This practical book offers teachers a comprehensive approach to literacy instruction that puts students at the centre of the learning process. Based on the latest learning theories, the book provides:

• an overview of the nuts and bolts of reading instruction
• techniques for supporting writers
• poetry, storytelling, and drama activities that foster alternate ways of learning
• language experiences that guide students from traditional learning to our complex digital world

Balanced Literacy Essentials offers the background and strategies teachers need to encourage students to question, discover, and learn. Thoughtful and inspiring, the book helps educators reflect on their role as teacher and better meet the literacy needs of all their students.

Michelann Parr is Professor in the Schulich School of Education at Nipissing University. She holds a BA, BEd, and MEd from Nipissing University; her PhD work was completed at McGill University. As the first-born Italian granddaughter of immigrants, she learned how the world worked in a large extended family and consistently had maternal models to guide her through childhood, support her through the successes and struggles of being mom to three, and celebrate the wondrous moments of being nana to two healthy grandkids. In the spaces between actively and intensively parenting and grandparenting, Parr is the Elizabeth Thorn Chair in Literacy, focusing on literacy-based community outreach and family engagement; she also teaches and supervises at the graduate level. While not new to mothering and academia, she is relatively new to motherhood studies, first exploring the reciprocal relationship between motherhood and academia in “Baby Steps: That Was the Way To Do It!” which appeared in The Parent-Track: Timing, Balance, and Choice within Academia (2016).

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Balanced Literacy Essentials: Weaving Theory into Practice for Successful Instruction in Reading, Writing, and Talk