Mr. Lewin begins his book by saying “regardless the cause, too many students come to class with limited reading and writing skills”.  Rather than spending time and dollars figuring out the reasons, we should be spending the time figuring out ways to teach these students better skills.  You cannot separate reading from writing and you can’t limit teaching reading and writing to language arts classes.  Using reading and writing throughout content areas is the most effective way to ensure students develop good habits and skills.

          This book offers some good variations to some already used techniques.  For example, the Folded File Folder (FFF) and the Folded Time Line (FTL) are great variations of the over-used K-W-L. Another variation, KWT is something I intend to use with my students who never have any thing to store their work in.  Another KWL technique, sticky notes, helps students organize textbook reading so they can quickly find what they already know, what they want to know, and what they need to learn.  I like this since it is easy to do and easy to reference.

          Students who have difficulty reading and writing often cannot organize their thoughts.  Story webs, character analysis sheets, and graphic organizers are good ways to help students deal with this difficulty.  Snapshots was my favorite technique that I will try next year with my Language Arts students.  While students are reading, they will use four colors of sticky notes to evaluate what they read – yellow for retelling the story, blue for relating the story to something else, pink for giving feedback to the author, and green for commenting on the how the author’s background affected the story.  These, used in combination, use higher level thinking skills that my students need to develop.

          Since most students are intrigued with technology, teachers should begin to develop lessons that use available technology effectively.  Web-based Instructional Resources are included at the end of the book that appear to be immediately usable in the classroom. Teachers get excited about resources like this.