In Notebook Connections: Strategies for the Reader's Notebook , author Aimee Buckner focuses on the reading workshop and how teachers can transform students from couch potato- readers who read and answer basic questions about a text to readers who critically think beyond their reading. Buckner's fourth grade students use reader's notebooks as a place to document their thinking about a text and explore ideas without every entry being judged or graded as evidence of their reading progress. Buckner describes her model as flexible enough for students to respond in a variety of ways yet structured enough to provide explicit instruction.

Inside Notebook Connections, you'll find:

• Ways to launch, develop, and fine-tune a reader's notebook program
• Teacher-guided lessons for each chapter
• Assessment tips to review student growth and comprehension levels
• How to select the strategies that work for them and incorporate into the workshop

Notebook Connections provides a comprehensive model for making reader's notebooks the centerpiece of your reading workshop. Reader's notebooks become a bridge that helps students make connections between ideas, texts, strategies, and their work as readers and writers.