Education - Readers and Reading

"Literacy skills have always been a precursor to success.  Those who can read and write well become powerful communicators; such people are the movers and shakers of society in many cases.  While this has always been true, today more than ever, strong literacy skills are a critical survival asset in a fast-paced, technological world.  More information is available today than at any time in history, and we have access to it more rapidly.  Such advantages are meaningless, though, to those who cannot read or to those whose reading skills are so underdeveloped that comprehending a substantial or complex text structure is a seemingly insurmountable hurdle.  In today's society, adults and schoolchildren whose reading abilities are deficient are treading water in a pool that has no shallow end." (From: Igniting a Passion for Reading by Steven Layne, 2009, p.5)

"These days, I share with my students what no literacy expert could ever teach me.  Reading changes your life.  Reading unlocks worlds unknown or forgotten, taking travelers around the world and through time.  Reading helps you escape the confines of school and pursue your own education.  Through characters -- the saints and the sinners, real or imagined -- reading shows you how to be a better human being." (From: The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller, 2009, p.18)

 This LibGuide has been developed to help you find resources about teaching reading for grades Kindergarten to grade 12.

If you are looking to become familiar with current issues about reading and related research then click on the Overview tab.  Here you will find books from the Doucette Library's collection, full-text articles and websites that will give you more general information about what professionals in the field of education are discussing and researching regarding reading.

The second tab, Readers, will direct you to resources (again, books, full-text articles and web resources) that address the needs of specific kinds of readers.  Struggling readers, boy readers, gifted students, and ELL (English language learners) students are a few of typical 'kinds' of readers that teachers often differentiate their instruction for.

If you want more specific information about how-to-teach reading, then click on the Strategies tab. Under this tab you will find books, full-text articles and web resources relevant to approaches and methods teachers use in the classroom to movitate students, develop the various skills necessary in becoming a fluent reader and engender a desire to be life-long readers.  Assessing reading abilities is included here.