Other reading text books are full of philosophies. The authors of this text, instead, provides you with tested procedures that allow you to step right into a classroom and see for yourself how it works. It is written with such description and detail that you can immediately implement the ideas into your classroom as well. A must read for beginning teachers and vetren teachers as well.

I have the sme name as the autho

Classrooms That Work is a great reading and writing resource. It tells what strategies have been tried in the reading field. It tells what has worked and what hasn't worked. After you get through that, it gives you tons of strategies to use in your classroom when teaching reading and writing. The best things about these stratgies are that they are easy to implement and they work. You can also modify them to make them more suitable for you. These strategies allow all students to be successful in your classroom. This book is a great one to keep on hand. Although it is aimed for grades K-5, you could easily adapt or modify the strategies to work in your middle school classroom. I have many new strategies to try with my students this September!

Now in a revised and updated third edition, Classrooms That Work by Patricia M. Cunningham (Professor of Education, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina) and Richard L. Allington (Irvin and Rose Fien Professor of Education, University of Florida) is a solid, practical no-nonsense guide to creating a positive educational environment in both public and private schools, with emphasis on teaching literacy in first through sixth grades. The authors offer useful strategies and techniques for helping children learn including cross-checking, means of accurately assessing reading skill, multilevel guided reading, and much more. Classrooms That Work is a superb resource for teachers and concerned parents seeking to improve the quality and learning atmosphere of the formal and informal classroom setting.

This book changed my mind about teaching literacy skills, and the result is Special Day Class students who are reading, who love reading, and who actually TRY to read things. This book is full of great ideas that work: so many ideas that you wish you could use them all! My copy is already dog-eared and filled with sticky notes, highlighting, and notes in the margin. I've told all my teacher friends to get this book! GET THIS BOOK!

This book was a gift from a 'southern' friend in an effort to explain the 'southern psyche?!' Good, lord, I thought I'd die of hackneyed plot development and platitude! The truly interesting aspects were never persued nor explained -- the mother--southern woman personified and yet left to hang -- the ill-fated father -- zip! Ultimately a mawkish effort at 'southern literature' that leaves the reader unfulfilled and the genre stagnant. I am shocked to learn this thing has been compared to Harper Lee and Truman Capote! Are people just not reading anymore, are they just stupid, or what? After a brief while; you just don't give a damn and want to finish the thing. If this is the present/future of 'southern letters,' I'm even more glad the North won the Civil War!

Even after a month has passed, I still find myself thinking of this book, and when I was reading it, I couldn't put it down. Devoto tells a story of childhood in the South (northern Alabama) in the early 1950s, where fear of polio and segregation were pervasive realities. 8-year-old Tab (Tabatha) is friends with a boy whose mother, fearful of polio, makes him stay in the basement while she's at work. Tab's other friend is Maudie May, a 13-year-old "colored" girl whose younger twin brothers (known only as the Brothers) tag along around, kept in check by their strong-as-iron older sister. It is a time when children really were free to spend their summers with little adult supervision during the day. As a result Tab and her friends have some amazing and funny adventures, including an unforgettable episode on the Tennessee River in a rickety rowboat they've borrowed. I laughed out loud at a number of points in this book, both from the funny situations and the funny commentary by Tab.

This book is a keeper.

This book reminded me a lot of my childhood. Long summer days, Roy Rogers, the polio scare, hideouts, and long-lost childhood friends.

It is the story of Tab Rutland who lives in a small Alabama town in 1954. The 1954 polio scare is on, and all of the swimming pools are closed in the town. So with her new friend, Maudie (who is the daughter of the neighbor's African-American maid) they set about to build a fort in a kudzu vine thicket which they nickname Fort Polio. They then begin a summer spying on the local moonshine maker, taking a fishing trip to get money for school supplies for Maudie, Tab's friendship with her neighbor's son, John (who is brilliant in his own right), in addition to other adventures. Meanwhile, Tab's mother is blackballed by the venerable Ladies Help League and especially by the head of the League, Mrs. Grace Poovey.

But the summer ends--and what happens to Mrs. Poovey? And--what happens to Maudie and why does she have to leave town?

This is a wonderful coming-of-age novel set in the 1950s and those have grown up in this time period will enjoy this book immensely.

I am a reading specialist who previews new books all the time. I liked this book because it emphasizes the connection between spelling and phonics which is like being two sides of a coin. In addition, the activities are suitable for various levels and they seem to be classroom tested because I can sense that they are very realistic and practical.