Literacy in the Early Grades: A Successful Start for PreK-4 Readers and Writers

Acerca del autor

Gail E. Tompkins is Professor Emerita at California State University, Fresno. Currently, she works with teachers in their kindergarten through eighth-grade classrooms and leads staff-development programs on reading and writing. Dr. Tompkins was inducted into the California Reading Association’s Reading Hall of Fame in recognition of her accomplishments in the field of reading, and she’s received the prestigious Provost’s award for Excellence in Teaching at California State University, Fresno. Dr. Tompkins is the author of six other books published by Pearson Education: Language Arts: Patterns of Practice, Language Arts Essentials, Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product, 50 Literacy Strategies, and two grade-specific versions of this text: Literacy for the 21sst Century: A Balanced Approach (K-8) and Literacy in the Middle Grades: Teaching Reading and Writing to Fourth Through Eighth Graders. During the past three decades, Dr. Tompkins has also worked with kindergarten through college-level writing teachers at National Writing Project sites in California and Oklahoma.

De la contraportada

In Literacy in the Early Grades, Gail Tompkins, long-recognized as a leader in the field of literacy education, presents research-based, practical help for getting every child off to a successful start in literacy—preparing new teachers for passage of their licensure exams and assuring experienced teachers  of their ability to meet new accountability measures.  The text focuses exclusively on the developmental literacy needs of children in Pre-K through grade 4, and on the skills and strategies teachers need to guide them to become successful, fluent readers and writers. In this text, teachers get research-based, practical directives supported by authentic student examples of sound literacy instruction and assessment, along with unsurpassed classroom applications in the form of authentic classroom vignettes, student work samples, mini lessons, assessment tools, video case studies, and a compendium of instructional procedures. Features new to this edition include:

• NEW! Common Core State Standards boxes help readers gain an understanding of the relationship between chapter topics and the Standards they will be require to cover in their literacy classrooms. The Standards are introduced in the first chapter and discussed as they relate to decoding, vocabulary, comprehension, writing and other topics in the chapters that follow.
• NEW! The Instruction-Assessment Cycle explains how teachers use assessment to plan instruction, monitor and evaluate student progress, and reflect on the effectiveness of their instruction.  
• NEW! Guided Reading is now fully developed as a part of organizing for literacy instruction. Requested by reviewers, shared is the what, why, when, and how to use guided reading.
• NEW! Checklists help readers recognize instruction that is critical to successful literacy teaching, such as differentiating instruction, and increasing future teachers’ understanding of how they will be held accountable for the various elements of literacy instruction. (These Checklists have appeared as Guidelines in previous editions of the text but are recast in this edition to invite readers to reflect on their personal knowledge about literacy instruction and the responsibilities they will undertake in classroom practice.)
• NEW! More to Explore clickable margin notes in the etext ask teachers to engage in an activity that will develop skills to enhance their knowledge about teaching reading and writing. eText users will find hyperlinks to videos of classroom footage and  instructional procedures.
• Go Digital! features, identified by a special icon, draw readers’ attention to information about websites and tech tools that can benefit literacy teaching and learning, such as learning how to create rubrics.
• Teaching Kids to Be Strategic! features identify specific skills and strategies teachers will use to guide children toward becoming fluent readers and writers.