There are so many professional resources out there for teachers to use to grow their practices, but it’s so hard to know where to invest your time and money. I plan to honestly review some popular resources, and I’m starting with one of my favorites: The Reading Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo.
The book is organized into 13 chapters, each named with a reading goal, beginning with fluency, moving towards comprehension of fiction and nonfiction, and ending with writing about reading.
Pros:
- Strategies are for reading levels A to Z.
- Each goal has its own super-organized table of contents, ordered by increasing reading level.
- Each page is set up the same way. Each page tells relevant reading levels and text types are appropriate to be used with the strategy, which smaller skills can be tied in, and additional tips. Servallo even gives you child-appropriate language and prompts to use when teaching.
- Each page provides some sort of visual aid, whether it’s student work or an anchor chart.
- Use it with a whole group, a small group, or one-on-one. The possibilities are endless!
Cons:
- Fiction chapters cover plot, characters, and themes. Nonfiction goals involve main idea, key details, and text features. This means that some smaller reading skills are either missing or hard to find relevant strategies for practice. Some skills that I have found to be lacking include identifying genres and understanding cause and effect.
- You won’t find common core standards listed anywhere in this book. Of course, that’s only a con if your district heavily emphasizes the CCS.
I already loved my Reading Strategies Book, but then I found these tabs for free on TPT. Now I love this resource even more! I printed them on cardstock, laminated, cut, then just used clear packing tape to attach them.
Final Grade: A
I use my Reading Strategies Book weekly – if not daily. It truly helps me meet the needs of all of my students in engaging, memorable, time-effective ways. Should you treat yo’self? Absolutely!
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