Description

Features

• Gives future teachers a blueprint for organizing classrooms to accelerate learning of all children.

• Focuses on practical strategies for promoting literacy among struggling and culturally diverse students.

• Strategies for helping students decode big words (Ch. 4)--perfect text for newly mandated phonics-based courses.

• Chapter with innovative ideas for supporting above and beyond the most at risk students (Ch. 10).

• The chapter, “MultiLevel Instruction” (Ch. 5), includes a variety of whole-class and small group formats that teachers use to provide support for struggling readers and challenges for advanced readers. It emphasizes ways to make instruction multi-level, not ability grouped, with whole-class grade level instruction.

• The chapter, “Assessment” (Ch. 6), describes how teachers can make assessment an integral part of their instruction and contains a variety of practical checklists and other assessment suggestions.

• The chapter, “Comprehension” (Ch. 3), describes a variety of activities that promote thoughtful literacy for both story and informational text.

• Very inexpensive; great supplement for any reading/language arts course.

New To This Edition

• New organization of chapters reflects an integrative approach to literacy–this new edition starts with a chapter on Creating Classrooms that Work which summarizes the characteristics of the most effective classrooms. Other chapters on Words, Comprehension, Writing, Assessment, etc. inform teachers of the need for a balanced approach to literacy.
• A new chapter, Creating Enthusiastic, Independent Readers (Ch. 2)  contains ideas for helping all children become independent readers.
• A new chapter, “Building Vital, Vivid and Valuable Vocabularies” (Ch. 5), describes practical strategies for building meaning vocabulary.
• A new chapter, “Building the Literacy Foundation” (Ch. 3), describes activities to get young children off to a successful start in reading and writing.
  

• Revised Chapter 7, “Creating Ready, Willing and Able Writers”contains lots of suggestions for minilessons in writer's workshop including lessons on editing and revising.
  

• Updated and revised Chapters 11, 12 and 13 (authors' favorites) describe a sample day in a Building Blocks kindergarten, a sample day in a Four Blocks primary classroom and a sample week in a Big Blocks intermediate classroom, respectively. Combined, these chapters show how all of the important components of a balanced literacy programs can be combined.

Table of Contents

Courses

Elementary Reading Methods (K-8)  [CORE TEXTS]   (Reading & Literacy)
Alternative Certification  (Curriculum & Instruction)

Next Edition(s)

• Classrooms that Work: They Can All Read and Write, 5/E
  Cunningham & Allington
  ©2011  |  Allyn & Bacon  |  Paper; 288 pp  |  Instock
  ISBN-10: 0137048378  |  ISBN-13: 9780137048373
  Suggested retail price: $41.99  Buy from myPearsonStoreNet price: $28.55  (What's this?)Brief Description  | 

  

  The Fifth Edition of Classrooms That Work emphasizes a core set of ideas across a variety of timely topics, providing a comprehensive, balanced treatment of instructional reading methods for struggling and culturally diverse students.

  Schools today have more children from racial and ethnic minority groups, more children who are learning English, more children from single-parent homes and more children living in poverty.  The need for balanced, comprehensive literacy instruction that pervades the school day and curriculum is greater now than ever. Pat Cunningham’s and Dick Allington’s clear and friendly writing style emphasizes the importance of promoting the integration of phonics and literature-based process writing and reading instruction to enhance ALL students’ learning and reading skills. The book clarifies concepts, defines key terms, and offers just the right balance of research and practical coverage to make the content complete without being overwhelming. This book helps teachers engage ALL children in meaning-centered reading by fostering powerful decoding and comprehension strategies and implementing a balanced reading program.

   

  The Fifth Edition was revised to help teachers better meet the needs of increasingly diverse classrooms and is filled with workable, practical strategies and activities to use in the classroom. Chapter 4 addresses the topic of fostering fluency, which is critical to successful reading and writing for beginning readers, providing teachers with a variety of ways to increase the amount of reading their students are doing and make sure that ALL students are learning to quickly and accurately read and spell the most common words. Cunningham and Allington also address how teachers can dramatically increase the amount of reading and writing their students do each day by incorporating literacy activities as teachers cover the content areas of math, science and social studies. Chapter 11 reflects the reality of the current student population in classrooms across America and suggests a variety of ways successful teachers differentiate their instruction to meet the needs of increasingly diverse classrooms. 

