Literacy Techniques for Building Successful Readers and Writers is a useful compendium of teaching strategies for the elementary grades. Unlike books for parents such as Paul Kropp’s, The Reading Solution, which can be easily read cover to cover, Literacy Techniques is designed as a reference work for the classroom teacher. School librarians, education assistants, parent volunteers, and peer tutors may also find it helpful.

More than 60 new teachers contributed to Literacy Techniques, according to general editor David Booth, based on their experiences working in the classrooms of experienced mentor teachers. As co-ordinator of elementary programs at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Booth was ideally positioned to orchestrate this project, and to compile the results.

How best to foster literacy in our students remains a hotly contested topic in education circles, and Booth is to be commended for plotting a middle course through this minefield. While remaining firmly in the child-centred camp in theory, Literacy Techniques takes a pragmatic approach in practice, with lots of tips for teacher-directed strategies, in addition to solo and peer group discovery learning techniques.

The section on grammar and usage, for instance, dismisses “specific grammar lessons” as a thing of the past: “Research today tells us that children learn about language by using it and then by noticing how it was used.” However, many of the techniques listed are really grammar lessons in disguise. If word games help children to master parts of speech and sentence structure in a palatable, interesting way, then by all means let the games continue.

Like The Reading Environment by British educator Aidan Chambers, Literacy Techniques is not divided into separate sections for each grade or age group. Instead, activities are grouped under the stages of Learning to Read and Write, Reading for Meaning, Becoming a Writer, and Learning about Language. With sections on organizing a literacy classroom and how to choose books, Literacy Techniques covers the entire North American market, including many Canadian sources. The list of resource materials for teachers is fairly extensive. The recommended reading lists for children are rather small and inadequate – but then, so are most teachers’ budgets for learning materials. Two criticisms: I would have appreciated a spiral binding and an index in the book.