Education & Reference

Brings the teaching of conceptual knowledge, vocabulary and challenging literature to the foreground and shows teachers how to develop students reading and writing proficiency over time.

Making Every English Lesson Count: Six Principles to Support Great Reading and Writing goes in search of answers to the fundamental question that all English teachers must ask: What can I do to help my students to become confident and competent readers and writers?

Writing in the practical, engaging style of the award-winning Making Every Lesson Count, Andy Tharby returns with an offering of gimmick-free advice that combines the time-honoured wisdom of excellent English teachers with the most useful evidence from cognitive science. The book is underpinned by six pedagogical principles challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning and provides simple, realistic classroom strategies to bring the teaching of conceptual knowledge, vocabulary and challenging literature to the foreground.

It also points a sceptical finger at the fashions and myths that have pervaded English teaching over the past decade or so such as the idea that English is a skills-based subject and the belief that students can make huge progress in a single lesson. Instead, Andy advocates an approach of artful repetition and consolidation and shows you how to help your students develop their reading and writing proficiency over time.

Making Every English Lesson Count is for new and experienced English teachers alike. It does not pretend to be a magic bullet. It does not claim to have all the answers. Rather the aim of the book is to provide effective strategies designed to help you to bring the six principles to life, with each chapter concluding in a series of questions to inspire reflective thought and help you relate the content to your classroom practice.

In an age of educational quick fixes, GCSE reform and ever-moving goalposts, this precise and timely addition to the Making Every Lesson Count series provides practical solutions to perennial problems and inspires a rich, challenging and evidence-informed approach to English teaching.

Suitable for English teachers of students aged 11 16 years.

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Target success in WJEC GCSE English Language with this proven formula for effective, structured revision; clear guidance is combined with exam-style tasks and practical tips to create a revision guide that students can rely on to review, strengthen and test their skills.

With My Revision Notes every student can:

– Plan and manage a successful revision programme using the topic-by-topic planner

– Practise the skills needed for each question type and identify areas for improvement with regular tasks, ‘Test Yourself’ sections and answers

– Understand what the examiner is looking for by comparing answers to the annotated and graded sample responses and mark schemes

– Improve exam technique through expert tips, exam preparation advice and examples of typical mistakes to avoid

– Build on learning from the WJEC GCSE English Language Student Book as both books work alongside each other

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What is grammar? Why is it so central to the teaching of English? How can we teach it with confidence in secondary schools?

Essential Grammar will provide clarity, meaning and teacher expertise to this much debated area of the English curriculum. By exploring grammar as applied to literary analysis and using a range of examples from commonly-taught and popular texts, this highly accessible book provides an extensive overview of how to use grammar to enhance the teaching of academic and creative writing. Drawing on a range of resources, best-selling authors Webb and Giovanelli:

• discuss the context of grammar teaching in schools

• provide a clear overview of concepts and terminology for the teacher

• offer a wide range of examples of how grammar can be applied to the analysis of texts and the development of students’ writing

• debunk the unhelpful view of grammar as a list of prescriptive rules and limits

• outline grammatical concepts in a way which is clear and simple to understand

• provide a huge range of practical ways to ensure that teaching of grammatical concepts can be rigorous and successful for all.

This resource, with its grounded and straightforward approach to grammar, will be immediately useable in the classroom with strategies that be used by teachers in their classroom today. For any training and practicing secondary English teachers, Essential Grammar will be a compulsory classroom companion.

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The world we are preparing our students to succeed in is one bound together by words and phrases. Our students learn their literature, history, math, science, or art via a firm foundation of strong reading skills. When we teach students to read with precision, rigor, and insight, we are truly handing over the key to the kingdom. Of all the subjects we teach reading is first among equals.
Grounded in advice from effective classrooms nationwide, enhanced with more than 40 video clips, Reading Reconsidered takes you into the trenches with actionable guidance from real-life educators and instructional champions. The authors address the anxiety-inducing world of Common Core State Standards, distilling from those standards four key ideas that help hone teaching practices both generally and in preparation for assessments. This ‘Core of the Core’ comprises the first half of the book and instructs educators on how to teach students to: read harder texts, ‘closely read’ texts rigorously and intentionally, read nonfiction more effectively, and write more effectively in direct response to texts.
The second half of Reading Reconsidered reinforces these principles, coupling them with the ‘fundamentals’ of reading instruction—a host of techniques and subject specific tools to reconsider how teachers approach such essential topics as vocabulary, interactive reading, and student autonomy. Reading Reconsidered breaks an overly broad issue into clear, easy-to-implement approaches. Filled with practical tools, including:

• 44 Video clips of exemplar teachers demonstrating the techniques and principles in their classrooms

• Recommended book lists

• Downloadable tips and templates on key topics like reading nonfiction, vocabulary instruction, and literary terms and definitions.

Reading Reconsidered provides the framework necessary for teachers to ensure that students forge futures as lifelong readers.

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