Offering over 200 ready-to-use, successful "booktalks" for librarians, teachers, and parents, this book shows how to "hook" reluctant readers onto books. The field-tested booktalks are brief "commercials" for books that give just enough information to promote reading the book, and that help match the right reader with…

This book arranges more than 900 children's books, both fiction and nonfiction, by school grade (one through six) and by difficulty level (easy, average, challenging), enabling teachers, librarians, and parents to have an extensive bibliography of interesting and worthwhile books for every child's interests and reading abilities. The book lists…

Notes how the authors visited a sixth-grade classroom in an urban setting to teach students about jazz using children's literature. Describes how they played the music, talked about its basic structure and unique characteristics, read books aloud about the major musicians, and encouraged the students to experience the music for themselves. (SG)

Examines what motivates students to read by looking at four literacy personalities. Explores readers' beliefs, readers' reasons and purposes, and readers' affective reactions. Proposes that self-efficacy is important at the beginning of a literacy event. Provides some practical ideas for classroom teachers to discover students' literacy…

Describes the author's voluntary reading program in her second-grade classroom. Describes how her basic Drop Everything and Read program needed to be added to and tinkered with to keep students interested and motivated: paired reading and discussion, visual reading records, and praise and occasional rewards. (SR)

Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) offers children the opportunity for endless challenges and discovery. Engaged literacy learners are motivated, have conceptual understanding, use cognitive strategies, and interact socially. CORI is a classroom context that promotes literacy engagement in terms of seven dimensions: observational,…

The Directed Reading Using Music Strategy (DRUMS) is a type of reading strategy that can lead to the teaching of reflective thinking skills, increased reading comprehension and vocabulary, along with increased motivation for learning. Research indicates that contemporary song lyrics aid reading comprehension and can be used as motivational text. A…

Informs practitioners working with struggling readers of the latest research on home influences on reading motivation. Provides research-based suggestions to teachers as to how they might enlist the assistance of parents in motivating struggling readers. Shows that supportive home environments foster motivation for reading, which leads to more…

Shared reading lets elementary teachers show children what reading is about. Teachers read the text aloud and encourage students to read along. All levels of readers can participate. Teachers can do letter or sound searches to help children understand how to use what they know about letters and spelling patterns in order to read unfamiliar words.…

Argues that elementary school students need more experience with nonfiction reading materials. Describes how teachers can promote this by reading to children every day; systematically including nonfiction books, magazines, and other materials; encouraging children to include nonfiction reading during their daily silent reading time; and making…

Describes a home reading intervention program for students with real reading difficulties, which has turned many students on to reading, by giving students book bags with three books (at different levels) in each bag for home reading. Discusses developing parent support, outlines contents of 30 book bags, and notes challenges and successes of the…

Describes how Gary Paulsen's novels for young adults transformed the author's teaching, and caused her eighth-grade reluctant readers to read as if inspired. Relates how Paulsen's stories about his adventures and misadventures in education and in life stirred students to become active participants in the reading process. Offers a select…

This Digest focuses on motivating the low performing adolescent in a remedial reading or subject area classroom--the idea is that students who are disengaged from their own learning processes are not likely to perform well in school. The Digest points out that such adolescents are often caught in a cycle of failure and that secondary teachers must…

This article presents ideas for turning elementary-level nonreaders into readers. Activities include teachers'"all-about-me letters" to gain insight into students' interests, and interviewing students to document their use of reading strategies. A reading strategy record sheet for the student interviews is included. (SM)

Offers the response of a professor and former elementary and secondary teacher to the question posed by a seventh-grade teacher regarding what teachers can do to encourage students with negative attitudes toward reading to read both in and out of school. Discusses ways that both reading aloud and reading along are effective strategies to entice…