Cecil, Nancy L. (2001).
Activities for Striking a Balance in Early Literacy.
Scottsdale, Arizona: Holcomb Hathaway.
In this follow-up to her textbook, Striking a Balance: Positive Practices for Early Literacy (Holcomb Hathaway, 1999), Nancy Cecil offers 70 activities for literacy instruction that "have been found to be highly effective in today's diverse classrooms." Aimed towards pre-service and new teachers, the book is divided into seven chapters covering different aspects of literacy, such as spelling, vocabulary, comprehension, and phonics. Each chapter includes: 10 activities, the details of which are clearly described; suggestions for other activities; a list of children's books that speak to the element of literacy being addressed; other resources that may be used to help develop early literacy; and questions to think about after an activity has been completed by students.
The individual activities state the intended grade level (ranging from pre-K to 3rd), the purpose of the activity, materials required, and the procedure involved. Cecil also includes suggestions on how to assess the activity. To help teachers integrate the activities into their curriculum and evaluate their effectiveness in doing so, Cecil provides an Appendix with suggestions for video self-assessment, an instruction and reflection profile and a lesson plan format. The book is three-hole punched and the pages are serrated for easy removal.
These activities, based on what Cecil calls "state-of-the-art understanding of the best practices for teaching young children to become literate human beings," have been field tested by teachers and thus should be practical and relatively straightforward to implement. Pre-service teachers will find this book the most useful, but experienced teachers would also gain insight and ideas from it. While reading Striking a Balance is not essential to understanding Activities for Striking a Balance, education students and teachers will find the earlier title helpful in providing the theoretical foundation for the activities.
