Sharon Taberski has once again shown us how to promote comprehension, authenticity, and engagement in the face of great accountability pressures to ensure excellence in the enabling skills of decoding, word recognition, and fluency.
—P. David Pearson, coauthor of What Every Teacher Should Know About Reading Comprehension Instruction (DVD)
If you teach elementary-age children, you owe it to yourself to read this book. If you think you don’t have time that proves you need to read this book. Sharon Taberski shows us how to slow down and do what is developmentally right for the children we teach. She provides classroom routines that help us find our way back from overly complex, hyper-paced approaches to teaching comprehension, reminding us we can meet our literacy goals without stressing out our kids or ourselves.
—Patricia Cunningham, coauthor of Classrooms That Work
Sharon Taberski has done it again! Reading her book is like going into the backyard and discovering you own a diamond mine. This book is filled with multifaceted treasures—sound advice and reasonable, teacher-friendly practices that offer lasting benefits to primary children. This lively and practical resource is sure to become one of my favorites. Teachers everywhere will find that this isn’t a book for the shelf. It is one to keep close at hand.
—Linda Hoyt, author of Revisit, Reflect, Retell
This is a book I have been waiting for since Sharon's first publication On Solid Ground. Again Sharon does not disappoint. It is filled with sensible, practical, and innovative ways to help students gain real meaning from what they read. Sharon is a master at understanding how children best learn the essentials of reading comprehension. This is a book that every K–3 teacher needs to read.
—Tony Stead, coauthor of Explorations in Nonfiction Writing
In many classrooms today instruction feels frenzied, superficial, and choppy. Sharon describes teaching that is focused, meaningful, and cohesive and reminds us that teaching is not about “covering” material, it’s about learning the material. I wish every child could have Sharon Taberski for their teacher.
—Nell K. Duke, Michigan State University Literacy Achievement Research Center
This remarkable book shows teachers how to be knowledgeable and reflective. It brims with high quality literacy practices that allow teachers to meet the goals of RTI or new standards on their own terms and in child-centered ways. Sharon provides the engaging, meaningful activities teachers need to differentiate their reading instruction throughout the day. Comprehension from the Ground Up will virtually change the face of comprehension and how it is addressed in schools—and teachers and children everywhere will reap the benefits.
—Mary Howard, author of Moving Forward with RTI and RTI From All Sides
Sharon Taberski provides K–3 teachers everything they need to know to simplify comprehension instruction while keeping it appropriate, rigorous, enjoyable, and always focused on the children. In Comprehension from the Ground Up, Taberski applies research and extensive teaching experience to re-envision, refine, and slow down the teaching of comprehension. She provides instructional specifics on skills and strategies, fluency, vocabulary development, independent reading, minilessons, conferences, guided reading groups, and much more. This “must-have-it” book for primary teachers provides a wealth of substantive ideas, explicit teaching strategies, and valuable text resources to support and inspire reading and writing across genres.
—Regie Routman, author of Regie Routman in Residence: Transforming Our Teaching, DVD-based, series
With this book, we can put aside programs and curricula that place undue pressure on our K–3 students and take them away from meaningful literacy. Taberski offers a remarkably wise set of practices and activities that facilitate children’s development as engaged readers. She is a gentle mentor for other teachers, helping them teach with rigor and smartness while savoring the “now” of children’s lives. What I really love about Sharon’s work is that she is like a feisty big sister, readily calling to question practices that don’t make sense, and replacing them with practices that do, all because she cares so deeply about children and teachers. This will be a treasured, foundational resource for years to come.
—Gretchen Owocki, author of The RTI Daily Planning Book, K–6
Sharon Taberski does it again, bringing simplicity, sanity, and sensitivity to the teaching of literacy in the early grades. In Comprehension from the Ground Up, Sharon helps teachers sift through the endless bombardment of instructional suggestions and mandates that come across their desks, demonstrating the importance of having a set of crystal-clear priorities. Along the way, Sharon surprises her readers with such inviting new practices as content-area literacy centers, synopsis texts, companion sets, teacher-tailored collections, and Ta-Da publications. An incredible work of scholarship and innovation.
—Shelley Harwayne, author of Novel Perspectives
Throughout the book, Sharon Taberski addresses teachers with respect and warmth as she shares sensible student-centered teaching ideas. She also urges us to not simply accept and apply them, but to deliberately step back and think about our current practices.
—Pat Gallant, Michigan Reading Journal
I’ve just started reading a book that seems to be perfect for EVERYONE who uses readers’ workshop and teaches comprehension in primary grades. The book is Sharon Taberski’s Comprehension from the Ground Up. Wow! I’m usually uncomfortable with the overuse of the word awesome—but this book is awesome!
—Beverley Paul, Nebraska
