There are many adolescent readers who, for a variety of reasons, find it difficult to connect with written words and have fallen behind on their foundational reading skills. Thankfully, it’s never too late to give these necessary skills a boost and help students find joy in reading and learning. Armed with equity, empathy, evidence-based research, and practical application, Teaching Foundational Skills to Adolescent Readers provides classroom practices teachers can use with the whole class or with small groups to integrate reading support seamlessly with grade-level content learning.

Bestselling authors Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, along with Sarah Ortega, Kierstan Barbee, and Aida Allen-Rotell, creatively organize the book around a metaphor: adolescent literacy is a battery―when all the parts are connected, working together, and fully charged―literacy can thrive.

Personal Review: The Teaching Foundational Skills to Adolescent Readers book is a rare and valuable resource that focuses specifically on adolescent readers—an often overlooked age group. It offers strong, practical advice that educators can immediately apply in their classrooms. I was able to read it in an afternoon and came away with several annotated pages of ideas to revisit and implement. I especially appreciated the authors’ use of the battery metaphor, with each step and strategy representing another level of a student’s understanding. If you or your school are seeking an effective, research-based resource to support middle and high school readers, this book is an excellent addition to your professional library.

Top-rated by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), this bestselling, user-friendly guide to effective reading instruction is solidly grounded in the science of reading.

Combining the best features of an academic text and a practical, hands-on teacher’s guide, the Teaching Reading Sourcebook comprehensively covers the scientific basis and instructional elements of the five essential components of effective reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. To facilitate comprehension and learning, the Sourcebook is organized according to the guiding questions behind explicit instruction (what? why? when? and how?). 

The 3rd Edition includes a new section on reading instruction within a Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) framework.

Personal Review:  I have found this sourcebook an incredibly user-friendly and practical resource for educators. Its clear organization allows you to quickly access any component and find valuable, research-based strategies for all grade levels. I especially appreciate how the content is laid out by progression and explicit instruction steps, making it easy to apply in real classroom settings. As a former high school teacher, I found the sections on fluency and comprehension particularly insightful—not only for secondary students but for supporting readers at every level. This book is truly a “go-to” resource that I would highly recommend to any educator looking to strengthen their reading instruction.