Customer Reviews

Teaching Reading In Social Studies, Science and Math (Theory and Practice)

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

 

 

I checked out this book at my local public library, but I kept getting late fees for keeping it too long. It has been invaluable in my degree program. I decided it was time for me to get my own personal copy for future use. This is an excellent reference book for curriculum planning and enhancement. It contains a host of reading activities that can be used for subject areas such as math, social studies, and science. Teachers are always looking for ways to increase students' reading in the content areas--this book certainly accomplishes that task. It also helped me to generate ideas of my own in other subject areas, e.g., geography, thematic units, and lesson plans, etc. It should be called the guide to teaching reading across the curriculum. Do use the reference pages in the back of the book as they offer another great resource for incorporating these content areas into reading. I especially like that it has wonderful ideas for secondary students. It has made my unit planning so much easier, and made learning fun for my students.

This is more or less the downmarket version of Kylene DeBeers substantially better "Why Kids Can't Read". In this text, Robb repeatedly cites herself and employs a "three part learning framework" that's so asinine she can't even seem to keep it straight. Really who would do lesson plans in chunks of beginning/middle/end? It's silly. No really, that's her "revolutionary" idea.

Anyway the book is littered with inconsistencies, the strategies do not even match up to the same part of her learning framework throughout the book (for proof check the list on p.58 and compare with the list on p.231 for one example). The strategies themselves are pretty much the same as every other book like this. Not particularly bad, but Vacca & Vacca have a lot more of them (and had some nice graphic organizers) and DeBeers' text was at least marginally interesting about it.

The worst part is how ridiculously impractical it is. Depth, not breadth is emphasized, which is commendable in principle, but if you taught like this, you'd finish maybe a chapter by the end of June and your kids would be illiterate. It recommends 20-30 minutes for responding to prompts - a 5-7 minutes "Do Now" activity. It's a hysterically out of touch book by another educrat. If you listen to the time guidelines, prepare to be fired.

In our last staff meeting of the year, we were told that we must teach reading in our subject areas because budget issues had forced the elimination of reading teachers in the high schools here. Many of my students are non-readers, for a variety of reasons; many of my students in past years were in reading classes. Although we had a 30 minute presentation on reading strategies, the information was not inherently usable: it was more of a list of things to try. What I needed was a cohesive and coherent plan to incorporate reading-specific strategies into my physical science classes so I would not lose too much curriculum time. I also believe that any strategies I practiced should become part of the students' toolkits for other classes.

After taking several seminars and reviewing several books, I was still uncertain about how to proceed: I wanted seamless integration of the reading goals with the subject matter.

I ordered this book because of the author's insights on the Scholastic web site. Laura Robb made sense to me.

This book was exactly what I was seeking. I now have a plan that (I think) will work. It fits nicely with the BEPE model of instruction that we introduced a year ago. I can also easily implement Thinking Maps with the reading objectives. And if the plan has to be changed, and it will, this book will continue to be an excellent resource for strategies and transitions. In fact Ms. Robb addresses the need to change a strategy when students have mastered it, or when the strategy simply isn't working.

I recommended this book to our principal as a must-have for every teacher in our building.

It is disappointing that we teach and are taught with such uncreative, mind-numbing texts. If you want to peddle institutionalized, professor-manufacturer's, buy this, read it, and believe it.

Laura Robb is the expert in literacy. She offers practical and detailed ways to assist all students in content area classes in using the information contained in their textbooks. This is a very appropriate book for Special Educators and General Education teachers, alike.

This is a very reader-friendly book. It's easy style and appealing format will make it a handy resource in the classroom. The material is very practical and especially valuable to a new teacher.

The book was in great shape as promised and I have no complaints on shipping.