The 2001 edition of Beyond Leveled Books, written by Szymusiak and Sibberson, focused on supporting transitional readers in grades 2-5. That book was good, but the 2008 version, adding the insights of co-author Lisa Koch and including three additional chapters that focus on emergent readers, is fantastic.
Beyond Leveled Books Promotes Best Practices in Literacy Instruction
Most primary and intermediate classroom teachers have moved away from using traditional basal readers and have adopted a reading workshop format for teaching reading. This model relies heavily on guided instruction using collections of leveled books. These books support children’s upward progress, but allow flexibility to provide lots of practice at any given level.
Szymusiak, Sibberson, and Koch take issue with what they call “leveled book mania.” They offer a thoughtful perspective on the appropriate use of leveled books, agreeing that it can be a positive instructional strategy. However, these authors argue, leveled books should be only one part of a child’s reading diet. These educators make a strong case for providing both emergent and transitional readers, those in kindergarten through fifth grade, a wide variety of unleveled reading material.
While Szymusiak, Sibberson, and Koch acknowledge that children should spend significant time with books they can decode and understand easily, they devote an entire chapter to expanding the definition of “just-right” books. Their definition includes “books that are good matches because they expand the reading lives of children and contribute to literacy development” regardless of their readability level.
A Practical Resource That Includes Strategies, Literacy Lesson Plans, and Booklists
Busy teachers need and want resource texts that give practical information about best practices in literacy instruction which can be easily implemented in the classroom. Beyond Leveled Books fits this requirement.
Szymusiak, Sibberson, and Koch describe “transitional” readers as those who are “well on their way to becoming independent readers,” but who still need the support of teachers and the kinds of learning experiences that will help them accurately and fluently construct meaning from longer texts. These students need to be taught explicit strategies for sustaining longer texts, such as how to preview a chapter book, or how to reread the end of a prior chapter to maintain continuity when the reading of a book takes several days.
The authors provide specific strategies for supporting these young readers. Model mini-lessons are sprinkled throughout the book that teachers can use and expand upon to help transitional readers become more accomplished and more avid readers.
Beyond Leveled Reading provides numerous themed booklists that teachers can draw from to find titles to meet their students’ individual needs and to stock their classroom libraries. The book also offers suggestions for creating a reading community within the classroom and for making the school to home literacy connection.
About the Authors
Karen Szymusiak, Franki Sibberson, and Lisa Koch are experienced teachers who have spent many years in the classroom. They instruct and mentor other teachers. Each of these authors has an overt and obvious love of reading and books. And this love translates into their philosophy and strategies for working with emergent and transitional readers.
Beyond Leveled Books is a must-read for classroom teachers, reading specialists, administrators, and teacher educators. This is a bookshelf book – a resource that teachers will turn to over and over again. The updated version is much expanded over the prior edition and includes information that kindergarten and first grade teachers, as well as teachers of grades 2 through 5, will find useful and engaging.
Szymusiak, Karen, Sibberson, Franki, & Koch, Lisa. Beyond Leveled Books: Supporting Early and Transitional Readers in Grades K-5. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers, 2008.
For more resources helpful to elementary reading teachers, read reviews of Reading for Real and Reading With Meaning.
Margaret M. Williams - Margaret M. Williams (Peggy) has been a teacher for over 25 years. She currently teaches first grade in a classroom that combines native ...
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