50 Instructional Routines to Develop Content Literacy

Some of the best-known authors in the field come together to provide teachers with fifty step-by-step procedures for implementing content area instructional routines to improve students’ literacy skills. 50 Instructional Routines to Develop Content Literacy, 3/e helps adolescents  to become more successful readers.  Middle and high school teachers can immediately put to use its practical information and real classroom examples from science, social studies, English, math, the visual and performing arts, and core electives to improve students’ reading, writing, and oral language development. Going above and beyond basic classroom strategies, the instructional routines recommend simple changes to teachers’ everyday procedures that foster student comprehension, such as thinking aloud, using question-answer relationships, and teaching with word walls.

The routines are:

• Selected to ensure that all students engage in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing as part of the literacy process.
• Taken from real classrooms, real students, and real results.
• Organized for easy and quick referencing.
• Applicable to English learners and struggling readers.

This new edition features:

• NEW! More detailed classroom scenarios.
• NEW! New routines that address the Common Core State Standards.
• NEW! Up-to-date research reviews and references.
• NEW! A focus on additional content areas.

"50 Instructional Routines to Develop Content Literacy is a valuable resource for teachers from all content areas to help students become better readers, writers, thinkers, collaborators, and communicators. The routines are grounded in sound research and pedagogy and the step-by-step directions and real-class/real-student examples and scenarios allow educators to move beyond theory to implementation. The short chapters allow for busy teachers to quickly sort through and select the best routines for any instructional purpose. The chapters also offer suggestions for differentiation, including for ELL students, so that the routines can be tailored to meet the needs of any group of students. This text is a toolbox that teachers from all content areas will find themselves referencing throughout the school year."

-- Lisa Lloyd, Hastings Middle School (Upper Arlington, Ohio)

"I found the material beneficial to me as a teacher and will definitely use some new techniques in with my students to improve literacy."

-- Danielle Morrison, Lincoln High School (Gahanna, Ohio)

"The organization of each routine is especially helpful: brief review of research, step-by-step guide, classroom examples, and relevant graphics, etc.  It is refreshing to see a text that is so useful."

-- Tom Smyth, University of South Carolina Aiken

50 Instructional Routines to Develop Content Literacy, 3/e helps adolescents read more and read better. Middle and high school teachers can immediately put to use its practical information and classroom examples from science, social studies, English, math, the visual and performing arts, and core electives to improve students’ reading, writing, and oral language development. Going above and beyond basic classroom strategies, the instructional routines recommend simple changes to teachers’ everyday procedures that foster student comprehension, such as thinking aloud, using question-answer relationships, and teaching with word walls.

Douglas Fisher, Ph.D.

is Professor of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College. He has published numerous articles on reading and literacy, differentiated instruction, and curriculum design as well as numerous books, including Good Habits, Great Readers; Improving Adolescent Literacy; Better Learning Through Structured Teaching; Common Core English Language Arts in a PLC at Work and Text Complexity: Raising Rigor in Reading. 

William G. Brozo, Ph.D.

is a Professor of Literacy in the Graduate School of Education at George Mason University. A former high school English teacher, he is the author of numerous articles and books on literacy development for children and young adults. He is a contributing author to Pearson iLit, a digitally delivered program for struggling adolescent readers, and Pearson Literature. He regularly speaks at professional meetings around the country and consults with states and districts on ways of building capacity among teachers and enriching the literate culture of schools.

Nancy Frey, Ph.D.

is Professor of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College. She has published numerous articles on literacy, diverse learners, and instructional design as well as numerous books, including Good Habits, Great Readers; Improving Adolescent Literacy; Checking for Understanding; Rigorous Reading and The Path to Get There. 

Gay Ivey, Ph.D.

is the Tashia F. Morgridge Chair in Reading at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She earned her doctorate in Reading Education at the University of Georgia. She studies the implications and processes of classroom communities that prioritize engagement in literacy practices. Before entering the world of academia, she was a middle school reading specialist in Virginia.

Table of Contents

1)             Adjunct Displays

2)             Annotation

3)             Anticipation Guides

4)             Close Reading

5)             Collaborative Conversations

6)             Conversation Roundtable

7)             Debate

8)             Directed Reading-Thinking Activity

9)             Exit Slips

10)         Fishbowl Discussions

11)         Found Poems

12)         Generative Reading

13)         Guest Speakers

14)         Independent Reading

15)         Interest Surveys, Questionnaires, and Interviews

16)         Jigsaw

17)         KWL

18)         Language Experience Approach

19)         Mnemonics

20)         Modeling Comprehension

21)         Numbered Heads Together

22)         Opinionnaire

23)         Popcorn Review

24)         Questioning the Author

25)         Question-Answer Relationship

26)         RAFT Writing

27)         Read-Alouds

28)         Readers’ Theatre

29)         Read-Write-Pair-Share

30)         Reciprocal Teaching

31)         ReQuest

32)         Response Writing

33)         Shades of Meaning

34)         Shared Reading

35)         Socratic Seminar

36)         Split-Page Notetaking

37)         Student Booktalks

38)         Student Questions for Purposeful Learning

39)         Text Impressions

40)         Text Structures

41)         Text-Dependent Questions

42)         Think-Alouds

43)         Tossed Terms

44)         Vocabulary Cards

45)         Vocabulary Self-Awareness

46)         Word Grids/Semantic Feature Analysis

47)         Word Scavenger Hunts

48)         Word Sorts

49)         Word Walls

50)         Writing Frames and Templates