Literacy Books

How Fiction Works

James Wood

Amazon Price: $16.32 List Price: $24.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Amazon Marketplace: 18 new & used starting at $14.28

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Self Indulgent 2 out of 5 stars.
5 of 8 people found this review helpful.

I first discovered this book while perusing the the lit-crit section of the local book store. Although my arms were full, I put down what I had and picked up 'How Fiction Works' and gave it a try.

A few moments later, I put the book down. Perhaps, I thought, it was because of my already-busy day, or the fact that I already had several books that I was more interested in reading. But I couldn't get into this book.

A few weeks later, I was back at the bookstore and decided to give it another try. Again, nothing.

Yesterday it was more of the same. Nothing about this book 'popped' for me. It was over-written and self-indulgent (a sign of which is surely the acclaim by the so-called literary community). It appears that this book was written for the sole purpose of being written. It does not, in any way, come close to the beauty and simplistic complexity of Forster's 'Aspects of the Novel.' (I realize that 'Aspects' was a series of lectures and 'How Fiction' is a book, but that should change very little.

This book is extremely impossible to grasp. Overwrought and confusing, 'How Fiction..' is successful only in that alienates itself from the reading public and certainly does not belong in the same discussion with 'Aspects of the Novel.'

Two Stars

Editorial Review:

What makes a story a story? What is style? What’s the connection between realism and real life? These are some of the questions James Wood answers in How Fiction Works, the first book-length essay by the preeminent critic of his generation. Ranging widely—from Homer to David Foster Wallace, from What Maisie Knew to Make Way for Ducklings—Wood takes the reader through the basic elements of the art, step by step.

The result is nothing less than a philosophy of the novel—plainspoken, funny, blunt—in the traditions of E. M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. It sums up two decades of insight with wit and concision. It will change the way you read.

Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding

Stephanie Harvey, Anne Goudvis

List Price: $24.00 By: Stenhouse Publishers Amazon Marketplace: 98 new & used starting at $2.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 40 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

great for english language arts teachers 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I loved this book. I learned so much. I've become a better reader myself and can't wait to use these strategies with my students.

Usefull book 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement has easy to read useful information that should be easily transferred into a classroom.

Great Product 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement

Book came fast and secure. Almost new, but did have some hightlighting.

Would buy again!

easy to understand and lots of good ideas 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book was purchased as an optional textbook for a graduate level class. I can see myself employing several of the strategies in my first grade classroom with very little effort on my part. Easy to read and understand.

These Strategies do work! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

As a English Teacher, I use the information in this book to help me with crafting some reading strategies within a workshop model for my high school students. Students are engaged and they learn life-long reading skills. I highly recommend this book for your personal library and classroom resource.

How to Read a Book (A Touchstone book)

Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren

Amazon Price: $11.55 List Price: $16.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Touchstone Amazon Marketplace: 101 new & used starting at $7.18

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 107 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Must Read! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book has greatly helped me. I think this should be required reading in any school, be it home or public. I will certainly have my new born read it (well, once she is old enough). Now I have so many more tools available to me while reading. You will not read the same after reading this book. If you apply this book your skill will greatly increase. It has help me love to read!

Daniel Fuller, John Piper's hermeneutics teacher uses this book for his class. He doesn't believe in special hermeneutics but general hermeneutics. You can learn more here: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ConferenceMessages/ByDate/1994/ and http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Articles/ByDate/2006/1625_Where_can_I_learn_more_about_the_Bible_study_method_called_arcing/

Editorial Review:

How to Read a Book, originally published in 1940, has become a rare phenomenon, a living classic. It is the best and most successful guide to reading comprehension for the general reader. And now it has been completely rewritten and updated.

You are told about the various levels of reading and how to achieve them -- from elementary reading, through systematic skimming and inspectional reading, to speed reading, you learn how to pigeonhole a book, X-ray it, extract the author's message, criticize. You are taught the different reading techniques for reading practical books, imaginative literature, plays, poetry, history, science and mathematics, philosophy and social science.

Finally, the authors offer a recommended reading list and supply reading tests whereby you can measure your own progress in reading skills, comprehension and speed.

Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction

Donald R. Bear, Marcia Invernizzi, Shane Templeton, Francine Johnston

List Price: $28.00 By: Merrill Publishing Company Amazon Marketplace: 50 new & used starting at $0.11

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Great Resource! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This is a great resource. It gives many examples of how to impliment the program. One thing I really like about Words Their Way is the fact that is hands on. This will really help my students who are more concrete thinkers.

great word study for students 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Words Their Way is an excellent source for teachers to use for word study. It gives great insight into how kids learn to spell.

