Grades 6 - 8

Authors Jeff Anderson, Travis Leech, and Melinda Clark lead a vibrant approach to grammar instruction in Patterns of Power, Grades 6-8: Inviting Adolescent Writers into the Conventions of Language. Here, young, emergent writers are invited to notice the conventions of the English language and build off them in this inquiry-based approach to instructional grammar.

The book comes with standards-aligned lessons that can be incorporated in just 10 minutes a day. Patterns of Power’s responsive, invitational approach puts students in an involved role and has them explore and discuss the purpose and meaning of what they read. Students study short, authentic texts and are asked to share their findings out loud, engaging in rich conversations to make meaning.
 
Inside you’ll find:

• Ready-to-use lesson plan sets that include excerpts from authentic and diverse mentor texts curated for grades 6-8
• Real-life classroom examples, tips, and Power Notes gleaned from the authors’ experiences that can be applied to any level of writer
• Resources, including a Patterns of Power Planning Guide and musical soundtracks, to use in classroom instruction or as handouts for student literacy notebooks

 
Patterns of Power, Grades 6-8 provides a simple classroom routine that is structured in length and approach, but provides teachers flexibility in choosing the texts, allowing for numerous, diverse voices in the classroom. The practice helps students build cognitive recognition and provides a formative assessment for teachers on student progress. With these short lessons, students will gain confidence and move beyond limitation to produce effortless writing in your class and beyond.

The Patterns of Power series also includes Patterns of Power, Grades 1-5: Inviting Young Writers into the Conventions of Language; Patterns of Power en Español, Grades 1-5: Inviting Bilingual Writers into the Conventions of Spanish; Patterns of Power, Grades 9-12: Teaching Grammar Through Reading and Writing; and Patterns of Wonder, Grades PreK-1: Inviting Emergent Writers to Play with the Conventions of Language.

 

The past two decades have brought giant leaps in our understanding of how the brain works. But these discoveries—and all their exciting implications—have yet to make their way into most classrooms.
 
In Brain Words: How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching, authors J. Richard Gentry and Gene Ouellette, bring their original, research-based framework of “brain words”—dictionaries in the brain where students store and automatically access sounds, spellings, and meaning. This book aims to fill the gap between the science of reading and classroom instruction by providing up-to-date knowledge about reading and neurological circuitry, including evidence that spelling is at the core of the reading brain.
 
Brain Words will show how children’s brains develop as they become readers and discover ways you can take concrete steps to promote this critical developmental passage, including:

• Incorporating tools to recognize what works, what doesn’t, and why
• Practical classroom activities for daily teaching and student assessment
• Insights about what brain research tells us about whole language and phonics-first movements
• Deepened understanding of dyslexia through the enhanced lens of brain science

With the insights and strategies of Brain Words, you can meet your students where they are and ensure they gain confidence as readers, spellers, and writers.

Once upon a time...children's nonfiction books were stodgy, concise, and not very kid friendly. Most were text heavy, with just a few scattered images decorating the content and meaning, rather than enhancing it. Over the last 20 years, children's nonfiction has evolved into a new breed of visually dynamic and engaging texts.

In 5 Kinds of Nonfiction: Enriching Reading and Writing Instruction with Children’s Books, Melissa Stewart and Dr. Marlene Correia present a new way to sort nonfiction into five major categories and show how doing so can help teachers and librarians build stronger readers and writers. Along the way, they:

• Introduce the 5 kinds of nonfiction: Active, Browseable, Traditional, Expository Literature, and Narrative—and explore each category through discussions, classroom examples, and insights from leading children’s book authors
• Offer tips for building strong, diverse classroom texts and library collections
• Provide more than 20 activities to enhance literacy instruction
• Include innovative strategies for sharing and celebrating nonfiction with students. 

With more than 150 exemplary nonfiction book recommendations and Stewart and Correia’s extensive knowledge of literacy instruction, 5 Kinds of Nonfiction will elevate your understanding of nonfiction in ways that speak specifically to the info-kids in your classrooms, but will inspire all readers and writers.

With the rise of teacher stressors, new and changing state standards, and high-stakes testing, it is more important than ever to remind literacy teachers and teacher-librarians about the reason that brought them to this profession: the love of story. 

