Customer Reviews

Guiding Readers and Writers (Grades 3-6): Teaching, Comprehension, Genre, and Content Literacy

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Again, Fountas and Pinnell have helped teachers with their incredible insight on educating children. This time their help/advice/knowledge focuses on grades 3-6 but do not let that stop you if you teach another grade level. Their information on the essential components of a quality literacy program is true for any grade level. Fountas and Pinnell offer suggestions for effectively helping readers and writers who are not meeting "standard". These suggestions are specific and establish teaching practices that will help all readers and writers. They also give many mini lesson ideas and great literature connections that make a teacher's job easier. The appendices include forms for language/word study for both reading and writing and for literary assessment. Once again, their book ends with a valuable book list that is leveled. This book is an essential resource for all teachers.

Authors Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell have given language arts teachers a real gem of a resource.

Guiding Readers and Writers (Grades 3-6) contains a wealth of ideas that will inspire students to become more literate. I am a teacher of children with mild to moderate learning disabilities who plans on using this book as a springboard to teach Language Arts to 4th and 6th graders this fall. This summer, this book has proved to be a priceless resource in teaching reading in a summer school program for learners who are able to decode, but have a difficult time making the connection from print to meaning.

I have literally seen my classroom transformed as I have engaged the students in minilessons, conferences, group sharing and response journals all for the purpose of building a community of learners. Taking this book, and utilizing a constructivist approach, my classroom has become a place where each child is valued, encouraged to express him/herself, take risks, and celebrated for their unique perspective on the world.

Like I said, I have been using this resource for teaching summer school to children from regular education classrooms, but I am certain that my students who are on IEPs, for one reason or another, will also be intellectually stimulated by these, and many more methods this book has. I will be curious to see how end of year results compare with the baseline data I take in Aug. and Sept.

I am quite certain that Guiding Readers and Writers Grades 3-6 by Fountas & Pinnell will make a difference.

If you have been wanting to convert your classroom into a reading/writing workshop but haven't known how to start, _Guiding Readers and Writers: Grades 3-6_ is the book for you! Authors Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell have created a comprehensive manual for establishing a reading/writing community -- a place where students can spend two and a half to three hours a day engaged in authentic reading and writing.

Teachers who are already using a workshop approach are likely to find much in _Guiding Readers and Writers_ that will make their job easier. Even teachers of younger and older students will find many practical suggestions to implement.

Fountas and Pinnell see the goal of language arts instruction in the intermediate grades to be the creation of lifelong readers and writers. They structure the language arts class in a three-block framework: a sixty-minute reading workshop, a sixty-minute writing workshop, and a thirty- to sixty-minute language/word study segment (including spelling, vocabulary, decoding, and more).

In addition to providing a treasure trove of information, Fountas and Pinnell have produced a book that is remarkably readable and user-friendly. The two-column format is extremely helpful. In addition, frequent headings, bullet points, and graphics help you to efficiently get the information you need.

With photos and other graphics, Fountas and Pinnell show you how to organize your classroom, your materials, and your time for a reading/writing workshop. The authors provide step-by-step instructions for getting started (in a few instances even offering a sample script). They provide scores of suggestions for minilessons, and they recommend more than 1,000 books for classroom use. In addition, each section includes techniques to use with struggling readers and writers. The book even devotes a section to the "testing genre," helping students develop strategies to maximize their performance on standardized reading tests.

Furthermore, _Guiding Readers and Writers_ includes sixty-five appendices (nearly 150 pages)! Fifty-three of the appendices are reproducible pages that the teacher or the student can use for planning, record-keeping, assessment, analysis, etc. Most of the remaining appendices comprise lists of recommended books. A list of 1,000 books is repeated -- organized once by title and again by level.

_Guiding Readers and Writers_ will help you rekindle the passions that originally prompted you to become an English teacher -- and it will show you how to share those passions with your students. Focusing on the vital elements of communication is likely to produce the best year ever -- for you *and* for your students.

This is an excellent resource for every intermediate grade teacher. It is also one of the few books that I am keeping from elementary education program. Fountas & Pinnell are leaders in this area of educational theory. Their research and work is cited and quoted in books across the field. This is probably their finest example of the program they have designed.

These two professors have designed a literacy framework that really works. It keeps kids interested in reading and learning, while not being too difficult for the teacher to implement or to assess. The book is so well written - there are guides everywhere and the illustrations and diagrams are actually useful (not just taking up space)! I highly recommend this book for any and all intermediate teachers. Many of their concepts can be adapted for older or younger students with relative ease.

Why 5 stars?:
I have seen the ideas of Fountas & Pinnell and it really works. Of course, they have designed a utopian classroom in their book, but it is possible to achieve a strong literacy framework with the help of this book. I know I will be using it. They are up on their research and have designed a program that will keep student, teacher and administrator happy. There are even sections on how to deal with standardized tests and "struggling readers." Every intermediate should own this book!

This book is an excellent source of graphic organizers, mini-lesson ideas for reading and writing, and examples of how a reading workshop and writing workshop could be run and managed. The authors provide excellent examples and rationale for all information presented. It is easy to read and understand. This is a must for any 3-6th grade classroom teacher!

Excellent resource for those teachers wanting to grow in their literacy instruction. If you feel like you have to reenergize your reading and writing program then this is a great book for you. I wish I had this book when I was a first year and would reccomend it for any teachers just starting out.

I am a brand new teacher, teaching 7th grade English. This book has become my bible. I am currently using the first twenty days of reader's workshop chapter with my class. It breaks down the lessons step by step, gives all of the masters, and even has a script to read if you need it. I recommend this book to anyone wanting to implement the workshop model in their classroom, and I encourage all new teachers from 3- 8th grade to have this as a reference on their bookshelf. I am very pleased!

I have read several books that address some of the topics covered in this book, however, none compare. The book takes you step-by-step through setting up a reading and writing workshop. It is very user friendly and gives several authentic examples which includes photos and dialogue. In my opinion, it is an essential resource for intermediate teachers.

This book was just what I needed as I tried to implement a cohesive, leveled, workshop-based language arts program in my room. If you liked what you read in Mosaic of Thought, and Strategies That Work, you'll love this book. The book is filled with lots of background, food for thought, suggested ways to organize your classroom and teaching, then specific lesson ideas--there must be hundreds. Probably the best classroom resource I have come across in my ten years of teaching.

You'll be surprised by the progress your kids will make, when you teach using the methods described in this book. You will reach learners at every level and do so in an authentic way that provides each student with choices and opportunities to become instrumental in their own learning. You will foster the love of reading and writing and the children will beg you to do reading/writing workshop. What a gift Fountas and Pinnell have given children across the country! If you teach grades 3-6, it is a staple...must have!