Literacy : Helping Children Construct Meaning

• Chapter 9 provides much needed coverage on how to help children with reading problems, and offers intervention plans and strategies for classroom teachers. This chapter specifically addresses issues for ELL/LEP readers and related issues of diversity.
• Educator Speaks boxed features contain real-life descriptions of how practitioners have successfully used a strategy in the areas of technology, diversity, and accommodating individual needs.
• Thorough standards coverage highlights the impact of national, state, and local standards on teachers, students, and schools.
• Additional coverage includes an emphasis on the needs of upper-elementary and middle school students; children's literature selections accompanied by sample lesson plans; and an emphasis on decoding, vocabulary, and meaning.
• Eduspace is a dynamic online tool that enhances course management and delivery and allows students to share information, reflect, and review. Eduspace offers students access to such interactive components as HM Video Cases, a discussion board and online journal, and a unique tutorial on developing a teaching portfolio.
• Houghton Mifflin VideoCases, four- to six-minute video modules presenting real classroom scenarios, enable students to observe the day-to-day challenges and rewards of teaching from the convenience of their computers. Available on the Online Teaching and Study Centers, HM Video Cases are enhanced by classroom artifacts, Viewing Questions, Interview Transcripts, Key Terms, and bonus video footage.

J. David Cooper (Ed.D., Indiana University) is a retired professor from Ball State University. Prior to teaching at the college level, he taught at elementary and secondary schools in Louisville, Kentucky. Dr. Cooper has served as a consultant to the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., numerous state departments of education, and school systems throughout the country. Active in the International Reading Association, he has spoken in all 50 states and eight countries. Dr. Cooper has authored or coauthored more than 20 books on the teaching of reading. He has served as an editor of Indiana Reading Quarterly and as a reviewer for such leading journals as The Reading Teacher, Journal of Reading, and National Reading Conference Yearbook. Currently, Dr. Cooper consults on literacy instruction with numerous school districts throughout the United States.

Nancy D. Kiger (Ed.D., Ball State University) has more than 40 years of experience in education. She is retired from the College of Education at the University of Central Florida, where for 15 years she taught courses in reading, language arts, and children's literature as well as supervised student teachers. She also taught at universities in Indiana and Missouri. She began teaching as an elementary classroom teacher; later she taught reading at the elementary and middle-school levels in Indiana. She has been a writer and editor of literacy materials for over 25 years.