Reading for Understanding [Paperback]

Ruth Schoenbach (Author), Cynthia Greenleaf (Author), Christine Cziko (Author), Lori Hurwitz (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0787950459 | ISBN-13: 978-0787950453 | Publication Date: December 1999 | Edition: 1

Published in Partnership with WestEd

"A breath of fresh air! After reminding us that any teacher who puts a book in front of a student is a reading teacher, the authors give us a teacher-tested reading course for middle and high school students. They avoid the baloney in the present reading debates by paying attention to actual students. What they propose is an apprenticeship in using a tool kit for problem solving in reading. The tool kit itself is a combination of cognitive and social dimensions embedded in subjects. And, lo and behold, they can point to actual results."--Miles Myers, former executive director, National Council of Teachers of English

"Reading for Understanding should be in the hands of teachers, principals, superintAndents, curriculum coordinators, school board members, state educational leaders, university professors, and teachers in training. Engaging, to the point, and grounded in research, this book shares current work in progress, possible stumbling blocks, ideas to overcome them, and specific strategies with detailed examples. Most middle and high school teachers have little or no 'teaching reading' training. It is not too late and this book is a great start."--Judy Cunningham, principal, South Lake Middle School, Irvine, California

Easy to follow and filled with examples of student work and classroom lessons, Reading for Understanding offers a successful approach to helping students improve their literacy across all subject areas. It shows how to create classroom "reading apprenticeships" to help students build reading comprehension skills and relate what they read to a larger knowledge base. It also discusses the strategies and support systems needed to implement and evaluate reading apprenticeship programs throughout the school. The authors describe a program in which an entire freshman class in one urban high school increased its average reading scores by more than two years. Piloted in San Francisco, the groundbreaking Academic Literacy program proved that it was not too late for teachers and students to work together in boosting literacy, engagement, and achievement.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It is rare to find the voice of such optimism regarding the possibility of dramatically improving the reading skills of students.... It is also rare to find a book that focuses on improving reading skills, acknowledging the critical role of libraries, both school and public, in accomplishing this task. This professional resource does both.... This book should be a required purchase for every professional collection in middle/junior high and high schools." (Voice of Youth Advocates, 8/01)

"Important and highly recommended." (Library Bookwatch, February 2003)

Review

"A breath of fresh air! After reminding us that any teacher who puts a book in front of a student is a reading teacher, the authors give us a teacher-tested reading course for middle and high school students. They avoid the baloney in the present reading debates by paying attention to actual students. What they propose is an apprenticeship in using a tool kit for problem solving in reading. The tool kit itself is a combination of cognitive and social dimensions embedded in subjects. And, lo and behold, they can point to actual results." —Miles Myers, former executive director, National Council of Teachers of English

"As a teacher of inner-city youth, I had tried every idea in my bag of tricks to get my kids to read. It wasn't until I started working with the reading apprenticeship approach that I was able to see changes in my students—in their scores, their attitudes, and their comprehension. The reading apprenticeship approach has completely changed the way I look at my students. Now I share my reading process and invite them to share their problem solving in the classroom. In the beginning of the year I hear, 'I hate this.' Over time I hear, 'I don't get this part, but I think I get this,' and finally, 'This is what I think this means.' More and more I hear, 'What are we reading next?'" —Rita Jensen, teacher, John Muir Middle School, San Leandro, California

"Reading for Understanding should be in the hands of teachers, principals, superintAndents, curriculum coordinators, school board members, state educational leaders, university professors, and teachers in training. Engaging, to the point, and grounded in research, this book shares current work in progress, possible stumbling blocks, ideas to overcome them, and specific strategies with detailed examples. Most middle and high school teachers have little or no 'teaching reading' training. It is not too late and this book is a great start." —Judy Cunningham, principal, South Lake Middle School, Irvine, California

"These authors do not take sides between authenticity of text and task at one end of an instructional continuum and ambitious, explicit instruction at the other end. Instead they transform the apparent contradiction into a sort of resonant complementarity, showing that these two seemingly opposite notions actually support one another quite remarkably. In a policy world in which forced choices have become all too common, it is refreshing to see contradictions transformed into synergies." —P. David Pearson, John A. Hannah Professor of Education, Michigan State University

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (December 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787950459
• ISBN-13: 978-0787950453
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #326,997 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended, January 5, 2000

By 

Jim Burke - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reading for Understanding (Paperback)

(taken from a short review I wrote elsewhere) I measure my appreciation for most books by my need to annotate them, to converse with or argue against the authors in the margins. By this, and many other measures, Reading for Understanding: A Guide to Improving Reading in Middle and High School Classrooms, written by CATENetters Ruth Schoenbach, Cynthia Greenleaf, Christine Cziko, and Lori Hurwitz, is a remarkable book, one I think can help us all do our work better which is to say to help students do their work better. The book succeeds on several important levels: its summarizes research in concise but useful ways; it describes then illustrates the different reading skills and strategies it emphasizes, all of which are anchored in real classrooms in an urban high school; it provides a professional development component for schools or departments interested in implementing their own reading apprenticeship or academic literacy program; and, finally, it

provides a concise but useful appendix that includes the readings and overview of the Academic Literacy class the book studies in great detail. They do all this in 180 pages with huge margins for taking plenty of notes. This book comes to me at the end of my sabbatical during which I have spent much of my time trying to learn about these very issues; oh if only I had read this book four months ago! Instead I just read it now and will return from my sabbatical with a proposal that my school, which is facing the very same challenges they describe in this book, look to this book as a model for what we can and should accomplish with our own students. As a classroom teacher, I really want to thank the authors for writing this book.We got glimpses of it through an article in California English some time back, but now it is just becoming available as a book.

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative, thought-provoking, insightful, practical., May 8, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reading for Understanding (Paperback)

Reading For Understanding: A Guide To Improving Reading In Middle And High School Classrooms is the collaborative effort of classroom teachers and education researchers Ruth Schoenbach, Cynthia Greenleaf, Christine Cziko, and Lori Hurwitz. Part One explains the reading apprenticeship approach in which a teacher serves as master reader to the student apprentice. Part Two describes how the reading apprenticeship approach has been put into practice. Part Three discusses ideas for professional development and helping teachers become aware of their won reading skills, acquire a better understanding of the struggles students are experiencing with reading, and prepare for the role of master reader to student apprentice readers. Reading For Understanding is informative, thought-provoking, insightful, and practical reading for student teachers and has much of value for even experienced classroom instructors.