The Threads of Reading: Strategies for Literacy Development

How can teachers make sure that all students gain the reading skills they need to be successful in school and in life? In this book, Karen Tankersley describes the six foundational “threads” that students need to study in order to become effective readers: phonemic awareness, phonics and decoding, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and higher-order processing.

For each area, the author explains how students acquire the reading skills they need and offers a series of skill-building strategies and activities that teachers can use in the classroom. Although reading is perhaps most intensely taught in the kindergarten and 1st-grade classrooms, Tankersley emphasizes that helping students become lifelong readers is a task for all teachers, including content-area teachers in middle and high schools.

The Threads of Reading addresses key questions about literacy, such as

◦ What makes a difference in reading achievement?

◦ How much reading time is enough?

◦ How can teachers use writing to build reading skills?

◦ How can teachers help students make meaning from their reading?

The strategies in this book address many situations, from individual instruction to small- or large-group instruction, from kindergarten to high school. Teachers will appreciate the multitude of activities provided, and administrators will learn to better evaluate the reading programs in place in their districts and schools. Grounded in both research and “teacher lore” from actual classrooms, this book is a solid guide to helping students become lifelong readers.