This comprehensive text presents a core of research-based approaches to engaging, effective literacy instruction in the middle grades. Methods and materials are described to foster reading skills, content mastery, and writing in different formats and for different purposes. The authors emphasize the need to tailor instruction to the needs, strengths, skill levels, and interests of diverse students. They offer recommendations for reading lists that incorporate critically acclaimed fiction and nonfiction, popular series books, and other student-friendly materials. Special features include case studies, examples of teaching and assessment activities, and commentary from middle-school teachers and students. Appendices contain reproducible forms and lists of recommended reading materials and resources.

Jo Worthy, PhD, is Associate Professor of Reading Education and Teacher Education at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate practicum courses in reading methods and reading difficulties in addition to courses on reading and language arts research. After receiving her bachelor's degree and teaching certificate in early childhood education, Dr. Worthy taught for many years in Virginia public elementary and middle schools. She continues to spend most of her time in public schools, collaborating closely with teachers, teaching her classes on an elementary school campus, and directing a literacy tutoring program. Dr. Worthy earned her doctorate in 1989 from the University of Virginia in reading education, focusing on educational research, clinical assessment, and children's literature. From 1991 to 1994, as a postdoctoral fellow at the Learning Research and Development Center with Isabel Beck and Margaret McKeown, she researched text comprehension and engagement. Her current research and teaching interests include teacher education, students' reading preferences, and reading difficulties, with a focus on grades 1-6.

Karen Broaddus, PhD, is Associate Professor of Reading Education at James Madison University. Her background experiences include teaching middle and secondary English and working as a children's librarian in school and public library settings. Dr. Broaddus received her doctorate from the University of Virginia in 1995, focusing her studies on reading, English education, and assessment. She began her college career at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma, teaching children's literature, multicultural studies in adolescent literature, language arts, and literacy assessment and intervention. In Tulsa city schools, Dr. Broaddus collaborated with preservice teachers in group research projects on children's responses to multiethnic literature and in individual case study projects on struggling readers. Since her appointment to the faculty at James Madison University in 1998, she has focused her teaching and research on reading, writing, and content area learning in the middle grades.

Gay Ivey, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Reading Education at the University of Maryland at College Park. She began her teaching career in Albemarle County, Virginia, where she was a middle school Title I reading/language arts teacher. Dr. Ivey received her master's degree from the University of Virginia in 1990 and her doctorate from the University of Georgia in 1997. Her first university position was at the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University before moving to the University of Maryland in 1999. She teaches courses in reading instruction and assessment. Her research interests include examining ways to make regular classroom instruction more responsive to individual development and motivation in the upper elementary and middle grades, especially for students who find reading and writing difficult.