Laura Robb

Author, teacher, coach, and speaker, Laura Robb has completed 43 years of teaching in grades 4-8. She presently coaches teachers in reading and writing workshops at Powhatan School in Virginia. She also coaches teachers in grades K-10 in Staunton, VA, Amherst, VA, Lebanon, OH, and Long Island, NY. Each year Robb returns to the classroom for several weeks.

She has written more than 18 books for teachers — her most recent Scholastic titles are a second edition of her best selling book, Teaching Reading in Middle School and a short, focused book for content teachers, Reading Strategy Lessons for Science & Social Studies. Her three books on differentiating reading instruction—Differentiating Reading Instruction, Assessments for Differentiating Reading instruction, and her 476 page binder, Teaching Reading: A Differentiated Approach for Grades 4 and Up, support teachers as they try to meet the needs of diverse levels of readers. In addition, Robb has written a big book for teaching reading strategies, Teaching Reading With Think Aloud Lessons, a book on teaching expository writing, Teaching Nonfiction Writing, and a best selling book on content reading, Teaching Reading in Social Studies, Science, and Math.

Robb has published three books with Heinemann. Her most recent book is based on a National Survey of 1,500 middle school students in twelve states: Teaching Middle School Writers: What Every English Teacher Needs to Know. At the back of this book is a DVD with Robb teaching writing and conferring with and interviewing students. In the spring of 2012 Robb’s First Hand curriculum, published by Heinemann, will be available: Smart Writing: Practical Teaching Units for Middle School Writers. Smart Writing is totally aligned with the Common Core State Writing Standards. The curriculum also includes a handbook written to and for students, Smart Writing: A Student Handbook.

Robb’s two other Heinemann books are Redefining Staff Development: A Collaborative Model for Teachers and Administrators, and Literacy Links: Strategies That Develop the Emergent Literacy Needed for Success in Reading and Writing.



Robb has designed classroom libraries for Scholastic. Presently, Robb has classroom libraries for grades 3-9. She also works with Scholastic to customize classroom libraries when school districts request tailoring purchases to their specific needs. Robb is working on the teaching materials for XBooks, a nonfiction library for students in grades six and seven, published by Scholastic.

Co-author for The Great Source’s Daybooks and Sourcebooks, Grades 2, 3, 4, and 5, Robb also co-authored The Great Source’s Summer Success Reading Program for Grades K-8, their Reading Handbook for grades 6-8, one for grades 4-5, and one for grade 3. Presently, Robb is the senior author of Reading Advantage, a Great Source program for middle and high school students who read two to eight years below grade level. 

 

 Robb completed a three-year term on the National Council of Teacher’s of English Commission on Reading. Robb and commission colleagues each wrote a chapter for a book on literacy for NCTE, What Research REALLY Says about Teaching and Learning to Read, edited by Stephen B. Kucer. She also served on the editorial review board for Language Arts magazine. Robb wrote the “Motivating Readers’” Column for Instructor Magazine for 1996-1998. She also collected two poetry anthologies: Snuffles and Snouts illustrated by Steven Kellogg (Dial, 1995), and Music and Drum illustrated by Deborah Lill (Philomel, 1997).

Robb is a keynote speaker at conferences all over the country and in Canada; she trains teachers on differentiating reading instruction, inferential thinking and text dependent comprehension, content area reading, and on writing workshop.