On Solid Ground : Strategies for Teaching Reading K-3

Sharon is the consummate teacher across the hall, willing to share her best practice, her materials, her management, and most of all, the wisdom she has acquired from years of devotion and study.
- Shelley Harwayne

In her book, Sharon shares what she's gained in her twenty years of working with children and teachers. It's organized not around a set of prescribed skills, but around a series of interconnected interactions with the learner:

• Assessment: Sharon begins by describing her procedures for assessing children's reading and then using what she finds to inform her work. She covers scheduling and managing reading conferences, taking oral-reading records, and using retellings and discussions as tools.
• Demonstration: Once she has identified strengths and needs, Sharon demonstrates strategies to help her students become better readers. In this section, she explains how she uses shared reading and read aloud as platforms for figuring out words and comprehending texts, and explores small-group work - guided reading and word-study groups - and teaching children one on one.
• Practice: Here, Sharon describes how she uses independent reading as a time for practice, spelling out the very active roles she and her students play. She also devotes a complete chapter to matching children with books for independent reading.
• Response: It's important for students to know they're doing well and where they must concentrate their efforts. Sharon explains how her students use writing and dialogue as tools to better understanding themselves as readers.