Sara R. Hamerla Knihy

The "communication effect" is what happens when we saturate our classrooms with authentic communication, which occurs when students use language to build up ideas and do meaningful things. For starters, authentic communication deepens and increases language development, learning of content concepts and skills, rigor and engagement, empathy and understanding of others’ perspectives, agency and ownership of core ideas across disciplines, and social and emotional skills for building strong relationships. And these are just the starters.With The Communication Effect , Dr. Jeff Zwiers challenges teachers in Grades 3 and up to focus less on breadth and more on depth by grounding instruction and assessment in authentic (rather than pseudo-) communication. This book Our students deserve to get the most out of each minute of each lesson. Authentic communication can help. As you read The Communication Effect and apply its ideas, you will see how much better equipped and inspired your students are to grow into the amazing and gifted people that they were meant to become.

Offers an updated synthesis of conversation work across disciplines and grade levels; highlights the most recent classroom-based research and theory on classroom conversation; answers questions that have emerged during work with teachers and administrators; and presents new classroom strategies and practices for fostering classroom conversations.