Teaching with the ReadersBrain®
Good writers are always good readers first. Teachers in the know wisely advise students to read more to improve their writing. In fact, this advice stems from the way our brains work to perceive the rhythm of sentences, even during silent reading. More impressively, all of us absorb sentence structure and usage rules through our reading in ways that shape our writing.
This approach enables ESL and basic writers alike to rapidly learn even the impossibly complex rules of English usage—painlessly—through simply reading. Similarly, writers mimic the sentence structure of the stories and books they read, boosting the complexity and length of their sentences. Show me any writer’s sentences, and I can tell you what he or she reads regularly.
Improving Reading and Writing
The ReadersBrain® 5C’s:
Giving Teachers Tools to Instruct, Assess, and Coach Student Writers
The ReadersBrain® Method groups writing into the 5C’s:
1. Clarity stems from word choice and sentence structure;
2. Continuity ties sentences together and enhances readers’ memory of details;
3. Coherence organizes paragraphs and documents for rapid comprehension;
4. Concision eliminates all categories of repetition that emerge from English’s origins;
5. Cadence involves variations in sentences’ beginnings, complexity, and lengths.
Together, the 5Cs give teachers the tools to show students how any reader’s brain would interpret their sentences and paragraphs. And these same tools help even poor students make rapid progress in their writing. I can help you discover how to use these tools to make instruction in writing and classroom workshops into truly constructive learning experiences.
I have also coached teachers to use the fifth C, Cadence, to help students:
rapidly acquire vocabulary
use sophisticated sentence structure
raise reading levels
eliminate errors in grammar and usage.
I’ve helped teachers to learn how to use the 5Cs to create rubric-based assessments that rapidly pinpoint students’ writing strengths and weaknesses.
Writing Outcomes You Can See—and Measure
When you use the ReadersBrain® Method, you can actually observe changes in your students’ writing across a single semester in students from grades 2-12. With students in Adult and Higher Education, improvements are even more dramatic. See the results of the ReadersBrain® Method for yourself.
Grade 3 Student: Before and After