  More Info
  

Author Bios

Meet the Authors

 Patricia M. Cunningham is a Professor of Education at Wake Forest University. She has over 30 years of experience, taught in various elementary grades and remedial reading, and was a curriculum coordinator and director of reading. Her major professional goal is promoting literacy for all children and currently engages in staff development across the United States.

Richard L. Allington is a Professor of Education at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. He is past president of the International Reading Association and the National Reading Conference, co-recipient of the Albert J. Harris Award, and a member of the Reading Hall of Fame. Dick has extensively researched effective teaching and how schools can develop effective, expert teachers.

Backcover Copy

“Cunningham and Allington’s voice and presentation style are unique, and I think this distinguishes their book from others. This book is an enjoyable and exciting read for my students. It makes them want to get out there and teach. They walk away from it with not only a sound set of teaching strategies, but a strong sense of why they would use them, and a belief that they can teach like this…Bravo!”
–Donna H. Topping, Millersville University

“[Classrooms That Work]’s strengths are the knowledge of the authors, the organization and conversational tone of the text, and the emphasis on “all children can learn”…. I believe the information presented changed my students’ perspectives on how reading and writing should be viewed and taught.”
–Brenda Bradshaw, Southwest Missouri State University

“[This book] is easy to understand. The most distinguishing feature is that it is comprehensive and less than [350] pages. It is practical in ways others are not.”
–Dr. Susan McBridge, California Polytechnic State University

The fourth edition of Classrooms That Work emphasizes a core set of ideas across a variety of timely topics, providing a comprehensive, balanced treatment of instructional reading methods for struggling and culturally diverse students.

Pat Cunningham and Dick Allington, with their clear and friendly writing style, emphasize the importance of promoting the integration of phonics and literature-based process writing and reading instruction to enhance ALL students’ learning and reading skills. It clarifies concepts, defines key terms, and offers just the right balance of research and practical coverage to make the content complete without being overwhelming.

This affordable book helps teachers engage all children in meaning-centered reading by fostering powerful decoding and comprehension strategies and implementing a balanced reading program. It identifies and explores five components: real reading and writing, guided reading, guided writing, decoding/spelling, and word/word knowledge.

The fourth edition is filled with workable, practical strategies and activities to use in the classroom. This book plays upon readers' natural curiosity and desire for relevance by offering a modern, applied approach to “traditional” reading topics and an in-depth look at areas of reading instruction not covered by other books. Chapters 11, 12, and 13 describe a sample day in a Building Blocks kindergarten, a sample day in a Four Blocks primary classroom, and a sample week in a Big Blocks intermediate classroom, respectively. Combined, these chapters show how all of the important components of a balanced literacy program can be integrated.

For the fourth edition, the authors have reorganized the chapters to reflect an integrative approach to literacy–this new edition starts with Creating Classrooms That Work, a chapter that summarizes the characteristics of the most effective classrooms. Other chapters on words, comprehension, writing, and assessment inform teachers of the need for a balanced approach to literacy.

There are also three new chapters in this edition:

• “Creating Enthusiastic, Independent Readers” (Chapter 2) contains ideas for helping all children become independent readers.
• “Building Vital, Vivid, and Valuable Vocabularies” (Chapter 5) describes practical strategies for building meaning vocabulary.
• “Building the Literacy Foundation” (Chapter 3) describes activities to get young children off to a successful start in reading and writing.

Patricia M. Cunningham is a professor of education at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, North Carolina. She has taught in various elementary grades and been a curriculum coordinator and director of reading. Her major professional goal is promoting literacy for all children.

Richard L. Allington is a professor of education at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. He is a past president of the National Reading Conference and a member of the Reading Hall of Fame. Dick has extensively researched effective teaching and how schools can develop effective, expert teachers.

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