Jennifer Kobrin's Page

Christopher Johnson’s new book, “Microstyle: The Art of Writing Little,” reviewed yesterday in the New York Times, is a “guide to verbal strategies that make very short messages effective, interesting, and memorable.”  ‘Big Style,’ (a term the author uses that roughly equates to what my father calls ‘the grammar police’) confounds the set of necessary rules that allow readers to make…

Reading by the end of 3^rd grade is critical for success in school and in life. After 3^rd grade, the focus shifts from learning to read to reading to learn. Research shows that students who haven’t mastered basic reading skills by the end of 3^rd grade—whom we call ‘striving readers’—are less likely to get on track and keep up with their peers’ academic achievement. Research also shows that striving readers after the primary years are more…