Reading Instruction for Diverse Classrooms

This practical, teacher-friendly book provides indispensable guidance for implementing research-based reading instruction that is responsive to students' diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Structured around the “big five” core topics of an effective reading program—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension—the book explains tried-and-true teaching strategies for fostering all students' achievement. Key topics include engaging diverse students in classroom discussion, involving families in learning, and assessing and teaching new literacies. Numerous classroom examples demonstrate a wide range of easy-to-implement lesson ideas and activities for students at different grade levels, including struggling learners. Issues specific to English language learners are woven throughout the chapters.

Reader friendly, informative, and practical. This book is an ideal text for elementary literacy methods courses, but will be equally useful for practicing elementary teachers who strive to promote literacy achievement for all children. Chapters build on research in specific areas of assessment and instruction, drawing explicit, realistic connections to culturally responsive teaching. Teachers gain an understanding of how to take children's richly diverse backgrounds and experiences into account in implementing an effective literacy program.--Julie K. Kidd, EdD, College of Education and Human Development, George Mason UniversityThis book provides an important window into research-based strategies for how to teach reading in diverse classrooms. It also offers some viable solutions for what teachers can do to be successful. If we do the work this book challenges us to do, we will move closer to leveling the playing field for children of color in our nation's classrooms. It will surely become a seminal book on culturally responsive teaching.--Patricia A. Edwards, PhD, Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University; President, International Reading Association (2010-2011)McIntyre et al. present the latest thinking on ways to deliver culturally relevant literacy instruction that is both powerful and engaging. Perhaps the greatest assets of the book are its focus on dialogic instruction and its practical voice: the authors have created a vision of effective classroom teaching that aligns with current realities. This book is a 'must read' for teachers looking for a strong professional development resource. It is also a great foundational text for undergraduate reading methods courses. At a time when teacher education is flooded with outmoded reading methods textbooks, McIntyre and her colleagues offer us a fresh resource that promises to rise quickly to the top of the field.--Robert B. Cooter, Jr., EdD, Professor and Ursuline Endowed Chair of Teacher Education, Bellarmine UniversityThis excellent book is needed now more than ever as we embrace rapidly changing demographics in our classrooms. The authors offer best practices that are grounded in research and theory and that reach beyond the National Reading Panel’s five literacy pillars. Classroom teachers, literacy coaches, and students in teacher training programs need to read this book and keep it handy for reference during the school year.--Deborah A. Wooten, PhD, Department of Theory and Practice in Teacher Education, University of Tennessee-This book is a valuable resource for classroom teachers and teacher candidates....The strategies and materials presented in the book are comprehensive and applicable to classroom teaching.--Educational Review, 11/25/2011

Ellen McIntyre, EdD, is Professor and Department Head of Elementary Education at North Carolina State University. Dr. McIntyre conducts research and has published widely on teacher education, literacy instruction and student achievement, and the sociocultural factors that affect teaching and learning. Prior to her university work, she was a first-, second-, and sixth-grade teacher in an urban elementary school in Kentucky that served students of poverty. Her work has focused on classroom instruction and family involvement for students from populations who have historically struggled in school. Nancy Hulan, MEd, is a PhD candidate in Curriculum and Instruction (Literacy Focus) at the University of Louisville. She has taught diverse populations of students as a Reading Resource teacher, a Title I teacher, and a second-grade teacher in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Las Vegas. Ms. Hulan's research interests include student discussion patterns in the elementary classroom, instruction for linguistically and culturally diverse students, and teachers' decision-making processes concerning literacy instruction. Vicky Layne, MAT, is the Literacy Coach at Engelhard Elementary School in Louisville, Kentucky. Ms. Layne has taught all elementary grade levels and has implemented culturally responsive instruction with diverse populations of students from kindergarten through fifth grade.