[.ca] Mosaic of Thought: Teaching Comprehension in a Reader's ... (ISBN 0435072374)

Missing Piece:
Reading is process in which the learner uses skills and strategies to gain an understanding from that which is read (as opposed to being a mere word caller). It is a cognitive process that needs to be taught to children in a very concrete manner. The authors did a fine job using authentic scenarios in which a teacher modeled reading comprehension stategies in her classroom. Mosaic of Thought was first introduced to me as a part of my gradutate coursework. However, upon reading it, missing pieces in my own instruction were revealed, and I have since used the strategies presented to help intervene with struggling readers. In addition, my district and school use Mosaic of Thought to guide our curricular planning. A must-read and "keeper" for the personal library of all teachers of reading.

I'd give it more stars if I could:
I'm shocked to see some of the bad reviews for this book, which has been one of my all-time favorites for helping my daughter improve her reading comprehension. I'm a parent who read this book at the recommendation of another parent, and I didn't find it particularly hard to follow -- certainly not in comparison to other books I've read that were aimed at professionals. In fact, this is one of the few books I've read to get information to help my kids that was also a satisfactory reading experience for me as well. The excerpts are thought-provoking while also nicely illustrating the authors' points. The new reading textbooks being used in our school district utilize the same research and take the same approach as the authors of this book describe, and it's been great to be a little "ahead of the curve" in understanding why reading is being taught this way. This is not a book to be afraid of. I recommend it highly.

Great resource:
While I agree that at times this text gets too wordy and would have been improved by making a point and moving on, it still has much to offer. This book was recommended to me by my school principal. While she is a bit more of a fan than I am, I would still recommend the book to other educators. This is a resource that I return to over time. The amount of worthwhile material and my faith in the ability of educators skim through redundant text leads me to agree that this is a good addition to any educator's library.

Good, but wordy:
Zimmermann and Keene have put together a good overview of some reading strategies to implement in the classroom. The strategies are generally straight forward, but the anecdotes associated with each strategy pose two major problems in my mind. First is that they are almost all about elementary classrooms. I really don't think I can identify one as a middle or secondary level classroom. The problem with this is that if you are not an elementary teacher, the book is not geared for you. Second, the anecdotes are all about reading lessons specifically. Given the requirements that many states have regarding standards and of course the notorius reauthorized ESEA or NCLB, teaching across curricular areas is critical for success. Focusing on reading classrooms is beneficial, but if you aren't a reading teacher, there isn't much in the way of guidelines to help you integrate reading strategies in the content area. This is the main failing of the book in my opinion. While the authors develop their ideas fully and clearly illustrate the benefits of the strategies through anecdotal evidence, usually depicting the growth of one individual child, the fact that they leave out areas where the book is most needed is problematic. Anyone can adapt these ideas to their classroom, but you need to figure out where the pitfalls and successes are going to be. There isn't much in the way of advice to help content teachers. In many respects the ideas are very similary to the six traits of reading, but like the six traits, one of the strategies can easily take one full day of class time and when you have a specific amount of content to deal with during the course of a quarter or semester, taking one day for a reading strategy or several days out for several reading strategies can be difficult or impossible. Even with these problems I would still recommend this book to a teacher trying to improve reading comprehension for their students. Ultimately unless we teach our students to comprehend what they are reading, all children will be left behind.

Excellent reference material:
In terms of a theoretical learning/teaching perspective, I think it is an excellent book. If one wants to truly understand what the authors of "Mosaic," are trying to convey in a concrete manner, I suggest you also read "Strategies that work: Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding. "Strategies that Work," really allows one to get a "hands on " perspective of the theory which is taught in "Mosaic."