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      • All Series
      • HIP SR
      • HIP JR
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      • BATS MYSTERY
      • HIP QUICKREAD
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        • THEME PACKS
      • HIP PROFESSIONAL
      • View All Books
      • View All Teacher’s Guides
      • PDF Order Form
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      • HIP Teacher’s Guides
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      • FAQs about Ordering
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      • PDF Order Form
    • ABOUT HIP BOOKS
      • About High Interest Publishing
      • What Makes HIP Books the Best Books for Struggling Readers
      • HIP BOOKS AND YOUR LITERACY PROGRAM
      • RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A SCHOOL OR DISTRICT
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      • Lexile Levels
      • Accelerated Reader
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    Support for Struggling Readers

    Home » Support for Struggling Readers
     Judging Books by their Covers
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Judging Books by their Covers

    For most adult readers, the cover of a book doesn’t matter much. But for struggling students, the book’s appearance is a top priority.  Does it look like I’ll be able to read [...]

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     How to Get Your Students to Love Writing (Yeah, right)
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    How to Get Your Students to Love Writing (Yeah, right)

    Let’s face it, some of our students are never going to love writing (or reading or science or math), no matter what we do.  But writing makes you smarter – in every subject. And [...]

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     Make it MULTIGENRE! A Great Year-end Project
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Make it MULTIGENRE! A Great Year-end Project

    As warm weather beckons, how can we keep kids engaged in authentic learning till summer break?  My favorite year-end task is the Multigenre Research Project – an independent learning [...]

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     Mid-Year Correction
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Mid-Year Correction

    It’s the nature of our profession that the best teachers are always looking for ways to do things better, smarter, and more effectively, both for themselves and their students. Even if you [...]

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     Why Kids Should Read Scary Stories!
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Why Kids Should Read Scary Stories!

    We all have different tolerances for fear. Some people go out of their way to confront scary situations; others do their best to avoid them. But all of us can experience “manageable fear” through [...]

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     Hooked on a Series
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Hooked on a Series

    The fifth-grader in our family recently informed me that she’s reading the Nancy Drew series. The original series ran from 1930 until 2003, then was recently reprised as an updated series [...]

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     The Enduring Appeal of Survival Stories
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    The Enduring Appeal of Survival Stories

    There’s nothing like a good survival story: The conflict is clear, the stakes are as high as they get, and you know exactly what you’re rooting for.      –Todd Olson, The Children’s Book [...]

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     Greeting Students at the Door:  Helpful or Hype?
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Greeting Students at the Door: Helpful or Hype?

    We’ve all seen the cute videos on social media of primary teachers giving their students a hug, a handshake or a high five outside the classroom door.  But did you know that PGD – [...]

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     Good Riddance, Round Robin!
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Good Riddance, Round Robin!

    Recently, a friend shared this story of her 10 year-old granddaughter who has difficulty with reading.  The students were required to take turns reading aloud to the class, and when [...]

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     Past Picture Books?  You’ve got to be kidding!
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Past Picture Books? You’ve got to be kidding!

    In a recent HIP TIP, I defined “tween” readers as “beyond picture books but not yet ready for complicated novels.” Needless to say, I got a lot of pushback from [...]

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     You Mean It’s All Supposed to Make Sense?
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    You Mean It’s All Supposed to Make Sense?

    On long car trips, I would often read to my husband as he drove. I couldn’t believe how often I made a mistake! (Surprisingly often, they involved “mis-guessing” a hyphenated [...]

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     Is Reading Speed Overrated?
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Is Reading Speed Overrated?

    Counting the number of words a student can read in a minute has become a popular method of measuring that student’s reading fluency. It’s certainly well established that slow, choppy [...]

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     Content or Strategies?
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Content or Strategies?

    It’s generally accepted these days that the best way to teach reading comprehension is to focus on the strategies good readers use to make sense of text. In fact, I call comprehension [...]

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     Hey!  What about Prediction?
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Hey! What about Prediction?

    “Make a prediction about what is going to happen in this book.”  This has probably been the most popular pre-reading routine in schools for time eternal. But in a recent HIP TIP on [...]

