Professional Book Review: In the Best Interest of Students by Kelly Gallagher

In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom by Kelly Gallagher

Summary by Goodreads:

What is in the best interest of our students? Is it teaching to the newest standards movement, like the Common Core? Teaching that prepares students to take a test? Or is it something more meaningful and authentic?

In his new book, In the Best Interest of Students, Kelly Gallagher notes that there are real strengths in the Common Core standards, and there are significant weaknesses as well. He takes the long view, reminding us that standards come and go but what remains constant is the need to stay true to what we know works in the teaching of reading, writing, speaking and listening. Instead of blindly adhering to the latest standards movement, Kelly advocates:

• Dialing up the amount of reading and writing students are doing.
• Balancing rigorous, high-quality literature and non-fiction with high-interest, student-selected titles.
• Giving students much more choice when it comes to reading and writing activities.
• Encouraging readers to deepen their comprehension by moving beyond the “four corners of the text.”
• Using modeling to enrich students’ writing skills in the prewriting, drafting, and revision stages.
• Helping young writers to achieve more authenticity through the blending of genres.
• Resisting the de-emphasis of narrative and imaginative reading and writing.
• Providing students with more opportunities to sharpen their listening and speaking skills
• Planning lessons that move beyond Common Core expectations. 

In this provocative and insightful new book, Kelly surveys the teaching landscape since the publication of his highly regarded book Readicide, and finds that although some progress has been made, more needs to be done. Amid the frenzy of trying to teach to a new set of standards, Kelly Gallagher is a strong voice of reason, reminding us that instruction should be anchored around one guiding question: What is in the best interest of our students?

My Thoughts:

I have always been a fan of Kelly Gallagher's work since I first read Readacide back in the summer of 2011.  After that one book, I became obsessed with trying to incorporate more of his ideas in my own classroom.  Write Like This was a perfect mix between theory and strategic practice for writing and Deeper Reading helped me get my students to dig more deeply into the texts they were asked to read.  Now that the educational reform world has moved from NCLB to CCSS, more and more professional books are emerging focusing on these ideas.

In his latest book, Gallagher looks more closely at the Common Core State Standards in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. He shares what he thinks are their strengths and pinpoints the concerns that many educators see in focusing solely on these new standards.  As always, Gallagher also offers simple strategies that can be used right away in the classroom.  He is a teacher at heart and no matter what educational reform is politically being pushed, he reminds us of what is most important in our daily jobs - teaching students how to read and write.  It doesn't matter what the standards are, we must take time every day to have our students engaged in learning. Once they are engaged, there is so much that we can get them to do.

I highly recommend Gallagher's latest book to new and refined teachers alike.  Even though I have read all of his other books, I still feel like I walked away with several new ideas and revisited a few of my favorites from past books.