Content Area Resources Magazine

Content Area
Literacy
A selection of useful resources
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Daniels and Zemelman, two of America’s most popular
educators, share exactly what you need to help students
read your nonfiction content closely and strategically:
• 27 proven teaching strategies that help meet—and
exceed—the standards
• how-to suggestions for engaging kids with content
through wide, real-world reading
• a lively look at using “boring” textbooks
• motivating instruction that’s powered by student
collaboration
• specifics for helping struggling readers succeed.
Subjects Matter, Second Edition enables deep, thoughtful
learning for your students. You’ll discover fresh and reenergized
lessons, completely updated research, and
vibrant vignettes from new colleagues and old friends who
have as much passion for their subjects as you do.
“We’ll be using methods particular to our fields as well as
engaging reading materials that help students understand
and remember our content better,” write Harvey and Steve.

Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis share the work and
thinking they've done since second edition and offer new
perspectives on how to explicitly teach thinking strategies so
that students become engaged, thoughtful and independent
readers.
Thirty new lessons and new and revised chapters highlight
children's thinking, curiosity, and questions.
Harvey and Goudvis tackle close reading, close listening,
text complexity, and critical thinking in a new chapter on
building knowledge through thinking-intensive reading and
learning.
Other fully revised chapters focus on digital reading,
strategies for integrating comprehension and technology,
and comprehension across the curriculum.
Strategies That Work (3 rd edition) explains the research
behind comprehension and looks at 8 strategies that should
be explicitly taught to students to increase their
comprehension of text. It also provides lesson ideas and
student work samples.

Serves as a guide for teachers who want to realize the benefits of
well-structured, student-led, cross-curricular projects. Lays the
foundation for inquiry circles by chronicling the current research
and practices behind comprehension instruction and classroom
collaboration.
• 37 strategy lessons, including 11 completely new ones, for
thinking and collaboration
• 7 new step-by-step classroom stories that model inquirybased
units
• Groundbreaking research in comprehension, collaboration,
and inquiry
• Connections to inquiry structures such as makers, design
thinking, genius hour, and capstone projects
• Tips on common questions about management and
accountability
• A completely rewritten chapter on the wise use of
technology
• Specific correlations from inquiry circles to common state
and national standards.

In Closing the Reading Gap, Alex Quigley explores the intriguing
history and science of reading, synthesising the debates and
presenting a wealth of usable evidence about how children
develop most efficiently as successful readers.
Offering practical strategies for teachers at every phase of their
teaching career, as well as tackling issues such as dyslexia and
the role of technology, the book helps teachers to be an expert in
how pupils ‘learn to read’ as well as how they ‘read to learn’ and
explores how reading is vital for unlocking a challenging
academic curriculum for every student.
With a focus on nurturing pupils’ will and skill to read for pleasure
and purpose, this essential volume provides practical solutions to
help all teachers create a rich reading culture that will enable
every student to thrive in school and far beyond the school gates.

This pioneering book is now in a revised and expanded
second edition featuring the latest neuroscientific
knowledge and instructional strategies.
Kelly B. Cartwright provides a teacher-friendly
explanation of executive skills--such as planning,
organization, cognitive flexibility, and impulse control--
and their role in reading comprehension.
Detailed examples illustrate how each skill is deployed by
strong comprehenders and ways to tailor instruction for
students who are struggling.
The companion website features reproducible planning
and assessment forms from the book as well as
supplemental card sorts to teach and assess cognitive
flexibility, all ready to download and print in a convenient
8 1/2" x 11" size.

In the same teacher-friendly, classroom-wise voices that made Subjects
Matter and Content-Area Writing bestsellers, Daniels and Steineke
prove that with the right materials and the right lessons, you can turn
your kids into much better readers in your subject field by showing:
• how proficient readers think
• how skillful collaborators act
• how to use quick and engaging activities that add to, not steal from
subject-matter learning.
Each real-world text was chosen for its subject-area relevance, its
interest to teens, and for its “wow factor”—the texts most likely to
engage kids in discussion and debate.
Step-by-step lessons accompany each text, including:
• 23 Strategy Lessons that focus closely on at least one key
comprehension strategy or collaboration skill that proficient learners
use, and address the Common Core Standards for ELA
• 10 Text Set Lessons that directly align to commonly taught
curricular topics and offer a deeper, longer engagement in the
subjects and strategies at hand.

Content-Area Writing guides you strategically through the two
major types of writing that every student must know:
• Writing to Learn: the quick, exploratory, and extemporaneous
in-class writing that helps kids engage deeply with content, build
connections, and retain what they've learned
• Public Writing: planned, constructed, and polished writing in
which students demonstrate knowledge and reflect on what
they've learned.
Daniels, Zemelman & Steineke provide valuable lessons for
encouraging growth in both types of writing with subject-specific
ideas for planning, organising, and teaching, as well as samples of
student work and guidelines for evaluation and assessment.
They also include detailed information on how their strategies fit
into the writing process, how they can be used in writing workshops
across the curriculum, and how they prepare students for testing
and other on-demand writing situations.

