the censors who have given it a reputation for naughty depictions of sexual variety and athleticism. Not only was the original book without illustrations, it describes only eighteen positions for lovemaking, most of them quite within the realm of execution by non-gymnasts. It has nothing to do with tantric sex and much to do with civilized behavior. It describes an idealized way of life rather than being a practical sex manual for its time or for our own (the excellent _The Guide to Getting It On!_ is much more fun and informative for current purposes). The wild sex that the word "kamasutra" now promises (courtesy of those, especially the censors, who have enabled its sensationalizing) isn't a theme in the book itself. According to James McConnachie in _The Book Of Love: The Story of the Kamasutra_ (Metropolitan Books), the sex in the book is mannered and moral. How the book got the reputation as a repository for sensational sex secrets is McConnachie's elegantly-told tale, and it is fascinating, reaching back to the third century and all the way up into our own.

The author of the _Kamasutra_ was one Vatsyayana, who described himself as a white-haired scholar and thus long past sexual distractions. He was interested in rescuing a sexual tradition from an increasingly ascetic third-century India. Vatsyayana describes the life and surroundings of a smart, young urbanite with plenty of money and leisure. There are seven books within the _Kamasutra_, only one of which has to do with the surprisingly moderate bedroom acrobatics. When eighteenth century translators were eager to go to work on the text, it was surprisingly hard to find a full text to work with. When the text was discovered and gathered, the job was done under the inspiration of Sir Richard Burton, who was quite interested in shocking his fellow Britons into what he felt was a more open discussion of sex. Burton was not, as many assume, the translator, although he was the guiding genius of the project. He provided notes, and his notoriety guaranteed that the text would not be printed in some obscure academic journal. McConnachie writes that not only did Burton ensure the text would be well circulated within his erotomaniac circle, it was his "status as a great explorer and Orientalist that lent the _Kamasutra_ authenticity as a piece of anthropological archaeology, offering a fig-leaf cover of at least semi-respectability." When it was published in 1883, it was in an expensive edition, to avoid charges of corrupting the working classes while it had a good run among their betters.

Pirate publishers, however, had a field day with the text immediately after it was issued, and were especially interested in leaving out everything but the "good" bits, and putting in pictures. With attempts of suppression, it lead a shadowy life as a forbidden book and has been associated in most people's minds with pornography. When the ban against Lady Chatterley collapsed in 1960, it became an over-the-counter commodity. McConnachie praises a scholarly one from 2002, although the Burton edition will always be a landmark, and will always be in print and timely. Furthermore, we have The Bedside Kama Sutra or Red-Hot Sex the Kama Sutra Way, or Deepak Chopra's version (I'm no prude, but I am too inhibited to think of even looking into that one), not to mention a couple of examples of pop-up book versions ("even if the bits that pop up are not necessarily those you'd expect", McConnachie jokes). The book has escaped from grubby, clandestine shelves in dark bookshops, but usually in ways that transformed it from its original content and purpose. McConnachie has written an amusing and instructive history of an important text and its sometimes preposterous interpretations and social effects.

I am on the RCIA team at church and also a sponser from time to time. It should be very helpful for new people.

After carefully digesting Buddy Reading and having implemented the program for four years, I truly believe that the suggestions and techniques that the authors had to offer helped to develop fluency, intonation, critical thinking, and a love for reading! There are many articles on the benefits of buddy reading and this book offers an excellent guide on how to successfully implement one. There are lessons for the teacher of older buddies as well as lessons for the teacher of the younger buddies. I highly recommend this book!

What I love about this book (as with all the books in this series) is the simplicity in comprehensiveness.

This book tells in a less than 200 page how to set up and enrich your classroom and instruction so as to foster literacy in young children. They not only elaborate on the concept of the read aloud and shared reading (for example) but also they talk about these techniques on a theoretical level (i.e. read alouds are a key application of teh language experience approach to teaching reading).

Get this excellent book as well as the other books in the series: WRITING IN PRESCHOOL, LEARNING ABOUT PRINT IN PRESCHOOL, ORAL LANGUAGE AND EARLY LITERACY IN PRESCHOOL,USING CHILDREN'S LITERATURE IN PRESCHOOL.

I first read this book in 1990 after it was assigned for a course on ministry with children I took in a graduate school for Christian Education. After 12 years I am still actively using it. The strength of the book is that it makes a convincing argument concerning the necessary of using children's literature in the Christian nurture of children. If you want children to learn to read and love the Bible, you need to use more than the Bible. This book convinced me of that. It demonstrates in practical ways how to use children's literature in connection with the Bible to give children a fuller understanding of the world God has made. Children's literature becomes a bridge linking the world of the Bible and the world of adults with the world of children. In addition to arguing its point and making excellent suggestions on how to use children's literature in the Christian education of children, the book also includes an annotated booklist of the best children's literature, the age groups for which it is written and a summary of the stories and themes you will find in each of the books. I highly recommend this book for parents, teachers, pastors and directors of Christian Education.