The Reading Strategies Book: Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Readers

"Effective reading strategies are like my favorite recipes; they teach you how to accomplish something that is not yet automatic in a broken down, step-by-step manner." - Jennifer Serravallo, The Reading Strategies Book: Your EVERYTHING Guide to Developing Skilled Readers Jennifer Serravallo created the ultimate book of reading strategies. This resource is a must have have for schools! Let me explain in terms of who can benefit: - Campus Leadership: Assistant principals usually coordinate the RtI process and instructional intervention plans. This books will help identify and create individual goals for learners, determine the appropriate strategy and give you ideas for intervention lessons. Best of all, these can be implemented IN the classroom setting by the teacher.In my experience as an assistant principal, I often got responses like, "He can't read. She struggles with reading. He doesn't try to sound out words. She is not on grade level in reading. He has so may gaps, I don't know where to start." This book will help teachers: identify specific instructional goals identify guidelines for readers to practice and apply strategies give helpful feedback to move the reader forward - Literacy Specialist/Instructional Coach: This resource can help with coaching conversations with individual teachers or grade level teams. - Classroom Teacher: This is truly a comprehensive book to help you develop individual reading goals or goals for reading strategy groups. This a a GREAT resource for reading strategy groups. The lessons in this book can fit into any balanced literacy program. The book is organized around the following goals (chapters) for developing skilled readers: - Supporting Pre-Emergent and Emergent Readers - Teaching Reading Engagement: Focus, Stamina, and Building a Reading Life - Supporting Print Work: Increasing Accuracy and Integrating Sources of Information - Teaching Fluency: Reading with Paraphrasing, Intonation, and Automaticity - Supporting Comprehension in Fiction: Understanding Plot and Setting - Supporting Comprehension in Fiction: Thinking About Characters - Supporting Comprehension in Fiction: Understanding Themes and Ideas - Supporting Comprehension in Nonfiction: Determining Maint Topic(s) and Idea(s) - Supporting Comprehension in Nonfiction: Determining Key Details - Supporting Comprehension in Nonfiction: Getting the Most from Text Features - Improving Comprehension in Fiction and Nonfiction: Understanding Vocabulary and Figurative Language - Supporting Students' Conversations: Speaking, Listening, and Deepening Comprehension - Improving Writing About Reading Each chapter starts with a research-based explanation of WHY the goal is important to developing skilled readers. Serravallo also gives you suggestions on how to assess students, because it crucial that the strategy matches the child's goal and the texts they are reading. Strategy lessons include the following (depending on the lesson): - Level - Genre/Text Type - Skill - Strategy - Prompts - Teaching Tips - Language Lesson - Visuals See my full review (with visuals) here: http://loriesqualls.com/2015/07/11/the-reading-strategies-book/ HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!

In The Reading Strategies Book, Jennifer Serravallo provides an invaluable resource for educators seeking effective ways to enhance reading instruction. With 300 actionable strategies linked to thirteen specific reading goals—ranging from fluency to literary analysis—this comprehensive guide makes the often-invisible work of reading accessible and clear for both teachers and students. Serravallo offers practical tools for developing individualized goals, providing step-by-step strategies, and guiding students with prompts tailored to their needs. Each strategy is carefully cross-referenced with relevant skills, genres, and Fountas & Pinnell reading levels, allowing teachers to deliver just-right instruction when it's needed most. The inclusion of Teaching Tips and Lesson Language further equips educators with the resources to craft effective demonstrations and explanations. Whether you utilize readers workshop, guided reading, or any other approach, The Reading Strategies Book is designed to enhance your teaching practice and support goal-directed, differentiated instruction for individuals, small groups, and whole classes. This essential guide will empower teachers to cultivate skilled, confident readers and is a must-have for anyone committed to fostering a love of reading in their students.

This book by Jennifer Serravallo is perfect for anyone who teaches reading, from classroom teachers to literacy coaches to interventionists, student teachers to tutors. It is packed with explicit, easy-to-follow reading strategies, organized into 13 reading goals. These strategies will help readers develop skills they need to read, comprehend, analyze, and discuss both fiction and non-fiction. Each page contains a teaching point, possible trajectories for strategy instruction, prompts, tips, examples of charts to use, and guidance for which readers will benefit most from the identified strategy. Not a book you will read and leave on your shelf, Serravallo provides teachers with a "cookbook" for their instruction. I found myself thinking of particular students or groups of students as I perused its pages with tabs and highlighter in hand. It filled me with anticipation for the new school year! Depending on the readers you work with, you will find yourself drawn to different reading goals, whether it be reading engagement, fluency, fiction comprehension (plot, setting, characters, theme), nonfiction comprehension (text features, main ideas, details), speaking and listening, writing about reading, vocabulary and figurative language, and more. This isn't a book you have to read from cover to cover; the easy-to-use table of contents invites you to target specific goals and find the strategies that are just-right for your readers. Concise, student-friendly, and purposeful, the teaching points and instruction framework are ready to put into practice immediately. You will keep this book at your fingertips as you move through the year. Once again, Jennifer Serravallo delivers a text that will benefit all who encounter its pages, and I highly recommend this "everything guide" for anyone who teaches reading!

