Mindsets and Moves
Strategies That Help Readers Take Charge [Grades K-8]
Corwin Literacy
What if you could have an owner’s manual on reading ownership? What if there really were a framework for building students’ agency and independence?
There’s no “what if?” about it. When it comes to teaching reading, Gravity Goldberg declares there is a structure, one that works with your current curriculum, to help readers take charge. The way forward Gravity says lies in admiring, studying, and really getting to know your students.
Consider Mindsets & Moves your guide. Here, Gravity describes how to let go of our default roles of assigner, monitor, and manager and instead shift to a growth mindset. Easily replicable in any setting, any time, her 4 Ms framework ultimately lightens your load because they allow students to monitor and direct their reading lives.
- Miner: Uncovering Students’ Reading Processes (Focus: Assessment)
- Mirror: Giving Feedback That Reinforces a Growth Mindset (Focus: Feedback)
- Model: Showing Readers What We Do (Focus: Demonstration]
- Mentor: Guiding Students to Try New Ways of Reading (Focus: Guided Practice and Coaching)
Get started on the 4Ms tomorrow! Gravity has loaded the book with practical examples, lessons, reading process and strategy lists, and a 35-page photo tour of exemplary reading classrooms with captions that distill best practices. All figures, student work and photographs are provided in vibrant, full color.
We are in the midst of an ownership crisis, and readers of every ability and in every grade are more often compliant than fully engaged. Use Mindsets & Moves as that rare resource that
makes something highly complex suddenly clear and inspiring for you.
GRAVITY GOLDBERG is coauthor of Conferring with Readers: Supporting Each Students’ Growth and Independence (Heinemann, 2007) and author of many articles about reading, writing, and professional development. She holds a doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is a former staff developer at Teachers College Reading and Writing Project and an assistant professor at Iona College’s graduate education program. She leads a team of literacy consultants in the New York/New Jersey region.
“Mindsets and Moves addresses, in a very engaging way, the most important aspects of classroom literacy instruction. It shows how to think about and interact with children around literacy. Thoroughly grounded in current theories, which are clearly explained and illustrated with stories and examples, the book is absolutely practical with excellent examples of lessons, anchor charts and all of the necessary details.” — Peter Johnston, Author of Choice Words and Opening Minds
Supplements
"Gravity Goldberg shows readers how to re-imagine their role as reading teachers in order to help students become readers who are engaged and independent. This warm and very practical book will be a treasured guide for teachers in the challenging work of growing readers who truly have ownership of their reading."
Thought provoking, practical, and inspiring all at once—it is one of those books that is so chock-full of wise ideas that I will delight in dog earring and marking up its pages with a highlighter.
"Gravity Goldberg brings to the field wisdom and how-to's that are at once ancient and brand new, and her 4Ms process has the power to create the paradigm shift we need."
"This is that rare kind of book that will be useful to teachers in any setting, whether they are classroom teachers or literacy specialists, whether they work with children who struggle in some way or those who exceed expectations in any way. Gravity includes practical examples and helpful resources that show teachers how to truly see and know their students, first, so that they can tailor instruction that fits their humanity, lifts their work, and engages their intentions as readers and learners."
"Top 3 things I admire about Mindsets and Moves by Gravity Goldberg: 1. She helps us move young readers to new heights by naming the brilliance in what they are already doing; 2. She provides models and tools for teaching reading that feel fun and humane; and 3., her clear and engaging language will inspire ambitious conversations in teacher study groups and college reading classes, making us all happier and more powerful reading teachers."
"The premise that we as teachers must consider students' strengths is a timeless one. What’s rare is that Gravity goes well beyond this premise to offer clear suggestions and classroom examples… This is where the power of Gravity's book lies: in the credo that all students are indeed engaging and working hard at reading, and that we need to see and nurture those efforts."
"This is a valuable book not just for reading teachers, but for anyone who teaches anything. Gravity Goldberg shows us how to begin by observing and admiring what our students already do and how they do it. She shows us, further, how to give feedback, model new strategies, and mentor students without undermining their ownership and enjoyment of the activity and their improvement."
"When you read this book, you feel like Gravity is right there with you, shoulder-to-shoulder, seeing your students as they deserve to be seen—with wonder and curiosity."
"I am impressed by Goldberg’s shifts in her own thinking and teaching that placed the focus always on the students’ behaviors rather than on the teachers’. I also like the way she forged ideas based not only on ideas from the literacy community but from other areas of research such as business leadership and psychology as well. Additionally, Goldberg’s charts and other graphics make her ideas extremely clear and provide quick access to the key points when I want revisit them. And her specific classroom examples clarified the points extremely well and make her a very credible expert because she has obviously walked the talk!"
“Unlike most approaches, Gravity Goldberg shows how to shift the educator's typical role from that of a manager to encouraging kids to take charge of their own reading processes. The idea is to evolve and encourage a 'growth mindset' that offers a model for new ways of reading.”