Science and Reading
Maryanne Wolf (2010). Proust and the Squid: The Story and the
Science of the Reading Brain. Cambridge: Icon Books.
very accessible, informative read, which begins, “We were never born to read”. Some
history, some science, some education – about the magic that is reading. A
top-selling science-oriented book. It would make a terrific present for anyone
interested in human history, the mind and our struggles to read.
Margaret J. Snowling & Charles
Hulme (2005). The Science of Reading: A
Handbook. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
many commentators on reading are inclined to say, “Research tells us …”. Well, this
is the research that they should be quoting. With chapters by most of the
world’s leading reading researchers and packed with meta-analyses of extensive
work in the field, this very large book covers the science of reading superbly.
Anyone writing about reading must start here. A must for any academic library.
to Read English
Barbara M. Birch 2002). English L2 Reading: Getting to the Bottom.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
is a book that takes other scripts and other languages into account in a
bottom-up, ‘myth-busting’ look at the teaching of reading to learners from
other writing systems. Practical, textbook-like, with thoughtful Discussion
Questions in every chapter.
Keiko Koda & Annette M. Zehler
(Eds.)(2008). Learning to Read Across
Languages: Cross-linguistic Relationships in First- and Second-Language
Literacy Development. New York: Routledge.
and their writing systems – and what these bring to learning new languages and
new scripts. There are three general chapters on scripts and reading, plus some
specific chapters on Khmer, Korean, Hebrew, Chinese and Arabic learners of
Joanna Nijakowska (2010). Dyslexia in the Foreign Language Classroom.
Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
explained and applied to new-language learning. This is a newly developing, and
vitally important, field.
very practical suggestions make up about one-third of the book.
English (Handwriting, not essays!)
Vivian Cook & Benedetta
Bassetti (Eds.)(2005). Second Language
Writing Systems. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
edited collection of research, case-studies and the practical implications of
teaching learners a new writing system. These two editors have recently started
a new journal in this field, Writing
Systems Research, which began in 2009.
Rosemary Sassoon (1995). The Acquisition of a Second Writing System.
is the only practical handbook for
teachers on the challenges and intricacies of teaching learners of English to
write in the alphabetic script! Very readable and full of examples and
Rosemary Sassoon (1983). The Practical Guide to Children’s
Handwriting. London: Thames and Hudson.
oldie, but a goodie for teaching anyone
to write by hand. It covers aspects of writing that secondary- and
tertiary-level language teachers have probably never contemplated.
Books for Phonemic Awareness and Phonics
Wiley Blevins (1998). Phonics from A to Z: A Practical Guide.
NewYork: Scholastic Professional Books.
Wiley Blevins (2001). Teaching Phonics and Word Study in the
Intermediate Grades: A Complete Sourcebook. New York: Scholastic
have a mountain of books on phonemic awareness and phonics teaching, but I keep
coming back to these two books for teachers by Wiley Blevins. They are so
useful! The first is geared towards Grades K-3 (USA), and the second towards
Grades 3-8 (USA), but they can be of great benefit to anyone teaching literate or non-literate learners of English at any level – i.e. parents, tutors,
neighbours, siblings, teachers ...
A series of books by Donald R.
Bear and others. (Pearson)
one book (back in 2000) has now grown into three books and an entire professional
there is Words Their Way for younger learners, Vocabulary Their Way for
Middle and Secondary students and Words Their Way With English Learners.
I especially liked about the original book was the very practical use of “Word
Sorts” – cards and cards and cards of words, which students could sort out into
various piles according to different ‘sound’ and ‘word-building’ elements. Not
only does this save the time taken on creating endless worksheets, it also
allows far more words to be brought into play.
Unfortunately, most of these super-useful word
cards are now placed behind a ‘Pearson publishing pay-wall’, but the following
books are full of hundreds of photocopiable sets of word-cards
that can do the same job.
Copy the pages, laminate them, cut them up into card-sets, store them in
pockets – and watch your students engage with them:
Sheron Brown (2000). All Sorts of Sorts: Word sorts that
reinforce spelling and phonemic patterns. San Diego, CA: Teaching Resource
Sheron Brown (2001). All Sorts of Sorts 2: Word sorts for complex
spelling and phonetic pattern reinforcement. San Diego, CA: Teaching
Study: Games and Cards (Morphology-related)
Sheron Brown (2003). Intermediate Prefix, Suffix and Root Word
Cards: Meeting standards for Greek and Latin roots. San Diego, CA: Teaching
the same author as the word sorts, these cards have Latin and Greek roots, from
which students can investigate many families of ‘big words’.
(very challenging) card games for advanced learners are available from the
Dyslexia-SPELD Foundation in Australia (www.dsf.net.au) or from their US
publisher (Washington Reads at www.washingtonreads.com):
Pleaser cards (Latin roots)
cards (Greek roots)
[Washington Reads also has a number of other sound- and word-card games that may be of interest to teachers -- or to anyone who loves words.]
are great fun!
are quite sophisticated (probably meant for serious poets), but this one is an
absolute gem for teachers to use:
Sue Young (1994). The Scholastic Rhyming Dictionary. New
York: Scholastic Reference.