"Certain professional books are bedrocks of my teaching DNA—none more influential than When Kids Can’t Read—What Teachers Can Do. Now twenty years later, and informed by the latest research, Kylene Beers has significantly updated this seminal work. Smart, practical, and relevant for teachers at all grade levels, this new edition is a masterclass in the teaching of reading. It receives my highest recommendation."
—Kelly Gallagher, Author of Deeper Reading and Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It
"Twenty years after her groundbreaking first edition, Kylene Beers once again empowers teachers to make reading accessible to all students through responsive instruction. Beers provides practical scaffolds that support all learners and insightful strategies for incorporating productive struggle in the classroom. With guidance from this text, all educators—from preservice to veteran—can improve their practice and help nurture independent readers."
—Carrie Beth Buchanan, Secondary ELA Specialist
"The first edition of When Kids Can’t Read has been a trusted resource in my classroom through my last 12 years of teaching. With this updated second edition, Kylene provides teachers with extensions of her original work—rich with beautiful examples. I start every year by talking to my students about being responsible readers. A part of that responsibility is acknowledging when we struggle, the same goes for us as teachers. It is difficult to know where to start and where to go next. The way this text is organized provides teachers with a scaffold to better support their students and their own learning. More than just an update, the second edition of When Kids Can’t Read brings new ideas and information to teachers. It is evident in reading and learning from Kylene that her primary goal is the reading success of all students; this book and the support it will provide teachers makes that goal more of a reality."
—Brent Gilson, MS/HS (and one-time elementary) teacher, Magrath High School (Magrath, Alberta, Canada)
"Reading is complex work, but more importantly, it’s work that develops us as humans as we connect our own lives to the world within books. The second edition of When Kids Can’t Read highlights for us that all children deserve the opportunity to develop as readers, ultimately leading to their development as people. Kylene Beers reminds us that the most important factor in that work is you, their teacher. This book will support you in the journey that is learning and loving to read."
—Andrew Jenkins, Lead Director, Region West, LAUSD
"This book will prove to be a gift to kids and a tremendous aid for their teachers. The new and revised thinking in the second edition, alongside the original ideas from what we've known When Kids Can't Read to be, make this book exactly what secondary teachers need. Beers takes on the complex anxiety teachers feel when teaching kids who don't have the reading expertise, experiences, stamina, or faith in themselves to tackle what school and society ask them to read, comprehend, and act upon. This book helps make that teaching anxiety feel like a solvable situation for teachers."
—Jennifer Ochoa, Secondary ELA Teacher; Author of Already Readers and Writers: Honoring Students Rights to Read and Write in the Middle Grade Classroom
"I consider teaching and learning my life’s work. It’s been approximately 20 years since I started teaching and ran across Kylene Beers' original When Kids Can’t Read as a novice teacher. Now, I find myself serving as an Executive Director of Professional Development and Curriculum for a mid-size, high-needs, chronically underserved school district in Central Texas. Twenty years later, I have also been inspired to disrupt the deficit thinking that plagues most school communities. I appreciate Kylene's transparency and honesty about her 'work' and commitment to becoming more inclusive. Reflective ways of being and thinking are pivotal to empowering others to use literacy to leverage their life stories and to connect with others. According to Beers, 'Reading offers us that chance to revise our lives.' I could not agree more...reading was a game-changer in my life. The new edition of When Kids Can’t Read will serve as a foundational text to build collective efficacy of high-impact literacy practices for our district, campus leaders, and teachers. As a result, we can establish structures and processes to better support literacy instruction and access for students."
—Dr. Keonna White, Executive Director of Professional Development and Curriculum, Waco ISD
