Russ on Reading

Education reform types like to say that no child’s educational opportunity should be determined by zip code. Who could not agree with that?...

In any reading for meaning activity the text matters, but so does the experience, feelings, thoughts and imagination of the reader. ...

Here is a little gift for Father's Day. With all the controversy over standards, teacher evaluations and standardized tests, one thing ...

I am pleased to announce that my new book of poetry, There's a Giant in My Classroom and other poems from around school, has just bee...

Ready for an experiment? Read and summarize the following: Having crumbled to 214 all out, with Jonathan Trott's 84 not out the gl...

I know that many of you are in the process of giving standardized tests to the students. To lighten things up a bit, here is a poem that w...

Please, everyone who cares about children and education, read this article by Sean F. Reardon from today's New York Times. For those of...

The Common Core's "deep reading" approach to literacy and language arts is desperately needed, and will give students… the ...

I hope Eugene O'Neill will forgive me for stealing the title of his great play for the title of this blog, but nothing seems more approp...

As I am sure you have heard by now, the great children's author, Maurice Sendak died yesterday. Sendak's greatest legacy is that he ...

So this morning I am sitting in the Barnes and Noble coffee shop waiting for my car to be repaired. Sitting here with my decaf Americano and...

Recently, as I was cleaning out my office, I came across my copy of The Read Aloud Handbook , signed for me by the author, Jim Trelease. Mor...

My new book, Snack Attack and Other Poems for Developing Fluency, has been published. The book has been 15 years in the making. I finally ga...