This document discusses various ways to help readers progress from basic to more advanced levels of reading through the use of "reading ladders." It describes creating stronger and independent readers by focusing on meaning, play, empathy, symphony (blending voices), and story. Various "rungs" on potential reading ladders are proposed using different genres, formats, topics, and levels of complexity. The goal is to scaffold readers to higher levels by meeting them where they are and providing stepping stones to more advanced material.

1. Taking Readers from Point A to Point B and
Beyond
Teri S. Lesesne
Sam Houston State University

2. Bulwer-Lytton
worst first line
annual contest
2009 winners

3. She walked into my office on legs as long as
one of those long-legged birds that you see in
Florida - the pink ones, not the white ones -
except that she was standing on both of
them, not just one of them, like those
birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't wearing
pink, but I knew right away that she was
trouble, which those birds usually aren't.

4. Towards the dragon's lair the
fellowship marched -- a noble human
prince, a fair elf, a surly dwarf, and a
disheveled copyright attorney who was
frantically trying to find a way to
differentiate this story from "Lord of
the Rings."

5. On a fine summer morning during the days
of the Puritans, the prison door in the
small New England town of B----n opened
to release a convicted adulteress, the
Scarlet Letter A embroidered on her
dress, along with the Scarlet Letters B
through J, a veritable McGuffey's Reader of
Scarlet Letters, one for each little tyke
waiting for her at the gate.

6. So, how do we get them
from here to there?

7. Reading Ladders

8. Creating stronger and more
independent readers

9. Meaning
Play
Empathy
Symphony
Story
Design
9

10. 10
Readers make meaning
(Louise Rosenblatt) from the
text. However, they need to
know how to negotiate the
text FOR meaning.

11. Must use illustrations
for some of the
meaning for the story.
Vygotsky calls this
scaffolding. But GNs
are perfect for
ELL, dyslexic, strugglin
g readers, low vocab
students.
GN for young
readers

12. Concrete poetry also
has scaffolding.
Note that this book
could belong to many
different reading
ladders
(poetry, humor)
Poetry that
appeals

13. Wordsong/Boyds Mills

14. "Brevity gets right to the point
doesn't dawdle, dicker, or delay
always short and sweet whenever
there is something to do
or say
brevity comes in handy when you
are subject to a chewing out
a bout of the flu
a pain in the neck
or waiting in line for the loo
in fact, this poem has gone on so long
that its recital
would no longer qualify
as an example of its title"
14

15. AUDIO
Another way to
assist readers in
making meaning is
to use
audiobooks, especia
lly unabridged audio
as scaffold.

16. Myths and legends

17. Myths and legends

18. Myths and legends

19. 19

20. Play
 Humor depends on play
 Word play is another variation
 And do not forget PLAYS in and of
themselves

21. Humor is developmental

22. Humor Ladder

23. HarperCollins

24. Viking

25. Tor/Starscape

26. HarperCollins

27. Holt

28. Random House

29. Word play

30. More word play

31. The play’s the thing

32. Hamlet

33. Candlewick

34. The play’s the thing

35. 35

36. Walker

37. Scholastic

38. Front Street

39. Divorce

40. Real beauty

41. Being “different”

42. 42

43. Symphony calls to mind
Many voices or instruments
blending into one

44. Scholastic-Swan lake

45. 45Holt

46. 46

47. http://www.themillions.com/201
0/03/judging-books-by-their-
covers-u-s-vs-u-k.html

48. Candlewick

49. Egmont

50. FSG

51. Story circle

52. 52

53. There are many ways to describe Ms. Underdorf.
She was brilliant and joyous, and she believed-probably correctly-that
libraries contain the answers to everything, and that if you can’t find the
information you seek in the library, then such information probably
does not exist in this or any other parallel universe now or ever to be
known.
She was thoughtful and kind and always believed the best of everybody.
She was, above all else, a master librarian and knew where to find any
book on any subject in the shortest possible time.
And she was wonderfully unhinged…
And so the Amazing Armadillo.
53

54. Candlewick

55. Dutton

56. 3 stories become 1

57. Same time, not POV

58. Cinco Puntos

59. 59

60. Candlewick

61. HarperCollins

62. Aladdin

64. Norton

65. Nonfiction Ladder

66. Art and artists

67. Fascinating topics

68. Physics for tweens

69. Biography

70. HarperCollins

71. 6 word memoirs
 FIVE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND TWO OBITUARIES.
YOU'RE THE PARENT. ACT LIKE ONE.
EXAGGERATION IS THE SPICE OF LIFE.
GOD ABANDONED ME, SO I RECIPROCATED.
I NEVER GOT MY HOGWARTS LETTER. (could be Hank Green's
memoir?)
WOULD BE SLUT GIVEN THE CHANCE.
YOU MADE ME STRONGER. THANKS, RAPIST.
MEASURED OUT MY LIFE IN LITERATURE.
LIFE IS FULL OF "AWKWARD TURTLE" MOMENTS.
INSERT MELODRAMATIC CLICHE-TEEN ICK HERE.

72. chronological

73. Scholastic

74. Voices of music

75. FSG

76. 1968

77. Candlewick

78. History alive

79. Audio Ladder

80. Easy listening

81. Newbery/Odyssey

82. More challenging

83. And more challenges

84. Mini ladders

85. Langston Hughes

86. World building

87. Two conceptions of same story

88. Current conflicts

89. The possibilities are endless!