Synopses & Reviews
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Tompkins’ text reflects a solid approach to the intricacies of early reading instruction. She covers all aspects that I would find essential, critical, and relevant. The various spotlights, vignettes, figures and summaries support the text and help amplify it. The Compendium is an invaluable resource and a constant reference point!
Armin R. Schulz, California State University, Stanislaus
This unique text prepares you to teach young readers and writers by taking you into successful classrooms, helping you prepare for your own classroom, and giving you the practical tools to take with you. Paying particular attention to the needs of these early learners, the text provides recommendations for preventing early learning difficulties and suggestions for helping pre-kindergarteners develop literacy abilities. You’ll also find tools to help you adjust lessons for English learners, as well as minilessons and step-by-step guidance for strategy and skill instruction. The second edition of Literacy for the 21st Century: Teaching Reading and Writing in Pre-Kindergarten Through Grade 4 presents a thoughtful, balanced approach to teaching literacy specifically in the early grades.
Takes you into the classroom
- Authentic classroom vignettes opening each chapter help you see how chapter concepts play out successfully with early learners.
- Spotlights throughout the text give you in-depth information on literacy development, one remarkable student at a time.
- New! Observe real classroom footage on the accompanying DVD Instructional Procedures: Scenes from the Compendium includes footage of classrooms implementing the text’s strategies. Look for margin notes in the text to point to strategies you’ll find on the DVD.
Helps you prepare your own classroom
- New! Balanced Literacy Program features in each chapter clearly outline the elements of a balanced literacy program and identify how chapter concepts can be used to create a balanced literacy approach.
- New! Developmental Continuum features help you understand how to implement chapter concepts appropriately according to student development.
- Guideline features give you the important, point by point implementation guidance you’ll need to put chapter concepts into action in your classroom.
Gives you the tools to take into your classroom
- Minilessons offer ready to use skill and strategy instruction. Find how the minilessons correlate to state and national standards on the text’s Companion Website.
- The Compendium of Instructional Procedures is a robust resource of instructional methods designed to get you up and running quickly in your own literacy classroom.
- Expanded! Nurturing English Learners features provide thoughtful considerations for adapting lessons for this audience of learners.
- New! Preventing Reading and Writing Difficulties features help you quickly address and correct potential problems that could inhibit young learners’ literacy development.
- A complete chapter on assessment lays a solid foundation and provides Assessment Tools to evaluate your students’ progress in early literacy.
The author does a great job of building background knowledge especially for pre-service and beginning teachers. The Compendium of Instructional Procedures is wonderful for quick stop-n-shop for each strategy. It helps to simplify each strategy and newly learned concept so that pre-service teachers can easily implement them in their clinical/field experiences. Good job, too, of integrating information about addressing the needs of English language learners throughout the text. Kantaylieniere Hill-Clark, University of Memphis'
Review
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“What a difference in Tompkins's [Literacy for the 21st Century: Teaching Reading and Writing in Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 4] 2/e! It's more than 33% revised, it's a true new edition. [I] very much enjoyed realizing how much better, tighter, and in-depth she got this time around. I've always appreciated her thoroughness and her teacher-friendliness--and this edition maintains her style well.”
Marie Ann Donovan, Ed.D.
Associate Professor of Education
DePaul University'
Review
The author did an exceptional job of presenting an abundance of ideas and examples. The Compendium of Instructional Procedures is a true strength.
Stacey A. Dudley, Bowling Green State University
The author is a well respected reading scholar. She is well known in California and throughout the country. Her text does indeed take you into the classroom and provides teacher-friendly support, particularly for beginning teachers.
Porfirio Loeza, California State University, Sacramento
My overall impression of this text is very positive. It is current, thorough, helpful, and teacher/student-friendly. The graphic representation is elegant and powerful. I like Preventing Reading and Writing Difficulties and Nurting English Learners features.
Bonnie Armbruster, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Synopsis
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Focusing on pre-kindergarten through grade 4, this book provides a solid foundation in literacy instruction including phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Offering a wealth of assessment tools and authentic classroom examples, it shows beginning educators how to teach reading and writing effectively in the early grades and how to create a classroom climate where literacy flourishes. Gail Tompkins bases her book on four contemporary literacy theories–constructivist, interactive, socio-linguistic and reader response–and maintains her solid focus on assessment and balanced literacy instruction. This edition features more on preventing reading difficulties, nurturing English Language Learners, fostering the earliest literacy learners, and adapting strategies to individual student development. '
Synopsis
The third edition of Literacy in the Early Grades: A Successful Start for PreK-4 Readers and Writers (with MyEducationLab) is the book that helps you get every student off to a successful start in literacy. Gail Tompkins, the leader in the field of literacy education, focuses her attention exclusively on the needs of students in PreKindergarten through Grade 4, and on the teachers who will prepare them for reading and writing success. With unsurpassed classroom application in the form of authentic classroom vignettes, student work samples, minilessons, assessment tools, video case studies, and the Compendium of Instructional Procedures, the third edition continues to cover the information new and experienced teachers need to know to teach literacy effectively, and follows this information with the specific strategies to use in the classroom to develop successful readers and writers in the primary grades.
