When Kids Can't Read: What Teachers Can Do: A Guide for Teachers 6-12

by Kylene Beers

For Kylene Beers, the question of what to do when kids can't read surfaced abruptly in 1979 when she began teaching. That year, she discovered that some of the students in her seventh-grade language arts classes could pronounce all the words, but couldn't make any sense of the text. Others couldn't even pronounce the words. And that was the year she met a boy named George.

George couldn't read. When George's parents asked her to explain what their son's reading difficulties were and what she was going to do to help, Kylene, a secondary certified English teacher with no background in reading, realized she had little to offer the parents, even less to offer their son. That defining moment sent her on a twenty-three-year search for answers to that original question: how do we help middle and high schoolers who can't read?

Now in her critical and practical text "When Kids Can't Read - What Teachers Can Do: A Guide for Teachers 6-12," Kylene shares what she has learned and shows teachers how to help struggling readers with comprehension vocabulary fluency word recognition motivation Here, Kylene offers teachers the comprehensive handbook they've needed to help readers improve their skills, their attitudes, and their confidence. Filled with student transcripts, detailed strategies, reproducible material, and extensive booklists, this much-anticipated guide to teaching reading both instructs and inspires.

Genres: Education, Teaching, Professional Development, Nonfiction, School, Reference, Teachers

400 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 2002

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written by a real teacher who likes kids and recognizes the huge number of them who fall through the cracks in public junior high and high school classrooms. Starts off with a story of her own painful experience with this.

If you're a teacher like I or the author was, you have had kids (probably more than one per class) who can't do the work you assign because of reading deficits. With 30+ others to deal with, it's easy to just shine these kids on. You can flunk them or give them a D and pass them on. Either way, you fail and you know it.

This book cuts through the bullshit and pretentious educationese of so many books on reading remediation. Gives you clear, plain English how to's and pointers.

[Bethe · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW - excellent resource for reading teachers of all grades, not just the targeted 6th-12th graders in the subtitle! If more lower grade teachers used these strategies and techniques, perhaps there would be less of a need for this book in secondary grades. In fact, a 3rd grade class showed me their version of "Somebody wanted-but-so" (complete with hand motions) during a summary lesson in the library this week, the day after I read that chapter! So many great charts, question prompts, scales, lists, etc. for every aspect of reading instruction, I took too many notes for this review! Chapter 5 is a gold mine for that age old bug-a-boo of inferencing. Favorite quote on page 15: "Anyone can struggle given the right text. The struggle isn't the issue, the issue is what the reader does when the text gets tough."

[Hannah Cernicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been looking for a book like this for 7 years.
It addresses real issues that I see in the classroom everyday that isn’t addressed because it’s not supposed to be happening. So many secondary students grades 6-12, students 11-18 STRUGGLE with reading for one reason or another. Decoding letters and sounds, and comprehending the meaning of sentences strung together of words they know.

This book is filled with strategies I can’t wait to try, and also has such good reminders of what students struggle with, when after years and years of struggle, teachers might detach from.

In the beginning of the school year, I’m usually very optimistic about all the new stuff I will do and quickly get extremely overwhelmed after week 1 when it comes to putting it into action. I think this book is applicable enough that I will be using things from it day 1, but I’ll check back.

[Candice · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book! I have tabbed it out and color coded my tabs for comprehension, vocab, spelling, and etc. I can't wait to utilize this in my classroom. I especially liked the story that Kylene Beers had with her student George throughout. At times it was funny, sad, and eye opening, but mostly relateable.

[Ella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great voice throughout and a super clear and eye opening read. She gives many resources and strategies to teachers. The book is over 20 years old at this point and does have some gaps (and interesting quirks) because of those 20 years, but is still relevant in many ways.

[Kristin Schumacher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is now my most treasured teaching resource. I learned so much about how to help struggling readers.

[Alex Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chock full of useful information and ways to implement all aspects of reading into the classroom.

[Lori Emilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent resource for Gr. 6-12 teachers of literacy. Some gems here for sure!

[Becca Levy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really instructive and helpful. Some of the tips were more about English and I sort of skimmed them, but overall I felt like there was a lot to takeaway here that I can apply to my own life/work.

[Michael Loveless · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kylene Beers' book, When Kids Can't Read, is very practical and detailed. It is filled with specific strategies that can be used to help students. Beers is a reading specialist who draws on years of experience helping teachers learn how to teach reading. Although the book has many helpful ideas that could be used in my social studies class, it was just a little off-target for my needs. The book is aimed at teachers of grades 6-12, and sometimes I had trouble imagining myself using strategies with high school kids. Also, the book was aimed at teaching reading, and it is most relevant for reading specialists and English teachers. For a social studies teacher like me, it was definitely worth reading, it just wasn't quite as relevant and useful for my needs as the book, I Read It, But I Don't Get It by Cris Tovani. It helped me gain a better idea of how kids learn to read, and I will use it as a reference to build reading strategies into my lessons.

[goddess · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually didn't quite finish this; just slightly over halfway read. It was ok; but I'm hardly motivated to finish it right now. There's some good ideas; but I've read better educational materials. The author was a little wordy and there were elements that eventually had me skimming through. Like beginning each chapter with a letter to an old student she regrets not having helped more. (Those got old after one chapter.) And the "what it would look like" scenarios for using a particular strategy. Those were long and somewhat tedious, and I kept thinking to myself that my students--as struggling readers--would never discuss literature like that.

