Do you spend hours creating word lists and weekly vocabulary tests only to find that your students have "forgotten" the words by the following week? Janet Allen and her students were frustrated with the same problem. Words, Words, Words describes the research that changed the way she and many other teachers teach vocabulary. It offers educators practical, research-based solutions for helping students fall into new language, learn new words, and begin to use those words in their speaking and writing lives.

This book offers teachers detailed strategy lessons in the following areas:

• activating and building background word knowledge;
• making word learning meaningful and lasting;
• building concept knowledge;
• using word and structural analysis to create meaning;
• using context as a text support;
• making reading the heart of vocabulary instruction.

Words, Words, Words provides educators with a strong research base, detailed classroom-based lessons, and graphic organizers to support the strategy lessons. At a time when teachers are struggling to meet content standards in reading across the curriculum, this book offers some practical solutions for meeting those standards in ways that are meaningful and lasting.

We've learned a lot in recent years about the important role vocabulary plays in making meaning, yet many teachers still struggle with vocabulary instruction that goes beyond weekly word lists. Effective vocabulary instruction is particularly vital in the content areas, where the specialized language used by “insiders” often creates a barrier to understanding for those new to the subjects. In Inside Words, Janet Allen merges recent research and key content-area teaching strategies to show teachers how to help students understand the academic vocabulary found in textbooks, tests, articles, and other informational texts.

Each instructional tool is listed alphabetically along with its purpose: building background knowledge; teaching words that are critical to comprehension; providing support during reading and writing; developing a conceptual framework; and assessing students' understanding of words and concepts.

Inside Words builds on Janet's previous books Words, Words, Words and Tools for Teaching Content Literacy, to provide a much-needed middle and secondary school resource for teaching vocabulary, not only in the language arts, but in all of the content areas.

Do you spend your days working with students who struggle to comprehend reading in literacy and content classes? Are you looking for a way to establish comprehensive literacy instruction in your school or classroom so all students receive support in becoming competent and confident readers?

In Yellow Brick Roads, Janet Allen offers research-based methods for helping teachers move toward these goals. This book provides research, practical methods, detailed strategies, and resources for read-aloud, shared, guided, and independent reading. In addition, Janet outlines solutions for many of the literacy dilemmas that teachers face every day:

• understanding what gets in the way of reading;
• rethinking and reorganizing time and resources;
• providing support for content literacy;
• developing assessment practices that inform instruction;
• supporting reading as a path to writing instruction;
• establishing professional communities to support individual and school-wide needs-based research.

The appendixes include graphic organizers to support strategy lessons, suggestions of titles for building classroom libraries, as well as web sites and professional resources that support the teaching of reading.

Yellow Brick Roadswill give you rich ideas, detailed strategies, and literature support for implementing those strategies. At a time when many are looking for that elusive wizard to solve students' reading problems, this book helps you create your own paths to effective literacy environments.