Maddie Witter - Reading Without Limits: Teaching Strategies to Build Independent Reading for Life

Praise for Reading Without Limits

Insightful, detailed, original; Reading Without Limits is an outstanding guide for educators.

Deborah Kenny, Ph.D., founder and chief executive officer, Harlem Village Academies

Reading Without Limits isn't just a tool for you to help get kids to pass a test. Maddie Witter gives teachers and leaders the tools to create lasting change in kids' lives.

Wendy Kopp, founder and CEO, Teach For America

Maddie Witter is a stunning teacher and leader and has given us all a tremendous gift in sharing her practice with us within the pages of this book. Teachers, school leaders, and anyone else interested in ensuring your students become only the strongest, most avid readers should devour this book, keep it near, and use it again and again.

Susan E. Toth, director of Secondary Academics, KIPP DC, former principal of Mercer Middle School with the Seattle Public Schools

The developments have truly been remarkable. Maddie Witter's practical techniques have revolutionized literacy education within our setting. Our students now use a diverse skill set to build a deeper understanding. Further, Maddie's potent, yet simple strategies have allowed our students to develop an appetite for reading and created lasting change.

Matthew Hyde, campus principal, Parkville Juvenile Justice Precinct, Melbourne, Australia

Copyright 2013 by Maddie Witter. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and is on file with the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-1-118-47215-6 (paper); ISBN 978-1-118-48373-2 (ebk.);

ISBN 978-1-118-48374-9 (ebk.); ISBN 978-1-118-48375-6 (ebk.)

The key to KIPP's success is the remarkable team of teachers and principals who work at each KIPP school. We are excited to debut the KIPP Educator Series to share great ideas, practices, and proven strategies developed within KIPP schools. Each book in the series will feature work that has produced transformative results for students.

These books do not represent a single official KIPP way. That's because at KIPP, we don't believe there is only one way to approach the teaching of any subject matter. In fact, great instruction often results from the synthesis of approaches previously considered diametric opposites and incompatible. Part of KIPP's credo is, If there is a better way, we try to find it. As we find better ways, we will keep sharing them.

Rooted in a shared commitment to ensuring that all students will learn, KIPP teachers experiment and collaborate to maximize everyone's learning. KIPP encourages teachers to work together and share their practices in order to build off of each others' successes. And, when practices prove extraordinarily successful, as a team and a family we celebrate them. The KIPP Educator Series represents another way of sharing and celebrating these practices.

In this collection of books, educators will find practical examples, techniques, and approaches tried and tested in KIPP schools. We hope other educators will take these ideas and make them even better to help each and every student build a better tomorrow for themselves and us all.

To the students and families of KIPP Infinity Middle School

Foreword

You've picked up a remarkable book written by a remarkable teacher, Maddie Witter. In Reading Without Limits, Maddie describes tried-and-true practices for teaching literacy and the research behind them in a simple and accessible manner. Maddie and countless other teachers have used these ideas to help thousands of kids transform their lives through readingincluding the students at Maddie's former school, KIPP Infinity, which ranked number one out of New York City's 1,089 elementary and middle schools in 2008 and has since remained one of New York City's top-performing schools.

Reading, along with its companion skill, writing, is the gateway to deeper learning in the content areas, to higher education access, and to almost all career success. Since the earliest people populated this planet, reading has paved a path to knowledge and freedom.

Harriett Ballone of the finest teachers in history, life-altering mentor to Mike Feinberg (KIPP's co-founder) and me, and one of the primary inspirations behind KIPPenshrined reading's importance in this chant, popularized in KIPP schools nationwide:

You got to read, baby, read. The more you read, the more you know. Knowledge is power and power is freedom and I want it!

I want it, is the wish, silent or stated, of every student who walks into every school in every city in the world. Sometimes they might not even know what it is yet. Nonetheless, they know they want itlet's call it the power to pursue their dreams. Reading is the key that opens almost all future opportunities.

Reading Without Limits starts by sharing some of the dispiriting statistics regarding literacy in the United States. Custom suggests that I do the same here. Instead, I'd prefer to share a small part of the story of one young boy and the life-altering difference a skilled teacher of literacy can make. That boy was me.