Ten Proven Principles for Teaching Reading

I have the day off from school today, but still catch myself participating in work-related things, as usual. ;) If you follow my blog, you already know I recently attended the Illinois Reading Conference and learned a tremendous amount about teaching reading.  Ever since my IRC 2014 experience,  I've been on a *reading research hunt* to continue learning what's best for my struggling readers.  

During the hunt, I came across an article called Ten Proven Principles for Teaching Reading.  It clarifies the top ten principles for teaching reading, which by now I'm already familiar with, so nothing new there.  

However, the article also makes clear the progression of reading instructional practices over the last few decades.  It's quite amazing how far we've come.  I must say I was that teacher, way back when, purchasing workbooks to help my students become better readers.  Does that even make sense to anyone?  Of course, after teaching for 19 years now, I'm better informed.  Students must read books to become better readers.  Duh?  It's silly to think anyone could believe otherwise and that workbooks and basal readers were the "answer" to teaching students to read well.  We all know they weren't actually the answer because research proves differently.  

I got a laugh out of hearing Dr. Richard Allington speak at the IRC.  He was so blunt in expressing his feelings toward workbooks. According to him, workbooks are full of worksh*its and "if you want to keep kids stupid, do worksh*ts!"  Thoughts?

Below are the shifts regarding instructional practices in reading.  I'm certainly please we've changed over from providing little direct instruction for students to scaffolding them through the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model of instruction.   

Impressions or opinions on the topic you'd like to share?   I'd love to hear them.  Thanks for reading!