The Balanced Reading Program: Helping All Students Achieve Success

The contributors to The Balanced Reading Program contend that teachers must strive to achieve balance in all areas of their instruction. Because much of the controversy over the best way to teach reading has been counterproductive to finding an answer to how reading should best be taught, the chapters in this volume emphasize the importance of balanced instruction & explain the methodologies, strategies, & knowledge base necessary to achieve a balanced program.The book begins by explaining what a balanced approach is & is not & by presenting guidelines for developing a balanced instructional program. It then offers perspectives on vocabulary instruction, comprehension instruction, literature & assessment, emphasizing the importance of these components to the balanced instructional approach. Next, the contributors present descriptions of programs they have implemented that exemplify the balanced approach & the book concludes by providing further clarification of the key elements in a balanced reading program. All the contributors believe ina balanced approach that is built on research, that views teachers as informed decision makers & that is built on a comprehensive view of literacy. The Balanced Reading Program is a valuable resource that offers guidelines on how to base instruction on the needs of individual children rather than limit classroom instruction to a current trend or to a single approach. The book will support teachers as they progress as decision makers & begin to implement change in their instruction in order to achieve a more balanced & effective reading program that offers greater success to all students. There is much more to balanced reading instruction than balancing phonics & whole language. Susan M. Blair-Larsen is an associate professor at The College of New Jersey, Ewing, New Jersey, USA. Kathryn A. Williams is an associate professor at Langston University, Langston, Oklahoma, USA.The Balanced Reading Program: Helping All Students Achieve Success, with ISBN 9780872072527 and ISBN 0872072525.