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The Essentials for Achieving Rigour series of instructional guides helps educators become highly skilled at implementing, monitoring and adapting instruction. Readers can put the guides to practical use immediately, adopting day-to-day examples as models for application in their own classrooms.

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The activities in this book have been designed to enable lower primary school students to work in small groups with a minimum of instruction. The activities have been graded according to the developmental stages of reading in the early years. These recommendations are fluid and can be altered depending on the needs and strengths of the students. The cards can be used with the children's take-home books or any book appropriate to their reading level.

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A Writing Box of Ideas is designed for early primary school students. This book contains many writing activities including: lists, instructions, letters, poetry, advertisements, dialogues, story starters, story challenges, structural challenges, descriptions, word challenges, cartoons, story sequences and pictures. These activities are designed for children at many different levels of writing. The activities can be used during the literacy block as set out in the Early Years and are suitable for years prep to grade two.

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Reader's Theatre is a unique and exciting way of increasing reading fluency and comprehension while engaging students of different reading levels and abilities in concepts from across the curricula. In this story: Students who think Australian history is boring and non-existent get a surprise when their new teacher takes them on a brief tour of the last 60000 years. This book introduces concepts found in the History subject, specifically the Historical Knowledge and Understanding strand in the Australian Curriculum, which extends across all year levels from F-10. No prior historical knowledge is needed. It can serve as a lead-in to instructing students in new concepts in Australian History (particularly Years 4, 5 and 6) or simply as an interesting Reader's Theatre exercise.

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Balanced Literacy Essentials shows teachers how to navigate their way through the language and literacy block as they focus on ten literacy essentials. It offers a comprehensive approach to literacy instruction that puts students at the centre of the learning process. Anchored in sound theory, this practical book promotes a literacy program that balances the components of English with the power of meaningful interaction with students. From modelling literate behaviours to playing with language as 'earprint', this timely resource if full of useful strategies for nurturing reading, writing and talk in today's classrooms.

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What Every Secondary School Teacher Needs to Know About Reading Tests (From Someone Who Has Written Them) Offers extensive, practical strategies to help students perform well on tests. This ready-to-use, easy-to-understand resource provides a wealth of information about reading tests, including high-quality preparation materials, samples of the most frequently assessed types of reading standards and engaging core-reading activities. This book provides a wealth of resources that can be incorporated into a teacher's everyday reading work, including vocabulary development, literary techniques, interpretation, comprehension and more.

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Research shows that vocabulary is the best support for students’ comprehension of narrative and information texts. Often, vocabulary instruction focuses on a few target words in specific texts. However, to understand the many new words in complex texts students need to know how words work. This book, written by an award-winning authority on reading instruction, shows teachers how to make small changes to teach more words and also how words work. Many of these small changes involve enrichments to existing vocabulary practices, such as word walls and conversations with students. Each chapter includes descriptions of teachers’ implementation of small changes to support big gains in students’ vocabulary. This book offers practical steps that F-8 teachers can use in any reading program.

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How Do I Get Them to Write? Investigates the vital connection between reading and writing. This remarkable book argues that reading, writing and the inevitable discussions that follow lead students to appreciate the experiences of others, open their minds to new possibilities, gain a glimpse into unknown worlds, make connections to their own live and reflect on their own choices and learning. How Do I Get Them to Write? is committed to helping teachers get all students writing regardless of their attitudes or their current abilities. Based on the premise that all students can learn to write with appropriate teaching, modelling and practice, this is an ideal resource for teachers who love writing as well as for those who find it a challenging process.

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The School DayZ plan is a collection of stories about the real issues that happen in everyday school life familiar problems such as rudeness, cheating, bullying, mobile phone use, stealing, harassment, disruptions, lateness, vandalism, peer pressure, anger, fear, discrimination, gossip, fighting, self-destructive behaviour and drug use.

Students discuss an issue, then read and interact with a story about it. They connect the story to their own experiences, reflect on their own attitudes and behaviours and recommend solutions. Learn More

“They’re All Writers” will help teachers explore the power of writing centres. In elementary school classrooms across the country, writing instruction (not grammar worksheets or spelling drills) is still the neglected “R”. In this book, classroom teachers will find foundational information about the writing process with everything they need to begin and facilitate a peer tutoring writing center. Student-led writing centers harness the social and instructional power of students working and learning together, and this book includes specific lessons to teach students how to be effective peer tutors and how to be better writers. Learn More

In So What Do They Really Know? Cris Tovani explores the complex issue of monitoring, assessing and marking students' thinking and performance with fairness and fidelity. Like all teachers, Cris struggles to balance her student-centred instruction with school system mandates. Her recommendations are realistic and practical; she understands that what isn't manageable isn't sustainable.

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Ten years ago, Reading Power was launched in an elementary school in Vancouver. Since then, it has evolved into a recognised approach to comprehension instruction and has been implemented across Canada, the US, the UK, Sweden and China. This ground-breaking approach showed teachers how to make thinking more visible to their students through explicit instruction of five comprehension strategies: connect, visualise, question, infer and transform. Adrienne Gear has continued to reflect and refine her understanding of metacognition, comprehension instruction, and the reading power strategies.

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