Drawing on a combined forty years of classroom teaching experience, the authors explore the factors that contribute to success and failure in literacy and provide systematic and ongoing approaches for helping students who are most at risk. You will find:

• effective teaching practices for all the key aspects of literacy instruction that can be realistically implemented in the context of the classroom teacher's many demands;
• recommendations for motivating low-achieving students;
• suggestions for working with English Language Learners;
• strategies for small-group instruction, word study, reading comprehension, and writing;
• clear descriptions and numerous vignettes that illustrate teaching practices in action;
• an emphasis on differentiated instruction, and ideas for integrating interventions for struggling students with regular classroom instruction;
• ways of helping students perform better on standardized tests.

The extensive Strategy Bank provides over twenty step-by-step practices, each with three sections: What It Does, How to Do It, and What to Look For. The Resources section provides extensive lists of children's books and sources of books, organized by purpose.