The Gift of Story: Exploring the Affective Side of the Reading Life, by John Schu (affectionately known as "Mr. Schu" all over reading communities), invites readers to consider literacy beyond its academic benefits and explore how universal truths found in stories can change us, inspire us, connect us to others, answer our deepest questions, and even help us heal along the way. Using his experience as a teacher, librarian, book lover, and story ambassador, Mr. Schu asks readers to reflect on what it means to share their hearts through stories and how it can connect us to individuals and learning communities.

The Gift of Story is presented through a study of five affective elements: Healer, Inspiration, Clarifier, Compassion, and Connector.  Along the way, readers will encounter insightful contributions from educators, children’s writers, and illustrators, as well as recommendations for sharing the gift of story with learning communities including: treasured book suggestions that stir reflection, engaging tips for celebrating literacy, and heart-growing applications to lift classroom and library practices.

Celebrate the way we define and imagine ourselves through literacy by using stories to connect to others, build and strengthen community, and honor the children we were called to teach. 

In Writing Rhetorically: Fostering Responsive Thinkers and Communicators, author Jennifer Fletcher aims to cultivate independent learners through rhetorical thinking. She provides teachers with strategies and frameworks for writing instruction that can be applied across multiple subjects and lesson plans. Students learn to discover their own questions, design their own inquiry process, develop their own positions and purposes, make their own choices about content and form, and contribute to conversations that matter to them.

Inside this book, Fletcher helps remove some of the scaffolding and explains how to put in practice some methods which can successfully foster:

• Inquiry, Invention, and Rhetorical Thinking
• Writing for Transfer
• Paraphrasing, Summary, Synthesis, and Citation Skills
• Research Skills and Processes
• Evidence-Based Reasoning
• Rhetorical Decision Making 

Rhetorical decision making helps students develop the skills, knowledge, and mindsets needed for transfer of learning: the ability to adapt and apply learning in new settings. The more choices students make as writers, the better prepared they are to analyze and respond to diverse rhetorical situations. Writing Rhetorically shows teachers what it looks like to dig into real texts with students and novice writers and how it develops them for lifelong learning.

The Comprehensive Intervention Model: Fostering Self-Regulated Readers Through Responsive Teaching by Linda Dorn, Carla Soffos, and Adria Klein introduces educators to an innovative intervention model that puts theory to practice then gives that practice a framework. When implemented with fidelity, the framework has the potential to close the gap between low-progress readers and their grade-level peers.

The Comprehensive Intervention Model (CIM) organizes essential educational theory and effective instructional practices under a complete, layered intervention model. CIM includes both a professional book and resource manual that correlates the intent behind the Response to Intervention (RTI) movement. This well-researched and practical resource begins by laying the theoretical foundation for its methodology before describing its multi-tiered system of instruction across a range of components. The book concludes with a collection of examples that show the model in action.

The CIM professional book includes:

• High-quality, differentiated classroom instruction
• A portfolio of evidence-based interventions
• A seamless assessment system at an individual and system level
• School-embedded professional learning for increasing teacher efficacy and building capacity in schools

Beyond boxed programs and quick-fix options, the authors outline and advocate for an intervention approach that includes a commitment to systemic reflection, teacher development, precise assessments, and data-driven, responsive instruction—all centering on student needs.
 
The resource manual provides administrators, coaches, and teachers with the tools needed to implement the CIM with fidelity including planners, guide sheets, observation forms, data collection forms, phonics and word learning guides, and more. Use these two books together to support a Response to Intervention (RTI) method for closing the gap between low-progress readers and their grade-level peers.

In 6 Tools for Collaborative Mathematics Coaching, Nicora Placa lays out a clear path to help you become a trusted and effective math coach. Her “6 Tools” are flexible structures that you and your colleagues can use to learn together:
 

1. Building Teams: Fostering a Learning Community
2. Student Interviews: Learning to Listen
3. Visiting Classrooms: Developing Your Lens
4. Learning Walks: Focusing the Team on Students’ Thinking
5. Rehearsing Routines: Practicing with Colleagues
6. Lesson Study: Learning Collectively with Voice, Choice, and Agency

In this easy-to-use, practical guide, Placa introduces each of the 6 Tools with classroom vignettes, step-by-step guidelines for rollout, connections to the literature, resources for further research, planning templates, and opportunities for you to adapt the tool for your particular context.

