Literacy Strategies for Grades 4-12

In Literacy Strategies for Grades 4-12: Reinforcing the Threads of Reading, Karen Tankersley provides a multiplicity of practical, research-based reading strategies tailored specifically for use with older students. These students may no longer have a reading class as part of the school day, but they are still developing their reading skills--and every teacher contributes to that effort. As in her previous book, The Threads of Reading: Strategies for Literacy Development, Tankersley here focuses on the six foundational "threads" necessary for effective reading--phonemic awareness, phonics and decoding, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and higher-order thinking--only this time with a focus on the last four threads, which are especially pertinent to the higher grades. By examining the criteria necessary for success in each thread, she shows how we can better teach struggling readers to

Develop and expand on content-specific vocabulary.

Read text accurately, smoothly, and with proper phrasing.

Extract and construct meaning through reading.

Critically evaluate, synthesize, analyze, and interpret text.

The book includes a broad array of exercises, from individualized 15-minute projects to semester-long whole-class assignments. In addition to addressing the needs of older students, these strategies can be used to help teach English language learners the rudiments of reading in English. They are easy for teachers to implement, fun for students to do, and most importantly, proven to help students develop the solid skills of reading that are critical to achievement in any subject.