In this book, Gallagher emphasises the need for students to write for
real-world purposes. He provides practical strategies that are based
on his own long experience as a high school teacher, with the
purpose of teaching students to work with specific forms of discourse.
These are, express and reflect, inform and explain, evaluate and
judge, inquire and explore, analyse and interpret, and take a
stand/propose a solution.
Gallagher suggests mentor texts, provides student writing samples
and indicates the sort of assignments that are likely to grow your
student writers.

In this book the author provides teachers with practical
information and strategies to teach non-fiction writing across all
subjects.
Peery explains simple strategies and shares implementation
ideas about how writing can be used in every classroom to
increase success for students.
Strategies, tools, and assignments include:
• Content-area writing rubrics
• Quick writes Graphic organizers
• Teacher modeling with think-alouds
• Teacher-led small-group conferences
• Student-to-student writing conferences
• Personal conventions list
• Process essays
• Multi-genre research

Over 50 reproducible mentor texts that demonstrate the moves of
skillful nonfiction writers.
• 36 ready to use content-literacy lessons designed to engage
students in close reading, quick writing, and lively discussion.
• More than 100 options for meaningful, content-focused extended
writing projects.
“Using these practical lessons, you can teach your own subject matter
in more compelling and memorable ways—and at the same time, help
your students become better thinkers and writers across the day and
through the year.” —Harvey “Smokey” Daniels and Nancy Steineke
Three text set lessons designed to be studied, written about, and
debated together are divided into three nonfiction writing genres:
• Narrative Nonfiction
• Explanatory/Informational
• Persuasive texts/argumentative

This book shows you how to assess and teach writing in a way
that’s practical and achievable. It focuses on processes for
teachers to develop their student writers:
• first read the writing
• assess it using the traits of writing
• teach the writers and guide revision decisions using traits
as a common language and map
Part 1 walks you through the traits of writing and their key
qualities, showing step by step how to read students’ writing and
offer feedback that nudges them forward through the revision
process.
Part 2 focuses on instruction, offering specific guidance for how to
use what you’ve learned from reading student writing to design
lessons that scaffold students towards making their own craft
decisions and revisions. In addition, there’s an entire chapter
devoted to mentor texts that you can use to model traits and key
qualities for your students.

This book introduces each trait in depth. It
examines samples of students writing looking
for evidence of the traits.
This would be a useful book study to build
teacher knowledge of each of the traits.
It is designed for teachers of years 5 - 8

With the goal of giving every teacher the knowledge and skill to
teach writing with confidence, it makes sense of the history and
'science' of writing, synthesising the debates and presenting a
wealth of usable evidence about how children develop most
efficiently as successful writers.
It trains teachers to be an expert in how pupils learn to write, from
the big picture of planning, editing and revising your writing, to the
vital importance of grammar and spelling with accuracy. Highly
practical strategies and easy-to use classroom activities are
included to help teachers seize opportunities across the
curriculum every school day to teach the critical writing process.
Closing the Writing Gap will guide teachers at every stage of their
career and when used with Alex Quigley's much-loved books on
Vocabulary and Reading gives school leaders evidence-based
approaches to literacy that can be applied across a school or a
group of schools.

This book focuses on building teacher capacity to name
and notice the strengths in student writing.
Bomer discusses the importance of the admiring lens
where teachers focus on what is positive about student
writing. Bomer provides advice on giving effective
feedback to students that is likely to engage them in the
writing process and encourage them to revise and improve
their pieces.

This book offers invaluable tools for teachers to use that will
enable their students to learn thousands of words
independently. The emphasis is on building word
consciousness. This new edition addresses three broad
aspects of vocabulary learning and instruction: context-based
instruction, word-specific instruction and generative
morphology instruction, and is available for pre-service,
graduate and experienced teachers of middle primary and
high school students.
Topics include:
• Research-based knowledge about vocabulary
• Essential strategies and activities
• Assessment and classroom organisation
• Subject area focuses – EAL, English, Social
Studies, Mathematics, Sciences and, Art, Music, PE
and Technical education
• Various activity templates
• Assessment templates

This is a toolkit for teaching vocabulary. It provides strategies that will
help students learn new words, become more conscious of words,
and increase their competence in knowing when and how to use
words.
To help develop effective vocabulary instruction, Allen has divided the
resource into four components:
• providing rich and varied language experiences
• teaching individual words
• teaching word-learning strategies
• fostering word consciousness
Allen further offers tools to develop effective instruction for each
component. Each activity description includes:
1. What the strategy is
2. How is could be used in the classroom
3. When/ why to apply the strategy

As teachers grapple with the challenge of a new, bigger and more
challenging school curriculum, at every key stage and phase,
success can feel beyond our reach. But what if there were 50,000
small solutions to help us bridge that gap?
In Closing the Vocabulary Gap, Quigley explores the increased
demands of an academic curriculum and how closing the vocabulary
gap between our 'word poor' and 'word rich' students could prove the
vital difference between school failure and success.
This must-read book presents the case for teacher-led efforts to
develop students' vocabulary and provides practical solutions for
teachers across the curriculum, incorporating easy-to-use tools,
resources and classroom activities.

