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What Do I Teach Readers Tomorrow? Fiction, Grades 3-8
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What Do I Teach Readers Tomorrow? Fiction, Grades 3-8
Your Moment-to-Moment Decision-Making Guide

Foreword by Russell J. Quaglia

Additional resources:

Other Titles in:
Formative Assessment | Literacy

April 2017 | 304 pages | Corwin

Streamline formative assessment for readers in just minutes a day. With What Do I Teach Readers Tomorrow? Fiction, learn how to move your students forward in their reading with this 4-step process—lean in, listen to students’ talk about books, look at their writing about reading, and then make teaching decisions based on what they've conquered and what challenges they need to take on next.

This practical approach shows you how to notice when readers are doing mostly literal, "right there" on the page thinking; when they are doing "over-time" synthesizing across a text; and when they are ready to kick into high gear and connect ideas across texts and real word themes.

The authors provide next-step resources for whole-class, small-group, and one-on-one instruction, including:

  • Tips for what to look for and listen for in reading notebook entries and conversations about books
  • Reproducible Clipboard Notes pages that help you decide whether to reinforce a current type of thinking, teach a new type of thinking, or apply a current type of thinking to a new text
  • More than 30 lessons on understanding characters and themes, meaningful note taking, strategy use, and more
  •  Reading notebook entries and sample classroom conversations to use as benchmarks 
  • Strategies for deepening the three most prevalent types of thinking about characters: Right-Now Thinking (on the page), Over-Time Thinking (across a picture book, a chapter, or a novel), or Refining Thinking (nuanced connections across text and life themes)
  • Strategies for deepening the three most useful types of thinking—frames, patterns, lessons learned—about themes
  • Online video clips of Renee and Gravity teaching, conferring, and discussing what fiction readers need to do next

With What Do I Teach Readers Tomorrow? Fiction, discover how to move your readers forward with in-class, actionable formative assessment. Your readers are showing you what they need next—lean in, listen, look, assess.

“Goldberg and Houser – both former staff developers at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project – have perfectly combined theory and practice to help teachers put students first in their decision-making process. Best of all, they’ve provided the tools necessary to assist teachers in making those decisions become a reality right away.”
— Reviewed by Pam Hamilton for MiddleWeb

 
Foreword
 
Acknowledgments
 
A Quick-Start Guide for Easy Access
 
Chapter 1: Each Classroom Moment Is an Instructional Decision
Acting Without a Script: Embracing Our Role as Improvisers

 
Answering the “What Next?” Question

 
Intentional Teaching: Decision Making With Students at the Center

 
Self-Reflection Questionnaire: What Type of Decision Maker Are You?

 
Decision-Making Styles

 
Three Common Teaching Habits

 
Let Students Be Your Guide

 
Getting Started: An Action Plan

 
 
Chapter 2: Decisions About Book Selection
Making a Choice to Read Aloud a Fiction Text

 
Thin-Slicing Fiction Texts

 
Picture Books and Wordless Books

 
Short Story Collections

 
Novels

 
Graphic Novels

 
Ways to Engage Students in Fiction Read Alouds

 
 
Chapter 3: Decisions About Reading Notebooks
Why We Really Use Writing as a Tool for Understanding

 
Current Reality: Why Students Write About Reading in School

 
Lessons That Wake Up Writing About Reading

 
How to Collect Thinking in Notebook Entries

 
Self-Reflection Questionnaire: Reading Notebooks

 
What We Might Let Go of When Asking Students to Write About Reading

 
Reading Notebooks: An Action Plan

 
 
Chapter 4: Decisions About Discussion
The Benefits: Finding What’s True for Us in Texts and Life

 
Teach Students to Have Meaningful Conversations

 
Making Decisions Based on Student Conversations

 
Effective Fiction Conversation Characteristics

 
Moves for Analyzing Text in Diverse Ways

 
Self-Reflection Questionnaire: Student Conversations

 
What We Might Let Go of When Asking Students to Talk About Their Reading

 
Authentic Fiction Discussions: An Action Plan

 
 
Chapter 5: Decisions About Understanding Characters
Why Understanding Characters Is So Important

 
What Other Reading Skills Fit With Understanding Characters?

 
What to Look for When Students Study Characters

 
Thin-Slicing Students’ Thinking About Characters

 
Decide What to Teach Next

 
Studying More Than One Character

 
Harnessing the Power of Partnerships and Book Clubs

 
Understanding Characters: An Action Plan

 
 
Chapter 6: Decisions About Interpreting Themes
Why Interpreting Themes Is Important

 
What Other Reading Skills Fit With Interpreting Themes?

