Breakthrough to Meaning is exactly what teachers are looking for: a resource full of new, thoughtful strategies that help children interact with texts in deeper, more authentic ways.

• Donald H. Graves

I especially liked the emphasis on teacher demonstration and how teachers challenged children to broaden their perspectives and to develop an understanding of other points of view.

• Carol Avery

What if there were a single literacy strategy that helped learners of all ages across all contexts read critically, write reflectively, think deeply - and, yes, even improve their performance on standardized reading and writing assessments? There is. It’s called the subtext strategy, and in Breakthrough to Meaning, you’ll find out how it can help children improve in virtually every aspect of their learning. The power of the subtext strategy is its ability to use numerous entryways into learning - including not only reading and writing but also art and drama - to bridge the multiple literacies kids bring to school and the demands of conventional print. It’s a fresh, manageable way to work depth and breadth into literacy instruction while building students’ skills and abilities in important areas such as critical literacy, reading and writing narratives or persuasive essays, media literacy, and standardized testing. Subtexting leads children to explore different perspectives, helping them understand characters, authors, and situations, even ones quite unlike their own. They’ll also learn to think and write in more informed and sensitive ways as they respond to an audience’s needs, making Breakthrough to Meaning ideal for tackling a variety of genres, including on-demand writing.

Breakthrough to Meaning’s smart, specific, and easy-to-implement subtext-based reading, writing, and thinking lessons address the major needs of the contemporary classroom. It includes practical instructional strategies, links to national content standards, vignettes of teachers and students using subtexting, techniques for improving the assessment and instruction of English language learners through subtexting, as well as graphic organizers, charts, and compelling examples of student work.

Breakthrough to Meaning is a novel and practical across-the-curriculum resource that improves students’ abilities to make meaning, respond to texts, and write in powerful ways.