"Engages students in inquiry that leads to the discovery and understanding of a general principle they can apply to their own independent reading" --

Using favorite picturebooks for her mini-lessons models, teacher Susan Lunsford shares 15 easy-to-do writing lessons. Mini-lessons include: Where do story ideas come from? Great First Lines, Exploring Settings, Painting Pictures with Words, Writing a Complete Story, and Great Endings. Her teacher-student dialogues make it all easy to replicate in your own classroom. Each mini-lessons includes follow-up strategies and activities and picturebook suggestions. Writing conference and management tips too! For use with Grades 1-3.

Harvey Daniels' Literature Circles introduced tens of thousands of teachers to the power of student-led book discussions. Nancy Steineke's Reading and Writing Together showed how a teacher can nurture friendship and collaboration among young readers. Now, Daniels and Steineke team up to focus on one crucial element of the Literature Circle model; the short, teacher-directed lessons that begin, guide and follow-up every successful book club meeting. Mini-lessons are the secret to book clubs that click. Each of these forty-five short, focused, and practical lessons includes Nancy and Harvey's actual classroom language and is formatted to help busy teachers with point-by-point answers to the questions they most frequently ask. How can I: steer my students toward deeper comprehension? get kids interested in each others' ideas? make sure kids choose just-right books? help students schedule their reading and meeting time? deal with kids who don't do the reading? get kids to pay more attention to literary style and structure? help special education and ELL students to participate actively in book clubs? get kids to expand their repertoire of reading strategies? make sure groups are on-task when I'm not looking over their shoulder? introduce writing tools (including role sheets) that support student discussion'. help shy or dominating members get the right amount of "airtime?" give grades for book clubs without ruining the fun? use scientific research to justify the classroom time I spend on literature circles? Each mini-lesson spells out everything from the time and materials needed to word-by-word instructions for students. The authors even warn "what could go wrong," helping teachers to avoid predictable management problems. With abundant student examples, reproducible forms, photographs of kids in action, and recommended reading lists, Mini-lessons for Literature Circles helps you deepen student book discussions, create lifelong readers, and build a respectful classroom community.

There has never been a more comprehensive resource available to teachers that does what the continuum does - provide specific behaviors and understandings that are required at each level for students to demonstrate thinking within, beyond, and about the text. These behaviors and understandings describe what students will be expected to do in order to effectively read and understand the text. More in-depth, more intuitive, and more essential than ever-The Fountas & Pinnell Literacy Continuum, Expanded Edition enables teachers to construct a common vision for student achievement that effectively and efficiently engages all students in the robust, authentic and meaningful literacy learning every child deserves. The Literacy Continuum provides a way to look for specific evidence of learning from prekindergarten through grade eight, and across eight instructional contexts. Each instructional context contributes substantially, in different but complementary ways, to students' development of the literacy process. With this indispensable literacy tool, Fountas and Pinnell remind you of The Literacy Continuum's critical role in transforming literacy teaching and learning. (Re)Discover The Fountas & Pinnell Literacy Continuum, Expanded Edition to: elevate your language and literacy expertise develop an understanding of the demands of texts on readers build your understanding of the reading and writing process and how it changes over time hone your observation of students' literacy behaviors teach toward student integration of the Systems of Strategic Actions articulate the literacy curriculum within and across grade levels activate the responsive teaching that meets students where they are and brings them forward with intention and precision build professional learning opportunities with colleagues create a common vision and common language for literacy in your school. Look for these new enhancements inside: Streamlined organization and navigation Expanded behaviors and examples across the continua First appearance of a behavior or goal or text characteristic is indicated by a red square (Behaviors are acquired and then elaborated over time) Clear organization of and explicit links to the Systems of Strategic Actions Four-color design for clarity and focus Also check out our on-demand mini-course: Thinking and Talking About Books Across the Day.

Using picture books as models is a powerful way to teach key expository and narrative target skills. Step-by-step directions and charts, with quality children's literature used as models, help you set up and manage effective 45-minute long writing workshops. Also includes extensive lists of other children's literature with their recommended Target Skill application.Teach brainstorming, focus, organization, elaboration, and writing conventions using literature as models. Primary and intermediate-level lessons for each of 20 models allow you to customize your writing workshops to the needs and abilities of your K-5 students.

For ten years and in two classic books, Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell have described how to analyze the characteristics of texts and select just-right books to use for guided reading instruction. Now, for the first time, all of their thinking and research has been updated and brought together into Leveled Books, K-8 to form the ultimate guide to choosing and using books from kindergarten through middle school. Fountas and Pinnell take you through every aspect of leveled books, describing how to select and use them for different purposes in your literacy program and offering prototype descriptions of fiction and nonfiction books at each level. They share advice on: the role of leveled books in reading instruction, analyzing the characteristics of fiction and nonfiction texts, using benchmark books to assess instructional levels for guided reading, selecting books for both guided and independent reading, organizing high-quality classroom libraries, acquiring books and writing proposals to fund classroom-library purchases, creating a school book room. In addition, Fountas and Pinnell explain the leveling process in detail so that you can tentatively level any appropriate book that you want to use in your instruction. Best of all, Leveled Books, K-8 is one half of a new duo of resources that will change how you look at leveled books. Its companion-www.FountasandPinnellLeveledBooks.com-is a searchable and frequently updated website that includes more than 18,000 titles. With Leveled Books, K-8 you'll know how and why to choose books for your readers, and with www.FountasandPinnellLeveledBooks.com, you'll have the ideal tool at your fingertips for finding appropriate books for guided reading. Book jacket.