The Forest And the Trees: Helping Readers Identify Important Details in Texts and Tests

It pays to be detail-oriented. Emily Kissner shows why in The Forest AND the Trees. She proves that in any content area, focusing readers on details can help you achieve important classroom goals, such as:

• boosting classroom-wide comprehension levels
• building students' understanding of genres
• helping students craft specific responses to texts
• supporting success on state-mandated tests.

 The Forest AND the Trees begins with ways to get students in grades 5 - 8 looking for details - particularly those that contribute to meaning. From there through end-of-year testing, Kissner's activities help students make better inferences, uncover main ideas more easily, and use details to create interpretations. Best of all, students will be better able to support their ideas in discussion, classroom writing, multiple-choice exams, and on-demand responses. Kissner also gives you assessment strategies to take into your classroom. She tells you not only what to look for but how students process details, how they infer meaning, and how they use details to visualize as they read. You'll have everything you need to begin helping any reader use details to build literacy-based skills and abilities. The devil isn't in the details - meaning is. Give your students a new, deeper way to look at texts and succeed on tests by leading them through the Forest AND the Trees.