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 pr... more »omoting the integration of phonics andliterature-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.