Siena Blog

Avg. read time: 4 min.

Siena’s dedicated, talented teachers know that summer reading isn’t just for students. As they’re transitioning between school years, our teachers continue their professional development by engaging with books related to their fields and to LD education more broadly.

For teachers in the LD community, it’s important to keep teaching approaches fresh and research-grounded to best support students with dyslexia and other language-based learning differences.

Summer Teacher Reading List

Reading Department

Redesigning Small-Group Reading Instruction: Structured Literacy Practices for Differentiation, Acceleration, and Intervention — Julie A. Taylor

Why We’re Reading It: Siena’s small classes mean that our dedicated literacy instruction centers students’ diverse learning needs, styles, and reading fluency. Siena’s reading teachers daily address the five essential areas of reading instruction (phonemic awareness, decoding, comprehension, fluency, vocabulary) through multisensory instruction in flexible student groupings. This book will further support our reading teachers' work to strengthen students' auditory and visual memory in reading and spelling through structured exercises using movement to learn and remember new words and develop their sense of left-right directionality.

Humanities Department

Writing Revolution 2.0 — Judith C. Hochman and Natalie Wexler

Why We’re Reading It: Writing is a key part of our curriculum at Siena. This updated edition of Writing Revolution supports our teachers’ evolving approaches to writing instruction by providing important classroom activities and methods to address our students’ writing needs, such as their organization, revision, research, peer review, and analytical skills. 

Math Department

Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics — Peter Liljedahl

Why We’re Reading It: This book complements Siena’s inquiry-based math courses and offers research-based best practices to further develop our students’ understanding of mathematical concepts and skills.

Science Department

Ambitious Science Teaching — Mark Windschitl, Jessica Thompson, and Melissa Braaten

Why We’re Reading It: Our science teachers are reading this book to strengthen how they help all students engage deeply with science. Ambitious Science Teaching focuses on ways to make science lessons clear, meaningful, and accessible—no matter a student’s background or experience. It offers practical strategies to spark curiosity, support student thinking, and encourage rich classroom discussions. By using this approach, Siena teachers aim to help students build strong science skills like explaining ideas with evidence, modeling, and thoughtful questioning—all while making sure every student has a voice and a chance to succeed.

Department Chairs

Unearthing Joy: A Guide to Culturally and Historically Responsive Teaching and Learning — Gholdy Muhammad

Why We’re Reading It: This book continues to support Siena’s commitment to diversity and equity inside and outside the classroom. This will deepen our teachers’ efforts to create meaningful, inclusive, and joyful learning experiences for all students. In this follow-up to Cultivating Genius, Dr. Gholdy Muhammad adds joy as a key focus—alongside identity, skills, intellect, and critical thinking. The book highlights how centering students’ cultures and histories can inspire a stronger sense of purpose and connection in the classroom.

Athletics and P.E.

Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain — Dr. John Ratey

Why We’re Reading It: Movement is very important to all aspects of learning at Siena, and our students benefit both physically and mentally from regular P.E., recess, and other forms of movement inside and outside the classroom.

Siena Reading Resources

If your student needs some extra reading for the rest of the summer, see this Student Summer Reading blog post from 2024 for diverse elementary, middle school, and high school titles.

Need some more reading recommendations from The Siena School blog? See previous posts from the 2024-25 school year commemorating AAPI Heritage Month, Women’s History Month, Black History Month, and Hispanic Heritage Month.

The Siena School, a national leader in dyslexia education, serves bright, college-bound students with language-based learning differences on DC Metro area campuses in Silver Spring, MD (grades 3-4 and 5-12) and Oakton, VA (grades 3-12).