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     In Defense of Easy Reading
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers, What We're Talking about at HIP
    Posted

    In Defense of Easy Reading

    I was once asked to judge a public speaking contest (remember those?) in which a middle grade student spoke about the author R.L. Stine. “Goosebumps was the first book I ever read all the way [...]

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     On the Level with “Leveled” Reading
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers, What We're Talking about at HIP
    Posted

    On the Level with “Leveled” Reading

    Poor old Emmett Betts is getting a pretty bad rap these days. Betts was the guy who introduced us to independent, instructional and frustration reading levels almost 70 years ago. Betts [...]

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     Preventing the Pitfalls of Pair-Share
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers, What We're Talking about at HIP
    Posted

    Preventing the Pitfalls of Pair-Share

    The “Think-Pair-Share” model was developed over 30 years ago to help students clarify and articulate their thinking. Its power has been documented in many research studies, and for good reason. [...]

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     Individual oral reading tests?  Who has time?
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Individual oral reading tests? Who has time?

    The ORAL READING RECORD, otherwise known as a Running Record or Informal Reading Inventory, is the best tool for assessing what our students know and can do as readers. An Oral Reading Record [...]

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     Routines and Procedures
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Routines and Procedures

    “An ineffective teacher disciplines. An effective teacher manages.” So says classroom management expert Harry Wong, who attests that discipline shouldn’t be necessary in [...]

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     Cursed by Cursive?
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers, What We're Talking about at HIP
    Posted

    Cursed by Cursive?

    Did you know that messy handwriting can adversely affect academic performance?  Writing expert Steve Graham suggests that bad penmanship can tank test scores from the 50th to the 16th percentile [...]

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     Are we over-diagnosing dyslexia?
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers, What We're Talking about at HIP
    Posted

    Are we over-diagnosing dyslexia?

    I recently came across an article called “Your Child’s Dyslexia Diagnosis is B.S.”  by Julian Elliot, a professor of Education at Durham University in the UK.  According to Elliot, dyslexia is [...]

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     Why Kids Should Read Novels During SSR Time
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers, What We're Talking about at HIP
    Posted

    Why Kids Should Read Novels During SSR Time

    Part of me believes that kids should be able to read whatever they want during SSR (Sustained Silent Reading) Time, whether it’s magazines, manuals or comic books – as long as they’re reading [...]

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     Making the Most of Multiple-Guess
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers, What We're Talking about at HIP
    Posted

    Making the Most of Multiple-Guess

    Confession: I am a recovering test developer.  But those two years I spent as the lead consultant on a large-scale reading test taught me a lot about the assessment/evaluation process. And my [...]

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     Help! I’m losing my reading stamina!
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers, What We're Talking about at HIP
    Posted

    Help! I’m losing my reading stamina!

    I used to be able to sit with my nose buried in a book for hours on end. These days, I can hardly go for 15 minutes without becoming interrupted or distracted. I blame the internet. I get my news [...]

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     Making Teacher Workshops Work for Us
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers, What We're Talking about at HIP
    Posted

    Making Teacher Workshops Work for Us

    Teacher “workshops” have been getting a bad rap lately. After all, we know that sustained professional development is more effective and longer-lasting than the “one-shot” [...]

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     The Wonder of Wait Time:  3-second Magic
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers, What We're Talking about at HIP
    Posted

    The Wonder of Wait Time: 3-second Magic

    Wait Time refers to the period of silence between the time a question is asked and the time when the question is answered.  Research tells us that, on average, we teachers give students less than [...]

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     DON’T Raise Your Hand!
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers, What We're Talking about at HIP
    Posted

    DON’T Raise Your Hand!

    …and other lessons learned about getting students to think more deeply. My grandson has just returned from his first week at Kindergarten and he tells me that one of the most important [...]

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     STRUGGLING BUT NOT RELUCTANT
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers, What We're Talking about at HIP
    Posted

    STRUGGLING BUT NOT RELUCTANT

    I often tend to use the words “struggling” and “reluctant” readers in one breath.  But the reality is that not all of our reluctant readers are struggling. And, as one ELL [...]

