This book is a practical book about giving teachers ways to effectively incorporate phonics into their reading and writing instruction. The author of this book has been on a life-long quest to find ways to help readers, especially struggling readers. Her quest involved a lot experimenting, studying and looking at research. She basically believes there is no one way to teach phonics but she believes in several ways to teach reading and writing that involve phonics.

Her book is full of many ideas and strategies that will help teachers that teach grades K-6, although it is probably most suited for the K-3 grades. Her book is especially good at discussing how her suggested activities are multi-level. I believe this book would be helpful to teachers that have little experience. It might however have some ideas for more experienced teachers. I just canít say because I am not sure about everything that goes on in a K-3 classroom.

Iíll mention three essential beliefs she has on assessment. "Assessment takes place over time and is done informally, for example pointing to words and asking them to sound them out." "By observing childrenís reading, we can determine what strategies they are using and what instructional activities we might provide for them." " Write down what you notice and you have anecdotal records- by comparing over time, growth can be determined and validated." Nothing we donít already know.

Here are three extensive and thought provoking golden lines. "Children who donít know what reading is for in the real world do not have the same drive and motivation as children for whom reading and writing, like sleeping are things everyone does." "Children who donít come from rich literacy backgrounds are often very confused by jargon" (jargon used by teachers). "Associative learning is the easiest, quickest and longest lasting. I really like the first golden line.