 
What to Look for When Students Interpret Themes

 
Decide What to Teach Next

 
Interpreting Themes in Multiple Texts

 
Interpreting Themes: An Action Plan

 
 
Chapter 7: Becoming Confident and Intentional Decision Makers
 
Appendices
 
Appendix A. Fiction Book Rating System
 
Appendix B. Some Favorite Fiction Texts
 
Appendix C. Clipboard Notes: Reading Notebook Entries
 
Appendix D. Clipboard Notes: Student Conversations
 
Appendix E. Understanding Characters
 
Appendix F. Clipboard Notes: Types of Thinking About Understanding Characters
 
Appendix G. Interpreting Themes
 
Appendix H. Clipboard Notes: Types of Thinking About Interpreting Themes
 
References
 
Index

"We know of no resource that promotes responsive teaching as well as these books do. Goldberg and Houser like teaching to improve, and then describe how teachers can learn to be fully in the moment of instructional decision making by focusing on a handful of things. From the detailed lessons to boxes titled, 'Decide to teach this tomorrow if your students . . .' these authors anticipate the content teachers want and the questions they raise. These thoughtful books show teachers how to make children’s reading needs central to instructional planning."

Kim Yaris and Jan Burkins
Authors of Who’s Doing the Work?

"I love this series! Goldberg and Houser succeed at something difficult: freeze-framing their intentional decisions about teaching readers in a way that we can all “see”—and then do in our own classrooms. They provide a decision-making model that helps teachers feel confident in letting their own observations of students’ written and spoken responses to text guide them. They distill the ever-present what-do-I-teach-next question into three choices, and these choices all center on furthering students’ ways of thinking as they read fiction and nonfiction. Through classroom videos and notebook entries, we learn the authors’ intuitive process. They don’t just leave us pondering, but scaffold our ability to be responsive teachers by providing lesson ideas that work for every kind of tomorrow—every reading next step. For fiction, they share lessons on character and theme; for nonfiction, on synthesizing information and understanding perspectives. The bonus is this: when we study and reflect on the authors’ decision-making process, we enhance and improve our own. These books should become seminal works."

Laura Robb
Author of Read, Talk, Write

"Making decisions about reading in our classroom is not easy, even though we make hundreds every day. Often, we don’t give much thought to how we decide what we do, but with this book, we are taken on a guided tour of what it means to make super-intuitive decisions about what our readers need next. Each chapter addresses decisions about key aspects of building a literature-rich environment and a community of readers, including reading notebooks, teaching students how to synthesize ideas, and understanding perspective. The chapters on great nonfiction and fiction texts and on helping readers learn how to select involving books are favorites, as they give me a more focused method to rely on. The books are practical, friendly, and chockfull of ideas and lessons that can be readily implemented."

Grace White, Supervisor of Curriculum
Wykoff School District, NJ

"These books exemplify the intersection of excellent scholarship and practical application for teachers in the field. They beautifully illustrate those essential metacognitive processes in a progression, and this helps teachers see how instructional decisions become instructional moves that translate into high cognitive demand learning experiences for students. This series an invaluable teaching tool for those who want to implement authentic Balanced Literacy experiences for their students."

Dr. Akida Kissane Long, Principal
Florence Griffith Joyner Elementary, Los Angeles Unified School District, CA

"Goldberg and Houser offer an insider’s view of intentional decision making in action by making us front-row observers of their thinking process. We stand beside them as they show us student-centered reading instruction at its best, listening in on book conversations, gazing over their shoulders to analyze writing in reading notebooks. This step-by-step journey yields explanations of why, what, and how that we can use to plan next lessons for our readers. The What Do I Teach Readers Tomorrow? series is a testament to our professional responsibility to keep students as our compass, their 'right now' needs and wishes as readers as the destination, and engaging books as the vehicle that takes us there."

Dr. Mary Howard
Author of RTI From All Sides: What Every Teacher Needs to Know

"This series is a must-have for every elementary language arts teacher! Goldberg and Houser have created a comprehensive support for teachers who want to provide their students with rigorous, thinking-centered experiences in reading and writing. Having these books is like having ongoing coaching and guidance from these two outstanding literacy experts at your fingertips."

Jerry Harris, Director
The Cotsen Foundation, The Art of Teaching

"I love the we-are-right-there-with-you tone. It’s so clear these authors have been there, and remain right in the trenches. And I love the teacher checklists and quizzes—just the right light touch to use in professional development time. But perhaps most of all, I admire that Houser and Goldberg have taken a complex process—daily instructional decision making— and broken it into doable steps for teachers to try. Deciding what each reader in your room is ready for next will never be something a teacher gets good at overnight, but with these outstanding resources, educators are armed with the right questions to ask themselves, a progression of strategies that enhance the readers relationship with the text, and the theory and research from in and out of the literacy field that will help them build a community of readers."

Joyce Friedman

“Goldberg and Houser—both former staff developers at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project—have perfectly combined theory and practice to help teachers put students first in their decision-making process. Best of all, they’ve provided the tools necessary to assist teachers in making those decisions become a reality right away.”

Pam Hamilton
MiddleWeb

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