THE FLUENCY DEVELOPMENT LESSON has arrived

Hi everyone,

Saturday marked the official publication date of The Fluency Development Lesson, Closing the Reading Gap, (Benchmark Educational Company) my collaboration with LYNNE KULICH and TIM RASINSKI. We’ve been eager for this moment to arrive. Books are in the warehouse and orders are being shipped. Even before now, preorders have kept the book well rated in Language Arts Teaching Materials and Education Books. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

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We cover a wide range of themes in this book to offer young readers a rich menu of reading material. Some poems are humorous. Others, like this one, provide more serious thoughts to ponder.

Mountain Climbers 

Old, frail, she sits,
cane propped against her chair.
Sitting by that window,
sunlight streams on her wispy hair
in the reading room each day.
You can always find her there
with the same book she always reads.

The book is about mountains
and those who climb them, risking all,
betting their lives on a rope
as inch by inch they scale a wall,
with a bad fall below
if luck goes wrong and they should fall. 
Brave explorers, brave needs.

When she was a girl she dreamed –
back when she was limber, and nine –
a day would come when she
would scale mountains in her prime. 
A cane is now her sign
of a brave old woman with a mountain to climb –
to risk the fall, her bravest deed.

(c) 2024 The Fluency Development Lesson, Closing the Reading Gap. All rights reserved.

The Fluency Development Lesson, Closing the Reading Gap

Hi everyone,

TIM RASINSKI, LYNNE KULICH, and I were pleasantly surprised last week to learn from our publisher (Benchmark Education Company) that our new book — The Fluency Development Lesson, Closing the Reading Gap — is now in the warehouse and ready for shipping. Those who wish can now order their copies from Amazon and other online sources as well as through book stories.

The book is described as The Fluency Development Lesson: Closing the Reading Gap dives deep into the components of teaching fluency and explores how to integrate them into the evidence-based Fluency Development Lesson. Kulich, Rasinski, and Harrison’s 140 lessons will help teachers move students toward more fluent and proficient reading while also promoting joyful learning.

For my part, I wrote poems for each of grades 1-5 on each of five basic themed subjects: History, Culture, Earth Science, Life Science, and People & Family. Lynne and Tim took it from there and applied their vast experience and knowledge to create a book that is both informative and highly practical in the classroom.

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I’m happy to say that the book has debuted as the Number #1 Release on Amazon in books for Adult and Continuing Education. Rasinski devised the Fluency Development Lesson (FDL) more than twenty years ago on a single sheet of paper. It has long been a staple among teachers who place emphasis on helping students improve their reading fluency. Now Tim has realized a wish he had long held — to expand Reading Fluency Lesson into a book. The result, this 456-page book, was written for children yet it is already finding an audience among adults. I couldn’t be happier!

The Fluency Development Lesson: Closing the Reading Gap

Hi everyone,

The new book with LYNNE KULICH and TIM RASINSKI comes out July 15 and weighs in at 456 pages and two pounds. If pre-orders are an indication, it should do well. It already ranks #120 in Adult & Continuing Education Books.

I thought I’d show you an add that our publisher, Benchmark Education Company, has recently released. .

My part of the book was to write ten poems for each of grades 1-5. Here’s an example for third grade.

Lines

From the theatre door halfway down the block,
people stand in line to see the show.
They inch forward, progress stop and go,
clutch their collars tight against the rain.
Though tickets cost too much they don’t complain.
Once it starts, they know the show will rock.

Halfway around the world, another line,
naked feet shuffling in the dust.
To fill their water pots a daily must.
Trickles from a pipe a welcome sign.
They don’t complain, what is there to say?
A pot of water means another day.

New book coming out July 15

Hi everyone,

I just learned that my book with LYNNE KULICH and TIM RASINSKI is coming out sooner than I thought. The Fluency Development Lesson: Closing the Reading Gap, a Professional Development Book published by Benchmark Education, is set for a July 15 pub date. The cover is posted on Amazon.

More about it soon. With one more potential 2024 release yet to go, I’m going to have a pleasant and busy fall.

Closing the reading gap

Hi everyone,

I look forward to a good morning of work today. At 1:00 I’m scheduled for a forty-five minute Zoom Q/A session with an editor from Benchmark Education. This is for an upcoming blog post they’ll use to help promote the book I’m finishing with TIM RASINSKI and LYNNE KULICH. The book is called The Fluency Development Lesson, Closing the Reading Gap. It’s my first title with Benchmark, a large publisher with nearly 13,000 employees in the United States. I’m impressed by their careful, thorough approach to moving the book forward. We’re at the printers now in time for a fall release. I’ll show you a cover when I’m told I can.