A very influential and practical book on teaching and
developing vocabulary.
This second edition is even more comprehensive than the
first. It includes - vocabulary and writing; assessment;
differentiated instruction for struggling readers and EAL
students; discussions of content-area vocabulary and multiple
meaning words; additional examples of what robust instruction
looks like in action, and a useful menu of instructional
activities.
Beck, McKeown & Kucan are trusted experts and share their
decision making, offer warnings about potential challenges,
encourage thoughtful planning, and insist on follow-through.
This personal touch is perhaps the most distinctive feature of
this book.
2013 – Second Edition

Creating Robust Vocabulary by Beck, McKeown and Kucan
builds onto their ground-breaking work in Bringing Words to
Life.
This volume delivers thoroughly researched, evidence-based
strategies for supporting vocabulary development and
presents them in a way that is accessible to teachers and
engaging to students.
Content includes:
• Practical questions
• Extended examples
• Additional tools and tips
• Details about effective instruction
• Working with EAL students
• Professional development
2018

A great resources to give teachers a practical way to help
students master academic vocabulary. Building on from their
previous book, Marzano and Pickering provide ideas and
suggested word lists for implementing subject specific
vocabulary instruction.
With word lists applicable for F-12, educators are encouraged
to use the provided tools and activities to help their students
deepen their own understandings of academic vocabulary,
while helping them master essential vocabulary and concept
areas in each discipline.

This book provides practical strategies and activities for teaching
vocabulary. Allen shows teachers how to help students
understand academic vocabulary found in texts books, texts,
articles and other informational texts. Allen has merged recent
research and key content-area teaching strategies.
These are organised into the following categories:
• Builds Background Knowledge
• Teaches words that are critical to comprehension
• Provides support during reading and writing
• Develops conceptual framework for themes, topics, and
units of study
• Assesses students understanding of words and concepts

The resource will help students learn a tiered vocabulary.
Contents include:
• The Importance of Vocabulary Knowledge
• Teaching and Reinforcing Tier One and Tier Two
Terms as a Schoolwide Effort
• Tier One and Tier Two Terms for Individual Students
• Teaching Tier Three Terms

Vocabulary in a Snap is a teacher’s treasure chest full of excellent, userfriendly
strategies that replace simply defining words with elevating
practice using rich application and transfer.
Access 100+ effective, practical, and fun vocabulary exercises that take
20 minutes or less. Peery’s outstanding SNAP lessons are aimed to help
you increase vocabulary for your high school and middle school
students.
Learn how to:
• Explore more than 100 short, memorable minilessons for
teaching vocabulary that can be adapted to fit diverse curricula.
• Obtain suggestions for scaffolding and accelerating each short
vocabulary activity to meet students' individual needs.
• Target vocabulary words with the most crucial root words,
prefixes, and suffixes in the English language to best employ
instructional time.
• Find helpful resources on how to teach vocabulary, such as
websites and applications.
• Gain research-based vocabulary learning strategies used in the
minilessons.

Carleton and Marzano have devised a way to make
learning vocabulary enjoyable and easy for students
through a simple, straightforward and easy to use resource,
Vocabulary Games for the Classroom. In this book they
provide a rich variety of vocabulary games aimed at
building and reinforcing students’ academic and general
vocabulary.
Tailored for Foundation to Year 12 teachers.
Each activity includes a description of:
• the targeted year levels and content area
• the design
• set-up
• materials
• step-by-step instructions
Extensive appendix with handpicked vocabulary terms

Vocabularians is an instructional and practical book that
guides teachers to support adolescents to increase
knowledge and competency with word study, and to provoke
the love of words.
A list of strategies and practical examples are presented that
have been crafted by creative teachers.
These strategies and activities include:
• Vocabulary Activities with an Art Focus
• Vocabulary and Dramatic Expression
• Vocabulary Activities Immersed in Music
• Vocabulary Practice with Games
• Vocabulary Activities with Poems, Puzzles and
Writing
• Vocabulary with Media and Technology
• Making Words Come Alive

This useful and quick read is an efficient guide to engaging
research-proven practices for teaching words effectively.
Cobb & Blachowicz share why old practices don’t work and
how to put research into action. They answer the most
commonly asked questions about vocabulary instruction,
including:
• How many words, and how do I select them?
• How can I foster student independence using
dictionaries and glossaries?
• How do I find time for meaningful vocabulary
instruction?
• How can I assess and hold students accountable?