This book is an amazing resource for teachers wanting to improve their implementation of reading strategies. There are many, many strategies included, with specific steps and instructions as to how to use them in your classroom. As you identify the goals for your student, you can determine what strategy would be appropriate, and look at samples of how to implement the intervention. Chapters in the book are organized by goals for developing skilled readers, with an explanation (with research) as to why each goal is important. There are also suggestions on how to assess, so the strategy matches the goal the student should be working towards. The strategies also cover a wide range of readers, from pre-emergent to level Z. One of my favorite parts of the book is the inclusion of why the goals are important; Jennifer Serravallo includes solid research-based explanations in regards to “why,” and this background knowledge can give teachers a better understanding of how to develop skilled readers. In addition to classroom teachers, reading teachers/specialists and literacy coaches would also find this book a handy addition to their libraries, as the strategies can be utilized across grade levels. The book would be a helpful resource to share during coaching sessions, as it is very teacher-friendly and easy to use. I have gone back to this book again and again; for veterans or new teachers, it is an invaluable tool!

This AMAZING, MUST HAVE, book is a dream come true for anyone who teaches reading. It is like no other book I've ever read or owned about literacy. Most books about teaching reading require plowing through lots of pages about the author's philosophy and practices before getting to the good stuff...the stuff you can use in the classroom tomorrow. This book is only the "good stuff!" ...from strugglers to gifted students...from pre emergent readers to Level Z readers..... You will find strategies you could walk in your classroom and use the day you receive your book. Every teacher, from classroom teachers to reading specialists to literacy coaches to tutors to home-school teachers, from pre serviice teachers to veteran teachers, will quickly and easily be able to find the strategies they need to teach the students in front of them. And the strategies will help readers at every level internalize skills necessary to read fiction and non fiction, to write and talk about reading, and to read and comprehend with deeper insight. The author, Jennifer Serravallo likens the book to a cookbook that the reader will hopefully outgrow someday, but I can't put it down. It will make you wish you wish it wasn't summer. The inviting, easy to find pages with lots of charts and practical tips will invite you to start tabbing pages, highlighting and organizing yourself for next year! In addition, it's the perfect gift for a teacher friend, or relative. I just ordered two copies for my soon to be teaching daughters. Only one regret... why couldn't this have been published when I started teaching....I would have been such a better teacher!

I just received the book for the second time. Wonderful text. Great Ideas. The book is poorly made though and on each book the lower left front cover of the spine, it splits during shipping and the corner pages bend up. I am going to have mine spiral bound. I hope I can still sell it back when I am finished. This review I hope will be helpful.

I am a literacy coach and am so excited to use this book next year with teachers at my school. Here's why: I love how Jennifer compares The Reading Strategies Book to a cookbook, It's a great analogy for the lessons in the book. This book does not need to be read cover to cover (although you can). You can determine goals based on formative assessment and turn to the chapter about that goal. She also suggests that you tweak lessons to make them your own, just as you would with a recipe. I do this a lot when I am cooking, but it sure is nice to have that lesson as a starting point! That is the beauty of this book. The "Getting Started" section of the book is invaluable. Jennifer walks you through navigating the book, choosing goals for students, how the book might fit into your current literacy instruction, and supporting strategies with visuals. I LOVE how this book is organized. Each chapter focuses on a goal for students. Within each chapter you will find 20-25 lessons with strategies to teach the skills needed for students to meet this goal. Each lesson is beautiful organized (again with the organization!) and printed in color with visuals/charts. Within the margins, Jennifer indicates who this lesson is for (guided reading level, genre/text type, and skill). The lessons are short and sweet (on one page)--no crazy prep or planning needed. A teacher's dream. I think this book should be a required text for college literacy courses and should be a welcome gift to new teachers when hired. I could not recommend this book more highly. Jennifer Seravallo never disappoints!

I haven't been so excited about professional literature about reading since Mosaic of Thought. IMHO, every grade 2-8 reading teacher (including many MS content teachers) should have this book. I love the way Serravallo thinks about reading in a practical way. She makes it clear that we need goals for our readers. She realizes the importance of fluency yet debunks all the timed crap going on in some schools. She often cites the work of my reading guru, Ellin Keene. She understands the difference between a strategy and a skill. She recognizes the importance of comprehension strategies. Best of all, the book is essentially many many 1-page lessons. They are practical and easy to follow. For me, some will be whole group lessons, some small group, and some individual. Some I'll skip, some I'll tweak, and some will definitely improve my Reader's Workshop. You may find that you're already doing many of these lessons but she'll make you rethink the way you talk with kids. I love Serravallo's advice to prompt with few words, to put your finger on the page to connect with the book, to model/clarify what even the most simple strategy looks like (ie, what does it mean to 'go back and reread?'). One lesson in the historical fiction section has me thinking about how to completely revamp my approach to teaching one book in my Language Workshop. Next year will be my last. When I recommended this book to colleagues and offered a book club, some queried "Why are you putting in all this effort when you're retiring in June?" I respond, because this book offers me a chance to improve my teaching of reading. Thank you, Jennifer Serravallo.

One of the only teaching books that is really useful as a platform to inspire your teaching and to have a stock of useful ideas that have been tried and tested. Huge book! Wish it was on kindle too.

Molto interessante e sicuramente utile. Perfetto per trovare ispirazione e spunti per delle lezioni di scrittura mirate. Molto chiaro nell'esposizione.

This is a great book. I teach grade 1 and there are tons of strategies in here. On each page is a different strategy with possible prompts for different levels of support, visual examples of anchor charts, and reading levels this strategy is helpful for. It's nice to have a recipe book of strategies for students struggling with various aspects of reading. I was sold when I saw a picture another reviewer posted of the inside of the book (thanks for that). Biggest bang for your buck if you teach primary because of the lower level specific strategies suitable for emergent readers, but this resource will still be super useful when I inevitably teach a junior or intermediate grade. I shared it with my colleagues and everyone ended up buying one. I shared it with a literacy teacher and it looks like my school board will offer a book club on it next year. One of the best books I've ever purchased, for sure.

Best book! Totally worth it!

Really great book, perfect for unpacking strategies, easy to follow, a wonderful teacher guide!