Words Their Way 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The product is in excellent condition, and exactly what I wanted. Unfortunately, I took 27 days to reach me.

One of the best books for teaching word study 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

You get everything with this book! An easy-to-understand explanation of children's reading development, the many layers of reading, second language acquisition difficulties, examples, tables, and charts. And reproducible word study activities. Each stage of spelling is carefully explained with the approrpriate word study activities. Each stage also discusses ESL students and the problems they will encounter. Well-worth the money!!!!

Editorial Review:

With more than 15 years of extensive observations and experiences in real classrooms, the authors bring keen insight to this activity-based book. They advocate basing student learning on the appropriate developmental level. This philosophy is supported with more than 250 ready-to-use word study, spelling, vocabulary, and phonics activities presented in developmental sequence, from the Emergent through the Derivational Relation stage. For educators and school administrators.

Qualitative Reading Inventory-4 (4th Edition)

Lauren Leslie, JoAnne Schudt Caldwell

Amazon Price: $36.53 List Price: $57.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Allyn & Bacon Amazon Marketplace: 68 new & used starting at $35.45

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Review for QRI-4th Edition 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This is an important resource for anyone working in the field of K-12 education. The text teaches you how to use the assessment tool and provides assessment materials for students at all reading levels. This book was required for a class I am taking, and Amazon's price was much better than the student bookstore's price. The text also comes with a CD for easy access to assessment materials.

Editorial Review:

This easy-to-use, best-selling collection of reading materials effectively assesses reading ability at emergent though high school levels. It includes both narrative and expository passages at each grade level, questions to assess prior knowledge, and word lists. Instructors can measure comprehension by retelling passages, implicit and explicit questions, and other devices. Based on the latest reading research and in-line with No Child Left Behind Reading First components, this comprehensive inventory focuses assessment on specific questions regarding word identification, fluency, and comprehension. It also provides suggestions for intervention instruction, procedures for assessment of strategic reading, and inclusion of results in classroom portfolios. Get even more effectiveness from your QRI results with Caldwell and Leslie's book Intervention Strategies to Follow Informal Reading Inventory Assessment: So What Do I Do Now? (ISBN: 0205405584)

Lib Bk Rules G6 Stry 08

HSP

List Price: $7.99 By: Hmh School Amazon Marketplace: 1 new & used starting at $5.19

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 77 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

insteresting 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book wasn't terrible but far away from good. It was reptive and quite frankly boring. I've heard lot's of people loved it but I just couldn't get into it. This book did make you think a little bit,but I think this book either strikes you the wronge way or the right way. I do not reccomend this book.

Excellent! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

"No toys in the fish tank."

"Chew with your mouth closed."

"Not everything worth keeping has to be useful."

"Sometimes people laugh when they like you. But sometimes they laugh to hurt you."

These are just some of the rules Catherine has created for the day her brother is miraculously cured from autism. Catherine lives her life taking care of her younger brother and trying to keep him from embarrassing her. When she becomes friends with Jason, a boy that can't talk and must use a wheelchair, she gains a new perspective on life and on her brother.

I LOVED this book! I felt for Catherine, for David, and for Jason. I could see all perspectives. That is why the book is so amazing. Catherine has normal feelings, even if she knows they are wrong on some level. The book shows that even if someone is different, they still have normal, everyday feelings, just like the rest of us. They shouldn't be treated differently. I like the realization that Catherine makes at the end of the book about David and about Jason. And about herself and who she wants to be.

You must read this book!!!

Editorial Review:

Twelve-year-old Catherine just wants a normal life. Which is near impossible when you have a brother with autism and a family that revolves around his disability. She's spent years trying to teach David the rules-from "a peach is not a funny-looking apple" to "keep your pants on in public"-in order to stop his embarrassing behaviors. But the summer Catherine meets Jason, a paraplegic boy, and Kristi, the next-door friend she's always wished for, it's her own shocking behavior that turns everything upside down and forces her to ask: What is normal?

Leaves of Grass, Second Edition (Norton Critical Editions)

Walt Whitman

Amazon Price: $17.21 List Price: $20.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: W. W. Norton Amazon Marketplace: 65 new & used starting at $9.50

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 70 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

This edition contains the most complete and authoritative collection of Whitman's work in one volume.