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     How do we teach about September 11…
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    How do we teach about September 11…

    …to students who weren’t even born in 2001? When High Interest Publishing first received the manuscript for TERROR 9/11, we were hesitant.  Some of us wondered if publishing the novel [...]

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     RULES OF ENGLISH THAT WE THOUGHT WE KNEW
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    RULES OF ENGLISH THAT WE THOUGHT WE KNEW

    Never end a sentence with a preposition. And never start a sentence with “AND”. These golden rules of writing were drummed into most of us in school – and many of us still teach them to our [...]

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     Rules of English That We Didn’t Know We Knew
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Rules of English That We Didn’t Know We Knew

    In a BBC article that’s gone viral on the Internet, author Mark Forsyth describes a number of ways that fluent speakers of English instinctively apply rules of word order just because they [...]

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     Author’s Purpose:  Why should we care?
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Author’s Purpose: Why should we care?

    Questions about the writer’s purpose appear on virtually every reading test and we often teach students the acronym PIE:  Persuade, Inform or Entertain.  But why does it matter? Several [...]

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     The Magic of Three
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    The Magic of Three

    Just because HIP novels are geared to struggling readers doesn’t mean we don’t sneak in some literary devices here and there. And one of our favourites is the tricolon, or, as we like [...]

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     Was Rosenblatt Wrong? Countering the Critics of Reader Response
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Was Rosenblatt Wrong? Countering the Critics of Reader Response

    Over 80 years ago, Louise Rosenblatt postulated that the process of making meaning from print involves a transaction between the words on the page and the knowledge, beliefs and biases of the [...]

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     Read any good brochures lately?
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Read any good brochures lately?

    Several years ago, I was part of a team developing a large-scale reading assessment. When we were field-testing different types of tasks and text forms, we were surprised to see that our high [...]

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     “Boy Books” and “Girl Books”?
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    “Boy Books” and “Girl Books”?

    Whenever I open this can of worms, I get feedback saying that boys can, should and will read whatever girls read.  And I don’t disagree! But here’s one fact no one can argue with: the [...]

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     Homophonophobia
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Homophonophobia

    I confess I have a phobia about homophones.  You know, those tricky words that sound the same, but are spelled differently and have different meanings.   Mixing homophones is one of the [...]

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     What really matters in Spelling instruction?
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    What really matters in Spelling instruction?

    “Does spelling count?” Does this question drive anyone else crazy? Of course spelling counts!  Would they spell a word differently depending on whether its spelling [...]

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     Let’s Stop Teaching the “Hamburger Paragraph”
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Let’s Stop Teaching the “Hamburger Paragraph”

    I was once asked by a group of teachers, “How many sentences should there be in a paragraph?”   I was a little taken aback by the question but replied, “It depends on the [...]

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     Good-bye, Round Robin!
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    Good-bye, Round Robin!

    Round-robin reading – every student taking turns reading aloud from a passage – has been something of a time-honoured tradition in schools.  But in a rare act of unanimity, reading [...]

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     HI-LO…YES OR NO?
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    HI-LO…YES OR NO?

    High interest/low vocabulary books tend to get a bad rap sometimes.  That’s because all too often they’re neither very interesting nor very easy to read. When looking for good hi-lo [...]

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     How do you start the year?
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    By Brenda
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    How do you start the year?

    Most of us like to start with some sort of assessment of what our students know and can do.  The last few HIP TIPs have been geared toward helping you do just that.  The “Love it or Loathe [...]

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     WHY KIDS SHOULD READ NOVELS DURING SSR TIME
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    By Lori Jamison
    In Support for Struggling Readers
    Posted

    WHY KIDS SHOULD READ NOVELS DURING SSR TIME

    Part of me believes that kids should be able to read whatever they want during SSR (Sustained Silent Reading) Time, whether it’s magazines, manuals or comic books – as long as they’re reading [...]

    READ MORE
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