24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent source for secondary teachers., October 18, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: It's Never Too Late: Leading Adolescents to Lifelong Literacy (Paperback)
Janet Allen has shown us how to break out of our outdated teaching methods and reach at-risk students. This book provides the middle school and secondary teacher with a detailed description of how to set up and implement a reading program for aliterate youth. Her methods allow the teacher to begin working with a student at any reading level and improve. The heart of her teaching concept relates to allowing each student to read what they are interested in reading and slowly become self-motivated learners. The teacher guides the students through teacher oral reading, a large in-class library, interesting class projects and most important of all "time to read". What I enjoyed most about the book were her detailed descriptions of classroom procedures and stories of student success and failure. A great book for any middle school or secondary teacher that has students that know how to read but will not.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I love Janet Allen!, June 6, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: It's Never Too Late: Leading Adolescents to Lifelong Literacy (Paperback)
I discovered Janet Allen's "It's Never Too Late" while studying as an undergrad at University of Maine. I used her techniques offerred in this book while student teaching and I am still using this book as an excellent literacy reference today! Absolutely wonderful resource for all reading and writing teachers who do believe in their students.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Chronicle well articlated in time!, March 12, 2007
This review is from: It's Never Too Late: Leading Adolescents to Lifelong Literacy (Paperback)
This captivating book gives thoughtful and creative strategies for working with struggling readers. The forward done by Tom Roman, boosts the validity of the issues presented by the author and justifies the title, It's Never too Late (to mend?). Romano, who was a teacher, left teaching for a graduate program, quits and went back to teaching, and later on quits teaching again to resume his graduate program thereby graduating at 42 year old. The author is also seen to have failed initially as a teacher and researcher, but later on entered into a more methodological and ambitious qualitative research plan which led her to success and thus this book.
The book offers inspiration on how growth can occur over a long period of time so long one is willing to invest intellect and spirit. The author uses an analogy of a fertile garden with occasional weeds. Fertile garden here means the potentiality of all students especially those categorized as at-risk students. The weeds are the struggles, regrets, finding resources with limited means, dealing with reluctant and rebellious students and most of all rekindling the teacher's own interest for teaching. I do agree that these are the challenges a teacher faces everyday and such encouragement is very important to keep the spirit burning otherwise it very easy to despair.
In her book, she argues that the teacher's role is to create a literate environment for all students to learn. She offers her own personal experiences in teaching to help practicing and future teachers. She advises separation of oneself and personal teaching from the trappings of curriculum guides, the canon of literature, the anthologies and the tradition. I guess what she wants the teachers to identify is the foundation of their personal teaching beliefs and philosophies without following the tradition blindly. I agree with her because one is able to figure out the world of perfectionism from an individual perception. She argues that in her days, the norm was to keep the students in classrooms for survival purposes. Her main strategy is to wait, listen and be patient. How many teachers are willing to be patience that long? I remember rushing ahead to judge the student and labeling before trying all the available options, or just waiting for the results. She also says that consulting widely through reading, talking to experts and attending conferences is rewarding. She found out that persuasion, compassion and attraction could win young learners heart but I do think only when used with a lot of care. The author encourages her students to collaborate with her in creating the curriculum. Most of her students had problems in reading and writing and she found that reading aloud and taping texts played major roles towards their success. The other contributing factor was careful choice of texts which are relevant to student's lives (horror and suspense stories) and creating interesting activities around them. The author learnt that literacy can not be taught in isolation from life. She also found out that involving students in classroom activities made them feel part of the class which helped them to work together in harmony and meeting their needs where they were, employing relevant tools like intellectual software programs, games etc. She made her students write responses to texts, field trips and their personal lives which greatly enhanced her knowledge of her learners. The book proposes keeping of reading materials in every public place.
She acknowledges that these strategies do not work overnight on students, but through sacrifice, determination and consistency, there is a possibility of succeeding. For example, Rachel who initially looked at books as evils, through constructive support, makes steady, exciting progress in reading and writing. Candy, an overweight, tough student with her swearing, fights, explosions, suicide attempts, pregnancies, her broken glass held together with tape, always wore jeans and anger written on her face and was ignored by other students, changed slowly but steadily towards the better. No words, no instructions and no pressure. Carla was at first swearing, fighting, scowling, undermining the author's class structure until she discovers the power of language, her own and others'. The above students made slow but steady improvements in reading young adult texts, writing personal stories, publishing anthologies and eventually graduating. Tony however landed in jail but appreciated good reading even prison.
I wish the author would have indicated how she differentiated instructions to her students and how collaboration with other teachers and parents' involvement played apart in student's success. Otherwise her book is an easy read, common sense and very interesting. So please never give-up on them before trying the available options!
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