1. Katie McKnight, Ph.D.
Katie@katherinemcknight.com

2. The Textbook Challenge
 Often Superficial
 Exceedingly Hard to Read
 Badly Designed
 Authoritarian
 Inaccurate
 Not Written for Students

3. Six Ways to Use Textbooks
More Effectively
1. Empathy- Do you remember when you had
difficulty in a subject and the text was difficult?
2. Help the students to get started. We need to
“front-load” our teaching.
3. Don’t leave kids alone with their textbooks.
4. Choose wisely. Be more selective with
assignments. Be strategic about what is most
important.
5. Supplement richly.

4. Textbook Feature Analysis
 Think about the textbooks that your students
encounter. What kinds of features would they find in
these texts?
 How do textbooks affect our students’ study habits and
success?

5. Now What?
 Consider the role of your textbook in teaching your
subject matter.
 How can you promote critical thinking with
textbooks?

6. Strategies for Textbooks: A Sample
 Sticky Notes
 Bookmarks
 ReQuest
 Supplement Richly
 Audio Assist
 Making Smaller Book Versions

10. Daniels, H. and Zimmerman, S. (2004). Subjects
Matter: Every Teachers’ Guide to Content –Area
Reading. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, p 121.
Sketch
Through Text

11. Stop and Write

12. Textbook Circles
 Modeled after Literature Circles
 Students work in teams of 4-5 members.
 Going BEYOND the textbook
 Using a wide variety of reading material
 Students choose what they will read.

13. Getting Started
 Assign groups for some reading experiences.
 When the students are reading a longer work, groups
are formed by choice.

14. Going Beyond the Textbook
 Other than textbooks, how do we get information?
 Look at the adult world and what do we read and use
to get the information that we need?

15. Going Beyond the Textbook
 Other than textbooks, how do we get information?
 Look at the adult world and what do we read and use
to get the information that we need?
 Reference Books
 News Stories (Print and Digital Media)
 Historical Accounts
 Memoirs
 Narrated nonfiction

16. Using a Wide Variety
of Reading Material
 Fiction vs Non Fiction
 Levels of text difficulty
 Different levels of length
 Primary and Secondary Sources
 Multiple Texts and Single Sources

17. Classroom Libraries
 Articles
 Magazines
 Website Lists
 A wide variety of trade books

18. Books for Content Reading
 See American Library Association
 http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/yals
a.cfm
 The Official Site of the Assembly on Literature for
Adolescents
 http://www.alan-ya.org/

19. Resources I Like
 Subjects Matter: Every Teacher's Guide to Content-Area
Reading, Harvey Daniels and Steven Zemelman
 Differentiating Textbooks: Strategies to Improve
Student Comprehension and Motivation, James Grant
 The Teacher’s Big Book of Graphic Organizers,
Katherine McKnight

20. How to Reach Me
 Email: katie@katherinemcknight.com
 Website: katherinemcknight.com
 Twitter: @literacyworld
 Facebook: Katie Siewert McKnight Literacy