Recommended Reading

In a nutshell, we offer a list of books that will enhance your professional growth. If you have any suggestions to add to this bibliography, please contact us at 512.471.1511.

Assessment in the Learner-Centered Classroom by Alan Trussell-Cullen

This book uses practical advice to help teachers plan and implement authentic, classroom-based assessment systems.

Classrooms that Work: They Can All Read and Write by Patricia M. Cunningham and Richard L. Allington

This book describes how to provide good, balanced literacy instruction for ALL students.

Enhancing the Writing Skills of Low-Achieving 4 th -8 th Graders by John Brogan

This resource is a powerful tool for transforming low-achieving students to successful, engaged learners.

Mosaic of Thought: Teaching Comprehension in a Reader’s Workshop by Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann

This book takes the best of reading comprehension research, shows you how to actively apply it to your own reading, and how to help children do the same.

My First Year As A Teacher edited by Pearl Rock Kane.

This books looks at many lessons teachers learn during the most challenging period of their career, with illuminating stories from veteran teachers.

The Reading-Writing Workshop: Getting Started by Norma R. Jackson with Paula L. Pillow

This book guides you through every step in the reading-writing workshop process: from setting up the classroom and tailoring the workshop schedule to meet your needs, to effectively assessing students’ reading comprehension and writing skills.

The Right to Learn: A Blueprint for Creating Schools that Work by Linda Darling-Hammond

This book describes learner-centered schools that work for students in all kinds of communities and outlines the policies and practices that are needed to create these schools on a system wide basis.

Survival Guide for New Teachers by Amy DePaul

This short book succinctly explains how new teachers can work effectively with veteran teachers, parents, principals, and teachers educators.

Teaching Genre by Tara McCarthy

This book explores nine types of literature to develop lifelong readers and writers using the genre approach as a framework for instruction in reading and writing.

What to Expect Your First Year of Teaching by Amy Depaul.

This book captures the fascinating and inspiring answers of exemplary first-year teachers to some key questions: What was it like the first year? What were your toughest challenges, your greatest rewards? Did you get the right preparations? Etc.

25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them by Carolyn Orange

This book shows examples of teaching mistakes and how NOT to duplicate them in order to become a more sensitive and effective teacher.