The basic text is the "Comprehensive Reader's Edition" of Leaves of Grass, which includes the 1892 "deathbed" edition preferred by Whitman, all the prefaces to the editions of Leaves of Grass, 45 poems and 28 passages from poems excluded from successive editions, 22 previously unpublished poems, and 43 poems and 60 manuscript fragments never before collected—the fragments comprise over half of those in existence. A special section, Whitman on His Art, contains prose statements on his role as an artist, taken from his notebooks, letters, conversation, and newspaper articles. Criticism begins with Whitman's own anonymous review and presents a wide selection of the diverse opinions that have been held since by critics and by poets. Harold Blodgett's concluding essay discusses the pattern of Whitman's critical fortunes.

About the series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide.

Phonics They Use: Words for Reading and Writing

Patricia M. Cunningham

List Price: $22.61 By: Harpercollins College Div Amazon Marketplace: 18 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Excellent Service 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I recieved my item soooooo fast. The book was in excellent condition!!!! very fast on shipping....highly recommended!!!!!!

Excellent Transaction 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This product arrived on time and in excellent condition. I would definitely order my textbooks from amazon again

Excellent book for the permanent shelf 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I found this book to be very helpful and well written. The text is organized according to activities needed to build literacy for children. Every teacher, especially a beginning teacher, should have this book on the shelf with pages tabbed. Excellent resource.

LOVE IT! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Great book! Has a lot of different ideas to use with your students. I teach Title I Reading and this book has easy & applicable ideas. Pat Cunningham is a trusted name in reading.

Phonics They Use great resource 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The book is filled with lesson plan fun activities to teach children better phonic skills. I am a future Teacher and I found this book very helpful.

Editorial Review:

This text is an invaluable resource for any new teacher or veteran teacher in search of new ideas as this latest edition is packed with new activities and strategies for teaching reading.

10 Books That Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn't Help

Benjamin Wiker

Amazon Price: $22.79 List Price: $29.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Tantor Media Amazon Marketplace: 26 new & used starting at $16.58

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 48 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

In other words - the world's just bad 1 out of 5 stars.
3 of 5 people found this review helpful.

The author trashes all of human thought and history since the Renaissance, and reveals his longing to return to some medieval cocoon. Fine for him, and he ought to throw out all the technology developed since and remove to his cave without plumbing, electricity, or three-piece suits.

His premise is that these books have "screwed up" the natural order of things and apparently we can return to this pristine genesis by what - burning them? He doesn't say so, but break out the monk's cowls and holy smoke just in case. Actually, these "natural orders" are always self-serving for their promoters, and Mr. Wiker's is no different.

The Christian faith on which his premises are based is built upon the distinction between the "natural carnal world" and divine revelation, so we can obviously add the Christian Bible and specifically the New Testament to the list of books that screw up the natural order. In fact, more evil-doing has been done in the name of Holy Scripture than the other fifteen books combined.

Another intellectual pretender with feet of clay on a pedestal of sand. *YAWN*

Editorial Review:

From Machiavelli to Marx, Nietzsche to Hitler, this volume offers a provocative look at some of Western civilization's most infamous authors and their literary works and shows how these works have inflicted great evil in the world---and still cause suffering.

Literacy for the 21st Century (3rd Edition)

Gail E. Tompkins

List Price: $84.00 By: Prentice Hall Amazon Marketplace: 83 new & used starting at $0.69

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

LITERACY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY: BALANCED APPROACH ( 4TH EDITION) 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

THE BOOK WAS EVERYTHING AND THEN SOME. I NEEDED IT FOR AN EDUCATION CLASS,BUT I PLAN ON KEEPING IT FOR A RESOURCE BOOK!

GREAT BOOK!! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

the book was in excellent condition and was very fast shipping. thanks for doing business!

My review Lit Book 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Exactly what I needed in school. Good information for the Foundations of Reading MTEL. Won't be used afterwards.

Great Book (for a textbook)! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is well written, well organized, and has an easy-to-follow layout. It also is full of charts, tables, and illustrations in a colorful format. It stays open by itself. Most people will only buy this book if it is a required book for a course, but even so, it is better than most textbooks in its design, and an easy read for those who must have it. I wish all textbooks were like this one!

Editorial Review:

Appropriate for courses in Elementary Reading Methods. This best-selling text is based on four contemporary theories of literacy learning-constructivist, sociolinguistic, interactive, reader response-and advocates a balanced approach to teaching reading. The author offers a highly readable text demonstrating how to implement a literature-based reading program using skills and strategies taught with a whole-part-whole approach.