Whether you're a new coach who loves teaching math to children but is new to adult education, or a more experienced coach who is looking for new strategies to engage your teams, 6 Tools for Collaborative Mathematics Coaching can help you create learning opportunities that honor teachers as professionals. With a collaborative coaching approach, you can improve teaching and learning across your school and for all your students.

"There’s so much to love about how 6 Tools is constructed." --Elham Kazemi

Recipient of the 2022 Excellence in Equity Award!

It is not enough to be against racism in education – teachers must be actively antiracist. Yet how do we start reflecting on our own beliefs and lives so we can truly teach for racial literacy? In the award-winning Teaching for Racial Equity: Becoming Interrupters, authors Tonya Perry, Steven Zemelman, and Katy Smith engage in honest conversations between educators of color and their white colleagues. Authentic, inspiring, and sometimes uncomfortable, teachers share stories of personal histories and experiences that shaped them as people and educators.

In this book you will find:

• Strategies to understand different backgrounds through a racial lens and ways to address potentially difficult conversations with fellow educators
• In-depth overview of Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz’s Archaeology of Self™ and how it can be personally and professionally adopted
• Lists of resources for teaching about and actively interrupting racism in education and tools that document systemic inequalities in the classroom
• Ways to facilitate student-led conversations which examine race and inequitable conditions found nationwide

 
By examining inequalities found at a systemic level, teachers can start to remove some of their internal biases and allow students to show who they truly are. In turn, this can help create a school curriculum that makes space for BIPOC voices that inspire and invite students to share. Teaching for Racial Equity: Becoming Interrupters provides a resource for teachers and educators to critically reflect and begin work to interrupt racism at all levels.


 

In Nourishing Caregiver Collaborations: Elevating Home Experiences and Classroom Practices for Collective Care, Nawal Qarooni invites us to step beyond school-centric, one-off events and practices to create more authentic, engaging collaborations with caregivers. Instead of asking what families can do to support schools, Qarooni asks how schools can identify and celebrate what families already inherently bring to their children’s literacy learning.
 
Establishing this work in holistic teaching—a pedagogical mindset that affirms the importance of loving the whole child through compassionate, collective care—Qarooni explores five critical literacy tenets by highlighting opportunities to listen for, honor, connect to, and elevate family strengths while inviting them even further into our shared work and encouraging reflection around: 

• Recognizing the journey of process,
• Celebrating the role collaboration plays within the collective
• Using observational literacy to read the world
• Advocating for the power of talk to grow ideas and connect with others
• Giving children choice to make self-directed decisions

With moments of memoir woven in alongside diverse family examples and classroom stories connected to realistic instructional practices, Qarooni shows how all families contribute meaningfully to their children’s literacy lives. Discover how we can tap into those vast wells to support learning at home and in school while building positive, reciprocal relationships across both settings.
 
With an afterword by En Comunidad authors, Carla España and Luz Yadira Herrera, Nourishing Caregiver Collaborations is rooted in the simple truth that we cannot separate knowing our students from knowing their home, communities, and the people that they love. This book offers a toolkit for connecting with families and elevating the intrinsic strengths that reside in every child’s home.

With a focus on fostering a deep love for reading and prioritizing student growth, A Year for the Books: Routines and Mindsets for Creating Student-Centered Reading Communities is a must-have for educators from kindergarten through middle school. Discover a teacher-friendly resource crafted by Katie Walther, esteemed educator, and respected veteran teacher Maria Walther that will take you behind the scenes and through the school year as they share simple, practical strategies to design learner-centered literacy experiences.
 
Starting with the first few weeks of school, each chapter highlights multiple ways to embed literacy experiences across the entire year that prioritize learners and literacy. To support you in your decision making, the classroom-tested ideas in each chapter are arranged around five grounding principles:

• Actionable strategies for launching and sustaining a vibrant reading culture 
• Clear processes to define and communicate community beliefs
• Creative structures for establishing and maintaining reading routines
• Innovative ideas for cultivating an inclusive reading community 
• Equitable techniques for partnering with families and caregivers

Within each chapter you will also find nuggets of wisdom from the Walthers' collective years of teaching, practical ideas about how to keep it simple, and several book suggestions. As an added bonus, this book features companion podcasts or PDCasts where you can hear the authors tackle authentic classroom dilemmas and share their decision-making process.

Whether you’re a novice or seasoned educator, you’ll want A Year for the Books by your side as you advocate for your student readers and promote independent reading in your classroom all year long.