Unlocking Literacy

About the Book

The updated second edition of Unlocking Literacy is here--and now pre- and inservice educators will have the very latest research and practical guidance on teaching good reading and spelling skills. Developed for general and special educators of students from prekindergarten to middle school and beyond, the new edition of this bestselling textbook arms teachers with the most recent developments in reading research and shows them how to apply their knowledge in the classroom to help all students learn.

Focusing on two interlocking skills--decoding and spelling--this textbook gets teachers ready to

• promote students' print awareness and phonological awareness through letter naming, letter forming, and listening and speaking activities such as poetry and play
• improve students' spelling skills by teaching the origins of English words, Anglo-Saxon base words, Latin affixes and roots, Greek combining forms, and multisyllabic words
• help students understand and correctly use the components of the English language, including common consonant and vowel patterns, syllable patterns, common spelling rules, prefixes and suffixes, roots, nonphonetic words, and contractions
• deepen older students' proficiency with language by introducing less common Latin roots and Greek combining forms, new words entering the English language, and lessons built around themes such as calendars and mythology

To help educators teach with confidence once they're in the classroom, this text is packed with practical, immediately applicable material. Educators will get engaging classroom activities (including 21 NEW activities suitable for use all students, including English language learners); lesson plans incorporating multisensory, language-based instruction; samples of student work; explanations of current research; and even more websites and reference material to strengthen their instruction.

An essential text for college and university courses on reading instruction--and an ideal professional development resource for inservice educators--this new edition of a classic bestseller will help teachers unlock literacy for all their students.

About the Author:
Marcia K. Henry, Ph.D., brings more than 40 years of experience working in the field of reading and dyslexia as a diagnostician, tutor, teacher, and professor. Dr. Henry received her doctorate in educational psychology from Stanford University. Prior to her retirement in 1995, she was a professor in the Division of Special Education at San Jose State University, where she taught and directed the Center for Educational Research on Dyslexia. Dr. Henry taught as a Fulbright Lecturer/Research Scholar at the University of Trondheim, Norway, in 1991. Dr. Henry speaks frequently at regional, national, and international conferences on topics related to intervention strategies for dyslexic learners. She also writes for a variety of professional journals and serves on the editorial boards of Dyslexia and Annals of Dyslexia, the journals of The British Dyslexia Association and The International Dyslexia Association (IDA), respectively. Since retirement Dr. Henry has taught at the University of New Mexico, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Minnesota-Duluth. She provides teacher training related to the teaching of reading and related language arts and consults with several school districts and states on informed reading instruction. Dr. Henry is the author of teaching materials for integrated decoding and spelling instruction. She is a past president (1992-1996) of the Orton Dyslexia Society (now known as IDA). She is a fellow of the Orton-Gillingham Academy and received the Margaret Byrd Rawson Lifetime Achievement Award from IDA in 2000. Dr. Henry now lives on Madeline Island in Lake Superior, where she spends much of her time writing. She volunteers as a tutor at the island two-room elementary school when needed. She compiled Dyslexia: Samuel T. Orton and His Legacy for IDA's 50th anniversary in 1999.