LITERACY
REFRAMED
How a Focus on Decoding, Vocabulary, and Background Knowledge Improves Reading Comprehension
ROBIN J. FOGARTY GENE M. KERNS BRIAN M. PETE
With Jan Bryan & Cheryl Ballou
Copyright © 2021 by Solution Tree Press
Materials appearing here are copyrighted. With one exception, all rights are reserved. Readers may reproduce only those pages marked “Reproducible.” Otherwise, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission of the publisher.
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Visit go.SolutionTree.com/literacy to download the free reproducibles in this book.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Fogarty, Robin, author. | Kerns, Gene M., author. | Pete, Brian M., author.
Title: Literacy reframed : how a focus on decoding, vocabulary, and background knowledge improves reading comprehension / Robin J. Fogarty, Gene M. Kerns, Brian M. Pete ; contributors: Jan Bryan, Cheryl Ballou.
Description: Bloomington, IN : Solution Tree Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020017028 (print) | LCCN 2020017029 (ebook) | ISBN 9781951075132 (paperback) | ISBN 9781951075149 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Language arts. | Reading--Phonetic method. | Vocabulary--Study and teaching. | Reading comprehension.
Classification: LCC LB1576 .R623 2021 (print) | LCC LB1576 (ebook) | DDC 372.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020017028
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020017029
Solution Tree
Jeffrey C. Jones, CEO
Edmund M. Ackerman, President
Solution Tree Press
President and Publisher: Douglas M. Rife
Associate Publisher: Sarah Payne-Mills
Art Director: Rian Anderson
Managing Production Editor: Kendra Slayton
Production Editor: Miranda Addonizio
Content Development Specialist: Amy Rubenstein
Copy Editor: Jessi Finn
Proofreader: Elisabeth Abrams
Text and Cover Designer: Laura Cox
Editorial Assistants: Sarah Ludwig and Elijah Oates
To Mortimer J. Adler, author extraordinaire of How to Read a Book and founder of the Great Books Foundation.
To humorist Mark Twain, who said, “A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”
To our print- and digital-savvy readers; we hope you will remember these words of Mortimer J. Adler’s:
“The goods of the mind are information, knowledge, understanding and wisdom.”
“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.”
Acknowledgments
We want to acknowledge Mike Schmoker; E. D. Hirsch Jr.; Doug Lemov, Colleen Driggs, and Erica Woolway; and Daniel T. Willingham. These voices combined to become the spark of inspiration for this project.
As well, the influence of professional mentors who believed in us lingers. Here, we wish to share our gratitude for several of these voices from the past. Robin salutes two reading gurus: (1) Chris Rauscher, her mentor, who challenged her with the simple question, “What is reading?” and (2) Sylvia Ashton-Warner (1963), for her seminal teaching as author of Teacher. Both greatly influenced her teaching philosophy.
Gene addresses the topic of literacy with remembrance of and respect for the passion his friend and mentor, Terry Paul, had for the topic. He also gives thanks for his dear Aunt Bess, who spent hours reading and rereading him his favorite Little Golden Books, with him on her lap, at the beginning of his literacy journey.
We also want to thank friends and colleagues who are part of an ongoing dialogue and provide their honest, timely, and brilliant suggestions as they chat about, read, edit, contribute to, critique, and generally support our obsession du jour. Robin likes to try things out on Julie Constanza and Kathleen Mazurowski, soul-sister educators immersed in reading matters.
“Gene’s team” of expert academic colleagues Jan Bryan, Cheryl Ballou, and Carol Johnson have been standby writing team members. In fact, Jan and Cheryl have become official contributors to this work, focusing primarily on the informative and sorely needed discussion of digital reading. Their names appear prominently on the cover for their timely contributions.
Brian acknowledges his oldest brother, Michael, who, when home from his freshman year of college, taught him not how to read but how to read a book—how and why to peruse the table of contents, scan the headings, interpret the introduction, and have a clear objective of why he was reading the book and what he expected to learn.
Lastly, publishers, editors, proofreaders, and graphic artists put their blood, sweat, and tears into the nitty-gritty mechanics of making a book. Indebted to the many brilliant craftspeople who influenced some aspect of the acquisition and production of this book, we are thankful to our favorite publisher, Douglas Rife; our go-to editor, Kendra Slayton; and the many graphic designers, editors, proofreaders, marketing wizards, and, last but not least, salespeople who all worked together to get this book into the hands of teachers.
Solution Tree Press would like to thank the following reviewers:
Sandy Jameson
English Teacher
Nazareth Area High School
Nazareth, Pennsylvania
Melissa Kaasa
Kindergarten Teacher
Roy Elementary School
Yelm, Washington
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/literacy to download the free reproducibles in this book.
Table of Contents