This book is glorious! When my copy of Responsive Literacy: A Comprehensive Framework arrived in the mail, I was happily surprised to see an abundance of vividly colored photographs depicting real classrooms spread across the pages. The authentic examples of anchor charts and student work allow readers to better experience the components of the comprehensive literacy framework more closely.
Responsive Literacy is backed by decades of research and practice. It was written by literacy leaders affiliated with The Ohio State University Literacy Collaborative, alongside the amazing Patricia L. Scharer as Editor. On page 10, it states, Our goal was to create a reader-friendly book brimming with illustrative photographs, easy-to-navigate charts, and essential understandings to support professional learning and student achievement. The book is geared toward K-6 teachers as a way to increase the effectiveness of literacy instruction, but could easily be expanded to the middle grades.
Check out the topics in the Table of Contents to get a better sense of what this book provides. Take notice of the educational leaders that contributed to the contents of this book. Gay Su Pinnell is among them.
As you've probably noticed by the Table of Contents, the book is divided into six sections containing the essential ingredients of responsive literacy: Professional Learning, Organizing for Learning, Reading, Writing, Building Blocks of Language, and A Learning Community. Each section delves deeper into topics, such as the complexities of the language learning, organizational practices for reading, writing and word study, and developing a learning community encompassing students, staff and families.
I have many favorite aspects of this book. One being the mentor text suggestions. The book references an abundance of mentor texts correlating to lesson examples or ways to implement the texts in the classroom. Another aspect I find helpful is the teacher-student dialogue examples, consisting of ways to support students during writing conferences, for example.
Furthermore, the book provides readers with an online, password protected site that includes videos of Writing and Reading Workshop Elements with transcripts for all of the videos, in addition to downloadable resources. Below you'll find screenshots of what the site offers. Having access to the site allows readers flexible opportunities to grow professionally, even while at home in pajamas. #mytimePD #myfavorite
As a Literacy Coach and Reading Specialist, I love all things literacy. I feel this book highly promotes enjoyable reading, writing, speaking and listening experiences for students. It's definitely a new favorite I'll be referring back to when planning for literacy instruction and staff development. If you are a literacy leader, a classroom teacher, and even part of an administration team in the field of Education, I highly recommend this book.
Scholastic never ceases to amaze me with their ability to continually publish invaluable literature to better equip educators with the knowledge necessary to support students. Before you go, read some quotes found on Twitter highlighting the book. Thank you, Scholastic!
Happy Reading!
