Annotated bibliography and index.

This book is a rich source of ideas for stating, building and interpreting student language portfolio collections. It develops youngsters as self-assessors while it weds instruction and assessment as inseperable.

If you've ever sat down to confer with a child and felt at a loss for what to say or how to help move him or her forward as a writer, this book is for you. If you are a strong teacher of writing but are not seeing results from your students, this book is for you. Authors Kristin Ackerman and Jennifer McDonough have been teaching writing for several years and know that conferring can be a murky and messy process--perhaps the hardest component of all. Written from the lessons they've learned through hard-won classroom experience--their mistakes and challenges--Conferring with Young Writers is based on what Kristin and Jen call the "three Fs" frequency, focus, and follow-up. They've created a classroom management system that offers routine and structure for giving the most effective feedback in a writing conference. This book will help writing teachers--and students--learn to break down and utilize the qualities that enable good writing: elaboration, voice, structure, conventions, and focus. The authors also provide the knowledge and skills it takes to confer well, which will help you improve as a writing teacher and give your students the confidence to think of themselves as writers.

In this book, author Allan A. De Fina invites teachers, students and parents into the portfolio process, which offers many opportunities to assess a student's performance and growth over time. You'll read a brief background and a working definition of the process, as well as learn how portfolios can be effectively used in any and every classroom. You'll find practical suggestions for getting started, pointers on how to manage the process, and a look at the benefits of portfolio assessment.

First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This practical resource helps elementary classroom, remedial reading, and LD teachers make the best possible informal assessment of a child's specific reading, writing, and spelling strengths and weaknesses and attitudes toward reading. Written in easy-to-follow nontechnical language, it provides a multitude of tested informal assessment strategies and devices, such as "kid watching," retellings, journals, IRIs, writing surveys, portfolios, think alouds and more-- including more than 200 reproducible assessment devices ready for immediate use! You'll find a detailed description of each informal assessment techniques along with step-by-step procedures for its use and, wherever possible, one or more reproducible sample devices. Complete answer keys for each device are included with the directions. Among the unique topics covered are the innovative Individual Reading Inventory, San Diego Quick Assessment List, El Paso Phonics Survey, QAD Chart, Holistic scoring of writing and Reproducible devices for portfolio assessment. In short, Alternative Assessment Techniques for Reading and Writing offers a wealth of tested, ready-to-use informal assessment information and devices that should save the teacher a great deal of time and energy in making a useful assessment of any student's literacy ability!

Much has been written on the topic of guided reading over the last twenty years, but no other leaders in literacy education have championed the topic with such depth and breadth as Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell. In the highly anticipated second edition of Guided Reading, Fountas and Pinnell remind you of guided reading's critical value within a comprehensive literacy system, and the reflective, responsive teaching required to realize its full potential. Now with Guided Reading, Second Edition, (re)discover the essential elements of guided reading through: a wider and more comprehensive look at its place within a coherent literacy system a refined and deeper understanding of its complexity an examination of the steps in implementation-from observing and assessing literacy behaviors, to grouping in a thoughtful and dynamic way, to analyzing texts, to teaching the lesson the teaching for systems of strategic actions a rich text base that can support and extend student learning the re-emerging role of shared reading as a way to lead guided and independent reading forward the development of managed independent learning across the grades an in-depth exploration of responsive teaching the role of facilitative language in supporting change over time in students' processing systems the identification of high-priority shifts in learning to focus on at each text level the creation of a learning environment within which literacy and language can flourish. Through guided reading, students learn how to engage in every facet of the reading process and apply their reading power to all literacy contexts. Also check out our new on-demand mini-course: Introducing Texts Effectively in Guided Reading Lessons