Reader to Reader: Building Independence Through Peer Partnerships

Teachers have known for years that collaborative learning can have a powerful effect on emerging readers, but most have used peer partnerships as an ancillary method to provide readers with practice. Mary Lee Prescott-Griffin takes partnerships to a new level, making them a central part of effective reading instruction.

In Reader to Reader, you'll discover how peer partnerships can help students take on increased responsibility for their own learning and offer one another the insight, encouragement, and personalized attention they need to develop good reading skills and habits. Reader to Reader is filled with practical advice and hands-on tools for successfully introducing and facilitating peer partnerships among your young readers. You'll discover:

• practical suggestions on pairing readers by ability
• minilessons designed for partnership-based learning
• suggestions for strengthening decoding, fluency, and comprehension through partnerships
• lists of books and materials that support collaboration
• vignettes from classrooms where partnership learning has been used successfully
• tips on adapting the model for English language learners, already-fluent readers, and special education students.

In addition, Prescott-Griffin provides useful tools such as strategy bookmarks, charts, classroom maps, and partner-response sheets.

Use Reader to Reader to implement peer partnerships, and you'll soon know why, when it comes to teaching reading, nothing beats a pair.