Authentic Classroom Experience
- Developmental Continuum features help you understand how to implement chapter concepts appropriately according to student development.
- Spotlight features throughout the text give you in-depth information on literacy development, one remarkable student at a time.
- Authentic vignettes, photos, and student artifacts throughout chapters ground concepts in real primary grades classrooms.
Teaching Tools
- NEW! Reality Check: Time Management sections in chapters help you manage your time to better prepare primary grades students for literacy learning.
- NEW! Nurturing English Learner sections in chapters focus on ways to scaffold students who are learning to read and write at the same time they’re learning to speak English.
- NEW! PreK Practices notes throughout chapters draw your attention to the particular needs of preschoolers. These notes point to the most appropriate strategies and adaptations to meet the needs of the youngest literacy learners.
Assessment and Evaluation
- NEW! Assessment Tools in all chapters recommends specific tests and informal assessments to use to screen, diagnose, and monitor student progress.
- NEW! If Children Struggle features help you determine what to do after assessments to help primary grades students who continue to struggle with reading and writing.
MyEducationLab
NEW! In the pages of this text you'll meet five second graders who are learning to read and write. You’re invited to go to the Literacy Portraits section of the MyEducationLab website to watch students and their inspiring teacher. There you’ll examine classroom footage and student artifacts that document a year-long case study of literacy learning.
- Literacy Portraits: Viewing Guide features in the text help you use the year long case study of five second grade students to apply chapter concepts like assessment, vocabulary instruction, word walls, and more.
- Margin notes draw your attention to additional video and other online materials that will enrich your understanding of chapter concepts.
To order this book WITH MyEducationLab, use either
Synopsis
Focusing on pre-kindergarten through grade 4, this book provides a solid foundation in literacy instruction including phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Offering a wealth of assessment tools and authentic classroom examples, it shows beginning educators how to teach reading and writing effectively in the early grades and how to create a classroom climate where literacy flourishes. Gail Tompkins bases her book on four contemporary literacy theories–constructivist, interactive, socio-linguistic and reader response–and maintains her solid focus on assessment and balanced literacy instruction. This edition features more on preventing reading difficulties, nurturing English Language Learners, fostering the earliest literacy learners, and adapting strategies to individual student development.
About the Author
Gail Tompkins I’m a teacher, first and foremost. I began my career as a first-grade teacher in Virginia in the 1970s. I remember one first grader who cried as the first day of school was ending. When I tried to comfort him, he sobbed accusingly, “I came to first grade to learn to read and write and you forgot to teach me.” The next day, I taught that child and his classmates to read and write! We made a small patterned book about one of the stuffed animals in the classroom. I wrote some of the words and the students supplied the others, and I duplicated copies of the book for each child. We practiced reading it until everyone memorized our little book. The children proudly took their books home to read to their parents. I’ve never forgotten that child’s comment and what it taught me: Teachers must understand their students and meet their expectations.
My first few years of teaching left me with more questions than answers, and I wanted to become a more effective teacher so I started taking graduate courses. In time I earned a master’s degree and then a doctorate in Reading/Language Arts, both from Virginia Tech. Through my graduate studies, I learned a lot of answers, but more importantly, I learned to keep on asking questions.
Then I began teaching at the university level. First I taught at Miami University in Ohio, then at the University of Oklahoma, and finally at California State University, Fresno. I’ve taught preservice teachers and practicing teachers working on master’s degrees, and I’ve directed doctoral dissertations. I’ve received awards for my teaching, including the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching at California State University, Fresno, and I was inducted into the California Reading Association’s Reading Hall of Fame. Throughout the years, my students have taught me as much as I taught them. I’m grateful to all of them for what I’ve learned. I’ve been writing college textbooks for more than 20 years, and I think of the books I write as teaching, too. I’ll be teaching you as you read this text. As I write a book, I try to anticipate the questions you might ask and provide that information.
Table of Contents
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Part I: How Do Children Learn to Read and Write?
1. Becoming an Effective Teacher of Reading
2. Examining Children's Literacy Development
3. Assessing Children's Literacy Development
Part II: What are the Components of Literacy Instruction?
4. Breaking the Alphabetic Code
5. Learning to Spell
6. Developing Fluent Readers and Writers
7. Expanding Children's Knowledge of Words
8. Guiding Children's Comprehension: Reader Factors
9. Guiding Children’s Comprehension: Text Factors
Part III: How do Teachers Organize Literacy Instruction?
10. Scaffolding Children's Reading Development
11. Scaffolding Children's Writing Development
12. Integrating Reading and Writing into Thematic Units
Part IV: Compendium of Instructional Approaches\n
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