The 5th Edition of Teaching Vocabulary in All Classrooms,
offers teachers ideas for implementing best-practice
vocabulary research and classroom-tested strategies into
their everyday classroom instruction.
A theoretical and practical perspective is presented.
Content areas:
• Learning in context
• English focuses
• Content area focuses
• Connections to spelling
• Assessment
• Instruction for diverse learners
• Developing word consciousness

As educators seek to incorporate content-area literacy into their teaching,
they confront a maze of theories, instructional strategies, and acronyms
like REAP and RAFT. Teachers who do work their way through the myriad
content reading and writing strategies are discovering not all activities are
appropriate for content instruction: only those with a strong research base
meet the high standards expected in classrooms today.
Janet Allen developed the ideal support for teachers who want to improve
their reading instruction across the curriculum. Tools for Teaching Content
Literacy is a compact tabbed flipchart designed as a ready reference for
content reading and writing instruction.
Each of the thirty-three strategies includes:
• a brief description and purpose for each strategy;
• a research base that documents the origin and effectiveness of
the strategy;
• graphic organisers to support the lesson;
• classroom vignettes from different grade levels and content
areas to illustrate the strategy in use.
Tools highlights effective instructional strategies and innovative ideas to
help you design lessons that meet your students’’ academic needs as well
as content standards.
The definitions, descriptions, and research sources also provide a quick
reference when implementing state standards, designing assessments, or
evaluating resources for literacy instruction.

Content Literacy, provides support for teaching comprehension across the
curriculum including building knowledge and understanding.
Once students have had explicit instruction in the collection of strategies – and
have learned how to use them independently and flexibly, Content
Literacy engages them in lessons that rely on a repertoire of strategies for
understanding.
The lessons in Content Literacy help students apply multiple comprehension
strategies to complex literacy tasks such as:
• how to read several pieces of text and synthesize the information
• how to talk to each other and collaborate on topics
• how to debate
• how to create an argument
Content Literacy:
• Includes new lessons to explicitly teach reading, writing, and thinking
across disciplines: science, history, social studies, and other content areas.
• Helps students use a repertoire of strategies to build knowledge and
understanding.
• Provides over two dozen new resources—articles, infographics, photo
collections, primary sources, Thinksheets—to encourage close strategic
reading and viewing.
• Models teaching practices that prompt discussion, debate, and critical
analysis.
• Supports a classroom environment where purposeful collaboration and
active investigation inspire kids’ curiosity and strategic spirits.

Language is the lifeblood of learning in all content areas, and it plays a
major role in academic achievement.
Building Academic Language explains the functions and features of
academic language that every teacher (language arts, history, math, &
science teachers, etc.) should know for supporting academic reading,
writing, and discussion. The book includes research–based instructional
and assessment activities that content teachers can use to build students′
abilities to understand and describe the many abstract concepts, higher–
order thinking skills, and complex relationships in a discipline.
The book emphasizes an approach that builds from students′ existing
ways of learning and communicating, scaffolding them to think and talk as
content area experts think and talk about math, science, history, and
language arts.
Major topics and themes include:
• What is academic language and how does it differ by content area?
• How can language–building activities (discussions, small groups,
etc.) support content understanding?
• How can we build language abilities for content reading and writing
– and vice versa?
• How can we build on students′ diverse ways of understanding,
learning, and communicating about the world?
• How can we more effectively model and scaffold academic
language in our teaching and assessment?

In Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk that Fosters Critical Thinking and Content
Understandings authors Jeff Zwiers and Marie Crawford address the challenges teachers
face when trying to bring thoughtful, respectful, and focused conversations into the
classroom.
They identify five core communications skills needed to help students hold productive
academic conversation across content areas:
1. Elaborating and Clarifying
2. Supporting Ideas with Evidence
3. Building On and/or Challenging Ideas
4. Paraphrasing
5. Synthesizing
This book shows teachers how to weave the cultivation of academic conversation skills
and conversations into current teaching approaches.
More specifically, it describes how to use conversations to build the following:
Academic vocabulary and grammar
Critical thinking skills such as persuasion, interpretation, consideration of multiple
perspectives, evaluation, and application
Literacy skills such as questioning, predicting, connecting to prior knowledge, and
summarizing
An academic classroom environment brimming with respect for others' ideas, equity of
voice, engagement, and mutual support The ideas in this book stem from many hours of
classroom practice, research, and video analysis across grade levels and content areas.
Readers will find numerous practical activities for working on each conversation skill,
crafting conversation-worthy tasks, and using conversations to teach and assess.
Academic Conversations offers an in-depth approach to helping students develop into
the future parents, teachers, and leaders who will collaborate to build a better world.

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