Kari Yates




Kari Yates is an author, speaker, consultant and staff developer with a passion for helping busy literacy educators thrive. Her experiences include classroom teacher, special education, Reading Recovery teacher, elementary principal and district literacy coordinator. Kari is also the author of Simple Starts: Making the Move to a Reader-Centered Classroom (Heinemann, 2015) and Eat Your Broccoli (Richard C. Owens Publishing, 2005).

Kari earned her undergraduate degree in elementary education and early childhood, beginning her career as an elementary classroom teacher in rural North Dakota. Several years later an unexpected opportunity to teach early childhood special education led to her earn her master’s degree in special education. Working in PreK to grade 1 classrooms, she quickly discovered a deep passion for supporting emergent readers and writers. When the chance to train as a Reading Recovery teacher presented itself, Kari jumped on it and found her understanding of teaching, learning, and early literacy forever changed.

After 21 years as a teacher, Kari accepted her first of two elementary principal positions, following a calling to influence instructional practices within schools on a broader scale. Later, she moved to a district leadership role providing staff development, program planning, and curriculum support for literacy and English learner programs with the Moorhead Area Public Schools in Moorhead, MN.

Kari’s experience leaves her uniquely qualified to facilitate decision-making, planning, and professional development at the district, building, and classroom level. Kari has a passion for helping teachers, coaches, and administrators find the inspiration, courage, and resources to nurture joyful, and authentic literacy learning, one next-step at a time.

Kari lives in Minnesota with her husband, John where they cherish every moment spent in, on or near the lake with children, grandchildren, friends, and family. Kari also loves to read, quilt, and rehab old furniture. She regularly volunteers to help refugee women in her community learn to read and write English.

    Kari Yates

    Website: kariyates.com

    Twitter: @Kari_Yates

    Titles by Author (shown below):
    3 products
    Shifting the Balance, Grades K-2
    Shifting the Balance, Grades K-2
    Jan Burkins and Kari Yates
    Paperback
    $43.34 $32.50 Save $10.84
    To Know and Nurture a Reader
    To Know and Nurture a Reader
    Kari Yates and Christina Nosek
    Paperback
    $37.33 $28.00 Save $9.33
    Shifting the Balance, Grades 3–5
    Shifting the Balance, Grades 3–5
    Katie Cunningham
    Paperback
    $44.67 $33.50 Save $11.17
    Jan Burkins and Kari Yates:::100175

    Shifting the Balance, Grades K-2

    9781625315106

    $43.34 $32.50 Save $10.84
    The current emphasis on the body of research known as the "Science of Reading" has renewed the reading wars and raised challenging questions for balanced literacy teachers about the best way to teach reading. Instead of fueling the debate, Dr. Jan Burkins and Kari Yates immersed themselves in the research and produced Shifting the Balance, Grades K-2: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom.
     
    This best-selling guide is concise and practical, integrating effective reading strategies from each perspective. Every chapter of Shifting the Balance, Grades K-2 focuses on one of the six simple and scientifically sound shifts reading teachers can make to strengthen their approach to early reading instruction in these areas:
     
    • Reading Comprehension
    • Phonemic Awareness
    • Phonics
    • High-Frequency Words
    • Cueing Systems
    • Text Selection


    Practical Instruction for Primary Grades: Whether your students are just learning to read or building more advanced reading comprehensive skills, Shifting the Balance, K-2 is designed to help teachers meet the instructional needs of K-2 students.

    Six Manageable Shifts: Each chapter focuses on a key shift that helps educators understand common misconceptions and adjust their thinking around some common instructional practices that teachers have been using for decades.

    Evidence-Based Instruction: Burkins and Yates offer busy educators a blueprint for integrating finding from brain research, cognitive science, and child development into their daily instruction, while keeping meaningful experiences with books a priority.

    Classroom Applications: Shifting the Balance, K-2 is full of sample activities and classroom vignettes that paint a picture of what these shifts look like in action with roomful of learners.

    The book has already helped countless educators by taking the guesswork out of how to blend best practices with the latest research while keeping students at the forefront of reading instruction. "We've written this book to support you in making sound decisions anchored in the best of science, the truth of responsiveness, and a relentless focus on providing all children learning experiences saturated with meaning," the authors write.
    Shifting the Balance, Grades K-2
    Kari Yates and Christina Nosek:::100217

    To Know and Nurture a Reader

    9781625311726

    $37.33 $28.00 Save $9.33
    Conferring with students about reading allows for clearer access to one-on-one, in-the-moment teaching and learning, yet it can feel intimidating or overwhelming. Kari Yates and Christina Nosek want to help. Here they have provided practical, reflective, student-centered teaching moves that you can use to develop an intentional, joy-filled conferring practice.

    To Know and Nurture a Reader: Conferring with Confidence and Joy is a get-going guide to conferring. The book includes step-by-step guidance that is also considerate of time and other classroom challenges, as well as:
    • Numerous tools such as guiding questions, reproducible planning and note-taking documents;
    • Classroom vignettes that pull you close to a reader and teacher in a conference setting;
    • Video clips of classroom conferences to show what conferring looks like in action.
     
    The book breaks conferring into manageable chunks with specific goals for knowing and nurturing young readers, then puts all the pieces together with various classroom scenarios and examples. The tools, examples, and ideas in this book make conferring something every teacher can do right away and master with continued effort and practice.
    To Know and Nurture a Reader
    Katie Cunningham:::100177

    Shifting the Balance, Grades 3–5

    9781625315977

    $44.67 $33.50 Save $11.17
    In this much anticipated follow-up to their groundbreaking book, Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom, authors Jan Burkins and Kari Yates, together with co-author Katie Cunningham, extend the conversation in Shifting the Balance, Grades 3-5: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Upper Elementary Classroom. This new text is built in mind specifically for grades 3-5 teachers around best practices for the intermediate classroom. 

    Shifting the Balance, Grades 3-5 introduces six more shifts across individual chapters that:
    • Zoom in on a common (but not-as helpful-as-we-had-hoped) practice to reconsider
    • Untangle a number of “misunderstandings” that have likely contributed to the use of the common practice
    • Propose a more science-aligned shift to the current practice
    • Provide solid scientific research to support the revised practice
    • Offer a collection of high-leverage, easy-to-implement instructional routines to support the shift to more brain-friendly instruction
    The authors offer a refreshing approach that is respectful, accessible, and practical – grounded in an earnest commitment to building a bridge between research and classroom practice. As with the first Shifting the Balance, they aim to keep students at the forefront of reading instruction. 
     
    Shifting the Balance, Grades 3–5