Useful for both inservice and preservice teachers, this book offers a sensible and research-based approach to differentiated instruction. The organization makes the book especially useful: First it explains and illuminates what differentiation is, and then it provides detailed descriptions of highly useable instructional practices in the areas of phonemic awareness, word recognition, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The concluding chapters put it all together in the form of realistic differentiation plans for kindergarten through the third grade. Differentiation is key to effective instruction, and Walpole and McKenna provide lessons and plans that will give teachers what they need to optimize their teaching.--Sylvia Read, PhD, Department of Elementary Education, Utah State UniversityThere is much to like about this book. It discusses a very complex instructional practice in a clear, straightforward manner; provides a basic blueprint for implementing this practice in the classroom; and, perhaps best of all, provides specific guidance for differentiating instruction in the five essentials of primary-grade reading. This is a practical, easy-to-follow book that classroom teachers will find very useful.--Kathleen A. Roskos, PhD, Department of Education and Allied Studies, John Carroll UniversityLiteracy coaches and reading specialists will find this book invaluable as they guide and support teachers of reading. Each topic lends itself to a session of professional development. The organization and detailed table of contents enable teachers to read the book in its entirety or draw on specific chapters as needed. In my 32 years in education, I have read hundreds of methods books. The majority of these books are read and digested, a few salient ideas are extracted, then they go on a shelf or are given away. Differentiated Reading Instruction is not that kind of book--rather, it's a 'bible' of reading instruction for the primary grades. Teachers will consult this book on a regular basis: It will help drive their reading instruction, not sit on their shelves.--Harri Wasch, MEd, Literacy Coordinator, Paul H. Cale Elementary School, Charlottesville, Virginia-Could be the answer to effective reading instruction in the primary grades....This work lends itself to helping design a daily literacy block that is sensible and sensitive to all students' learning styles....The authors are both professors of reading, and they have drawn from their extensive experience in reading to develop a book that takes into account both the theory and what they know to be good practice....I highly recommend this book as an additional resource of instructional ideas.--Journal of the Association for Childhood Education International, 1/26/2007
