Explaining Reading: A Resource for Teaching Concepts, Skills, and Strategies
"This text is a wonderful resource for teaching preservice (and inservice) teachers how to explicitly model the thought processes necessary for reading skills, from vocabulary building and comprehension strategies to phonemic awareness and fluency.  Duffy provides essential background information on the explanation process and then uses specific examples to scaffold preservice teachers’ understanding....In effect, Duffy provides explicit teaching about explicit teaching. The examples he offers are embedded in authentic literacy contexts and provide novice teachers a basis from which to develop their own lessons. Straightforward and engaging, this text is easily accessible for undergraduate and graduate students and an invaluable resource for teacher educators."--Kelly B. Cartwright, PhD, Department of Psychology, Christopher Newport University"Duffy's book provides thoughtful guidance that is perfect for both novice and experienced teachers. The heart of the book provides sample instructional plans for direct and explicit teaching of vocabulary, comprehension, word recognition, and fluency. Each of these sections is written to provide support for educators who want to try these practices. This book is an excellent resource for college methods classes, helping future educators strategically think about instruction by considering what needs to be taught, what conceptual understandings need to be in place, and how to introduce, model, and scaffold the learning."--Janice V. Kristo, PhD, College of Education and Human Development, University of Maine"This is a wonderful text for undergraduate- or graduate-level methods students. It provides examples of direct language to be used in the modeling of strategies, helping students see the difference between 'telling' children and 'showing' them. This text facilitates the design of excellent instruction with high-quality literature in any genre."--Sharon Walpole, PhD, School of Education, University of Delaware"Finally, a book on teaching reading that doesn't just throw around the term 'explicit instruction,' but explains, models, and expands the concept in a way that is meaningful! The insights from Duffy's groundbreaking research on explicit teaching fill the pages of this book. This alone would be cause for recommending it, but there is more. Duffy illustrates how the principle of explicit instruction extends across multiple domains of reading instruction, including phonemic awareness, word recognition, fluency, and comprehension. And, perhaps most important in these times, Duffy's clarity in contrasting explicit instruction to scripted instruction is refreshing. Explicit instruction is totally responsive to the learner and requires a skilled and adaptive teacher. Scripted teaching creates the illusion of explicitness but will always fail because it rests on flawed assumptions regarding the competencies of the teacher and the individual differences among learners. This is an invaluable resource for supporting teacher development."--James V. Hoffman, PhD, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, The University of Texas at Austin"This book has it all! It's a road map for teachers at all levels of experience. The text offers excellent research-based strategies as well as practical and explicit instruction to scaffold learning, and it is all wrapped up in an easy-to-read format. This book is destined to become a classroom classic."--Lorraine De Rosa, MEd, Curriculum Supervisor, Colonial School District, Pennsylvania"Our K-7 teachers and reading specialists are field testing the lessons of Duffy's book. The lessons empower students to understand the complexity of how reading works, make crucial cognitive connections, and finally 'catch on' to the concepts, skills, and strategies good readers understand and use. Teachers are guided through adapting the explanations to various texts and tasks for learners at all grade levels, and using scaffolding techniques that give students growing levels of responsibility and ownership of new knowledge. Duffy's approach is showing tangible benefits for our struggling readers and fostering a new level of excitement and enthusiasm in our classrooms."--Joyce Carmine, EdD, Principal, Illinois Elementary School, Park Forest, Illinois"For years now, research has encouraged us to use explanation, modeling, and scaffolding to teach reading, but as all of us who have tried it know, this is no easy task. Duffy provides us with both a research-based rationale and a map for navigating this difficult terrain. He makes the 'why,' 'how,' and 'when' of explicit instruction perfectly clear, yet this is no recipe book. Duffy maintains an abiding belief that teachers are the ultimate and best decision makers, and in these pages, he provides the support to enter into those decisions knowledgeably. An invaluable book for beginning and experienced teachers alike."--Sheila W. Valencia, PhD, University of Washington, Seattle"As a primary school teacher with over 30 years of experience, I find the format of the book easy to follow, enabling one to find specific examples of how to explain the component parts of reading. I find the explanations for 'Inferring' and 'Main Idea' to be especially helpful....The 'Scaffolded Assistance' examples provide teachers with sensible approaches for differentiated instruction.Explaining Readingwill definitely be a valuable resource in my professional reading collection for years to come."--Betsy Hodulik, MA, primary school teacher, Spruce Run School, Clinton, New Jersey