The scope of individual learner differences is broad, yet there is no current, comprehensive, and unified volume that provides an overview of the considerable amount of research conducted on various language learner differences, until now.

Everything you love about writing and grammar just got smaller! Introducing Prentice Hall Writing and Grammar: Communication in Action Handbook Edition. Seamlessly integrate Prentice Hall Literature and the Writing and Grammar Handbook through easy-to-use cross-references!

A teacher presents a lesson, and at the end asks students if they understand the material. The students nod and say they get it. Later, the teacher is dismayed when many of the students fail a test on the material. Why aren’t students getting it? And, just as important, why didn’t the teacher recognize the problem? In Checking for Understanding, Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey show how to increase students’ understanding with the help of creative formative assessments. When used regularly, formative assessments enable every teacher to determine what students know and what they still need to learn. Fisher and Frey explore a variety of engaging activities that check for and increase understanding, including interactive writing, portfolios, multimedia presentations, audience response systems, and much more. This new 2nd edition of Checking for Understanding has been updated to reflect the latest thinking in formative assessment and to show how the concepts apply in the context of Fisher and Frey’s work on gradual release of responsibility, guided instruction, formative assessment systems, data analysis, and quality instruction. Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey are the creators of the Framework for Intentional and Targeted (FIT) Teaching™. They are also the authors of numerous ASCD books, including The Formative Assessment Action Plan: Practical Steps to More Successful Teaching and Learning and the best-selling Enhancing RTI: How to Ensure Success with Effective Classroom Instruction and Intervention.

Reading problems don't disappear when students enter middle school, recent studies show that nearly a quarter of today's eighth graders aren't able to read at a basic level. This book arms language arts teachers with lessons, strategies, and foundational kowledge they need to resolve older students' reading difficulties and increase their chances for academic success. Ideal for use with struggling readers in Grades 6 - 8, this book clearly lays out the fundamentals of effective teaching for adolescents with reading difficulties. Teachers will discover how to: select and administor assessments for comprehension, fluency, and word recognition; use assessment results to plan individualized instruction; apply research-supported instructional practices; develop flexible grouping systems; set manageable short-term learning goals with students; give appropriate and corrective feedback; monitor student progress over time; provide effective interventions within a school-wide Response to Intervention framework; and more. To help teachers incorporate evidence-based practices into their classroom instruction they'll get more than 20 complete, step-by-step sample lessons for strengthening adolescents' reading skills. Easy to adapt for use across any curriculum, the sample lessons provide explicit models of successful instruction, with suggested teacher scripts, checklist for planning instruction, key terms and objectives, strategies for guided and independent practice, tips on promoting generalization, and more.

The most comprehensive overview available, this Handbook is an essential guide to sociolinguistics today. Reflecting the breadth of research in the field, it surveys a range of topics and approaches in the study of language variation and use in society. As well as linguistic perspectives, the handbook includes insights from anthropology, social psychology, the study of discourse and power, conversation analysis, theories of style and styling, language contact and applied sociolinguistics. Language practices seem to have reached new levels since the communications revolution of the late twentieth century. At the same time face-to-face communication is still the main force of language identity, even if social and peer networks of the traditional face-to-face nature are facing stiff competition of the Facebook-to-Facebook sort. The most authoritative guide to the state of the field, this handbook shows that sociolinguistics provides us with the best tools for understanding our unfolding evolution as social beings.

First Published in 2008. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.