Burke, Jim (2005). Accessing School: Teaching Struggling Readers to Achieve Academic and Personal Success. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

In my commute to and from school, I’ve seen a bumper sticker that says: “If you can read this, thank a teacher.” In many cases, the adage on the bumper sticker is true, but some children advance to high school with the ability to read little besides that bumper sticker. In his book Accessing School: Teaching Struggling Readers to Achieve Academic and Personal Success, author Jim Burke outlines a plan for reaching high schoolers who have not mastered the basics of literacy.

For high school or even middle grades classrooms, this book provides a solid framework of ideas for reaching and teaching students who lack strong reading skills. In six chapters, Burke spotlights a remedial reading class, called ACCESS, which he pioneered in the Burlingame public schools in California. Burke first provides an overview of the ACCESS class, explaining how and why the class targets low-performing high school students and attempts to fast-forward their learning. In his description, Burke provides ample research to back up his ideas for the ACCESS class. Burke then carefully lays out the set up of the class and provides numerous ideas for engendering academic success in the subsequent chapters. Even though I teach elementary students, I could relate to Burke’s ideas about how reading buddies stimulate struggling readers. As the book concludes, Burke looks at how to measure student success and delves into the roles that teachers play in the ACCESS class.

Throughout the narrative, Burke writes with an easy, friendly tone and provides real examples from his teaching career and his own life as a father. Although the book mainly seems geared toward administrators looking to implement a new kind of remedial reading class, many of Burke’s ideas are useful for classroom teachers who work with struggling readers on any level.

Pages: $24.00     Price: 224    ISBN: 0-325-00737-3

Reviewed by Katie Wester Neal, who recently completed a Master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania, and currently, teaches fifth grade in Sterling, Virginia. Her academic interests include gender differences in education and helping struggling readers improve.