Dick Allington is professor of literacy studies at the University of Tennessee. He is past-president of the International Reading Association and the National Reading Conference (now the Literacy Research Association). His research has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institutes of Health. He has published over 150 scholarly papers and more than 10 books. His writing has been focused on translating research findings into educational practice.

• Table of Contents  Preface  Chapter 1: Reading development in grades 5 through 9: Problems and promise  Chapter 2: It’s not decoding that is the problem (but that is what most remediation targets)  Chapter 3: “It’s the words, man”: Limited meaning vocabulary and how to improve it  Chapter 4: Read more, read better: Addressing a major source of reading difficulties Chapter 5: Reading with comprehension: Understanding understanding Chapter 6: Literate conversation: A powerful but seldom used method for fostering understanding of complex texts Chapter 7: Getting the gist of it all: Summarization after reading  Chapter 8: Pulling it all together: Effective instruction all day long  Appendix: Study Guide for What Really Matters for Middle School Readers

This book is a very good resource for novice teachers. The material is well organized, up-to-date, and accurate. One of its strengths is the inclusion of current facts about struggling readers and how the shift in education strives to keep a grip on them as they improve…I agree that literate conversation is not a method used very often in middle school classrooms, but the author has done a good job in sharing explanations and examples of this effective methodology. -- Middle School Teacher from Memphis, TN   I was absolutely riveted and engrossed in the material at the beginning of the first chapter…The information presented should be the very first in-service teachers receive at the beginning of the school year. Everything from the changing demographics to the lack of reading instruction in the middle years, to the effective teaching strategies should be sung from on high in every district of America. -- Theresa Barone (Derby Middle School)