“Dorothy Barnhouse and Vicki Vinton link research with reading and teaching experience. In a very conversational style, full of examples, they help us to notice and understand the problems children face in their reading, and how to figure out teaching strategies to prevent those problems. Then they offer clear examples of lessons that turn children’s attention to the processes of reading. This is a book that helps us as teachers to develop a sense of agency as we learn how to build that sense in our students.”
—Peter Johnston, author of Choice Words and Chair of the Reading Department at the University at Albany–SUNY
“What I loved most about this book is that it is the best book that I have read about teaching reading in the age of the Common Core without billing itself as such. This book is all about reading closely and carefully. Barnhouse and Vinton place a lot of emphasis on teaching children how to focus on details as a way of honing and revising their thinking about text…. All children need to learn to read deeply and Barnhouse and Vinton show us how to make that happen.”
—Review by Kim Yaris at Literacy Builders
“This book brought a lot of my thinking together—thinking that I hadn't quite been able to articulate. It was the perfect book for me as I get ready to go back to the classroom—thinking about building agency and independence in readers. I think this book also helped me think through the Common Core talk about close reading and text complexity. One of my favorite new books on literacy instruction!”
—Review by Franki Sibberson at Reading Year
"[The CCSS standards] have drawn tremendous attention to 'close, careful reading' leaving many to wonder what this means, exactly. One of the best books that we know that deals with this topic is Dorothy Barnhouse and Vicki Vinton’s What Readers Really Do: The Process of Meaning Making."
—Review at Burkins and Yaris
Check out one teacher book group's discussion of What Readers Really Do.
Read out Amy Donnelly's review in NCTE's Language Arts journal.