[Kathleen McKim · Rating 5 out of 5]

While the tone of the book is sometimes a bit academic, the lists of intervention strategies are excellent. Books like this for teachers G6-12 are difficult to find. A two-step approach is introduced:
first, develop a plan to determine WHY kids say/teachers say/parents say "This Kid Can't Read." Once the why is determined (vocab, making predictions, spelling, confidence to answer questions on a text, being comfortable sharing ideas, learning to find texts/authors that interest him) - use various chapters in this book to address individual reading needs. It's a fantastic primer full of do-able interventions.

[Sabrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kylene Beers explains what her first year of teaching was like and I remember feeling the exact same way when I first started teaching. I read this as an undergraduate student, but it holds so much more meaning now as a practicing teacher of both writing and literacy. I keep it on hand as a reference when I need to refresh my memory about how to help struggling readers. I love all her stories of things that really happened to her in her own classroom. I felt it gave the book an authentic voice and credibility. Love it!

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has had a huge impact on my teaching. It is full of effective, research-based comprehension strategies that are easy to implement. It is also easy to read; I wish Kylene Beers taught at my school so I could be friends with her.

[Taylor Guffey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the most engaging and one of the most helpful textbooks I have ever read. It's a great resource for teaching reading at the middle and high school levels, and I will definitely refer back to it for guidance.

[Shaeley Santiago · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book about how to help struggling secondary readers. Includes practical information and strategies with references to research. Definitely a book to come back to over time for additional ideas and suggestions to improve students' reading.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is worth the full cost of my M.A. program. Well-written, practical, full of strategies...I can't really imagine being an English teacher without it.

[Dray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great strategies in here. I'm becoming a big fan of Kylene Beers.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kylene Beers has become my middle school literacy hero.

[Hope Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super informative and helpful. Highly recommended!

[Hanalei1208 Be · Rating 3 out of 5]

This author has many more books on literature. In this book she has lots of great advice to work with older students on reading but does not mention reading disabilities.

[Jacquelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the all-time best book about teaching that I have read in my entire EdS program. Not just teaching reading, not just teaching methodology... teaching in general. Beers breaks down the reasons that students struggle with reading and gives practical advice complete with scenarios from her own experience (and is incredibly relatable as she herself acknowledges her shortcomings as an early teacher so that the aspiring-teacher readers can understand that our practice is developed over time and that it is okay to not know what to do at first. I have put many of her strategies into practice already and am seeing such an improvement in my freshmen. I'm eager to read and reread this text as I continue improving my practice. I encourage any aspiring English teacher to read this and fully absorb the advice and strategies as well.

[Roz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book is likely to be a language teacher's dream. It is packed full of strategies and methods, illustrated in simple, straightforward language, of how to help kids to read and comprehend what they are reading better. It discusses the importance of combining a syntactic approach with a semantic approach - something that has not been said before in anything I have read on this topic - but that makes perfect sense.

The only area that I felt could do with some revising is the port on finding level appropriate books for kids to read. But that is not the book's fault. It can't sit on a shelf and update itself.

[Madeleine Vest · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was assigned to read this during college, and didn't really read it. I found it much more engaging and practical this time around because it applies to things I am doing RIGHT NOW instead of what it might be like in my classroom in the future. There is a lot of really practical and ready to use knowledge in here that I really appreciate. It's nice to read books on education that have lots of theory, but it's even better when there are concrete strategies that I could bring into my classroom tomorrow, and this book has that.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-researched, well-formatted, and well-written, this guide to reading instruction reminded me about strategies I know but don’t use regularly as well as giving me some new ideas. The sheer amount of information is a little overwhelming and hard to digest, though. I also thought that many of the strategies were very teacher directed and not useful for students to use on their own while reading.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book supplies "sign posts" to help guide students on the road to reading. These strategies are not just for K-12 as the title suggests. Beers offers strategies to help the reading teacher get unmotivated reading students to engage. This book assisted my own reflection on reading strategies I use with my own students.

[Cody Lawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I teach Children's Literature, I like to begin the semester with a read aloud from this book. From the second paragraph on page 3, "That first year of teaching... until page 7 to end The Defining Moment section. I would recommend the use of this text for teaching children's literature specific to students entering grades 6-12.

[Madison Gannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

While written in 2002, there is still a need for the theories and strategies in this text. Beers does a great job equipping teachers with relevant information and action steps to help struggling readers in the 6-12 setting all while being grounded in a heartfelt letter to an unforgotten student. All secondary English teachers should read this.

[H.L. Karhoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It includes so many great strategies for engaging kids in reading. Beers' suggestions for prereading, during reading, and after reading have really made a difference with my students. Highly suggest for any ELA teacher. The strategies are more geared toward secondary, but some of the strategies could probably be adapted for use at the elementary level.

[Michelle Flores · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's going to sound weird to say this, but this might be one of the few education related books that I found relatable and helpful. Kylene Beers made me laugh, reflect, and learn. Those are all important things.