Laura J. Robb – författare

Use these lessons to build developing readers’ skill and desire to read, read, read!

This book will be your guide as you support middle grade students who are reading two or more years below grade level. The lessons enlarge students’ vocabulary and background knowledge and engage them in meaningful discussions and writing about their reading. As students’ reading skill and desire to read increases, you’ll watch them complete more independent reading and ramp up their reading volume—the practice they need to improve!

Guided Practice for Reading Growth provides all you need to get started. Laura Robb and poet David L. Harrison have collaborated to design twenty-four powerful reading lessons using original poems and short texts that interest your students and encourage them to think deeply. The opening chapters offer background knowledge for the lessons and teaching tips, then the bulk of this book consists of lessons—with full texts and suggested videos provided. Guided practice lessons are the instructional piece that can move developing readers forward by building their self-confidence and the reading expertise needed to read to learn and for pleasure.

This unique book shows you how to:

·         Build students’ background knowledge by watching and discussing videos.

·         Use the poems to improve reading and to improve fluency through practice and performance.

·         Invite students to write about their reading and increase comprehension and recall.

·         Ask partners to discuss before, during, and after reading as meaningful talk enlarges students’ analytical thinking and understanding.

·         Design your own lessons for students with extra texts by David L. Harrison in the appendix.

Use this book to develop students’ self-confidence and the reading skill they require to become lifelong, joyful readers!

Here is a reading riddle: What knowledge always precedes high-level text comprehension and yet seldom is given sufficient instructional time?

The answer: Word knowledge. 

Our students can’t understand texts without knowing what words mean. It’s that simple. Meanwhile, in our rush toward complex texts, somehow we forget to put a new systematic vocabulary plan in place. In Vocabulary Is Comprehension, Laura Robb provides the instructional plan. And just wait until you see the results!

Laura’s plan takes just 10 to 15 minutes, and much of it is spent in partner and independent work so this is no “add on” to squeeze in. Even better, all materials are included.  Each lesson features a student reproducible along with 50+ pieces of short fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—or, if you prefer, use your own text.

Here’s how the plan works:

Along the way, the 35+ lessons:

Laura surrounds these ready-to-teach lessons with the routines that help students read increasingly demanding texts across the curriculum. Students blog, tweet, and apply words in many different contexts . . . look out for related words in books, ads, and media . . . and many other collaborative activities that promote deep word knowledge rather than shallow word-defining. If you’re looking for a resource that will make all the difference as you address the new reach for rigorous, complex text reading, Vocabulary Is Comprehension is it.

An author, teacher, coach, and speaker, LAURA ROBB has spent the last four decades in middle school education.  What teachers appreciate most about Laura is her deep commitment to children and adolescents, and her ability to show what best-practice instruction looks like day by day; a survey conducted by Instructor magazine named Laura as one of the nation’s top twenty educators. Currently, in addition to her speaking and consulting, she works part time in grades K-8.