No two students in grades 4–8 are identical, and many struggle with literacy for different reasons. Using a teacher-friendly, hands-on approach, this eminently practical book walks educators through the nuts and bolts of literacy intervention in the middle grades. Highlights include “North Star” principles to orient instruction, an assessment flowchart, and extended case studies of three middle-grades learners. The book offers evidence-based intervention practices for targeting specific literacy components, including word recognition, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Teachers are guided to plan structured but flexible interventions that promote literacy growth and engagement. Sample lesson plans and clear, engaging figures illustrate how to make literacy intervention work for all students.

The act of reading is a complex mental process characterized by rapid forward and backward eye movements. Research has shown that the eyes do not follow a line of text continuously, but move in short stops and rapid movements. The movements can provide a visual record of the person's reading pattern and show how the information is being received and processed. Fast readers move and fix their eyes on a different spot about four times a second. During the time when their eyes are fixed, new information is brought in and processed. The fixed time periods are measured in thousandths of a second or milliseconds (ms). The duration of the average fixation is 225 ms. A movement lasts about 30 ms; during this time, reception of new visual information is suppressed. This gives the brain time to process the information it has already received and ensures that this older information is understood before new information comes into play. Scan and fixation times can also be measured by individual words. Long and unfamiliar words will have a longer fixation time. Short and familiar words will have a shorter fixation time. The scan time for short one-syllable words can be so brief that it is hardly measurable. Longer one-syllable-words need only one scan and one brief fixation or pause. Multi-syllable words need one complete scan from beginning to end that normally includes a brief pause for each syllable. However, speed readers can scan and read longer words in one movement. By conducting reading research and studying reading habits, scientists have found that the average eye movement distance is about eight characters and the average size word is five characters. This gives fast readers an overlap of three characters. Speed readers have learned to use this overlap along with fewer eye movements to increase their reading speeds.

Speedy Syllables uses simple and fun activities to help your student decode, spell and understand multisyllabic words. The exercises in this book help your student read and spell words that contain two or more syllables. Speedy Syllables is designed to progress from the simplest multisyllabic forms to the more complex, ensuring that your student understands how to decode and read each type of syllable. Each lesson builds on the last with thorough review built into the lessons. Give your student 30 days to become a better reader!

Gimson's Pronunciation of English is an indispensible reference book for anyone invloved in studying or teaching the pronunciation of English.

The author, a hard-living, happily married, middle-aged American, gets a three-day "executive checkup" at the Mayo Clinic and is thereby forced to confront his mortality. He has to survive his own cardiovascular system, inherited habits, and genetic handicaps long enough to see his small children into adulthood. But with so much at stake, and in spite of his terror of death, he may not have the willpower to follow the Mayo clinicians' advice. The book negotiates the political and medical forks in the labyrinth of our health care system and calls for sanity and enlightenment in the stem cell research wars. It's a portrait of the looming mortality of a privileged generation that can't believe the party's winding down, if not over.--From publisher description.