Breathing New Life Into Book Clubs: A Practical Guide for Teachers


Sonja Cherry-Paul - 2019
    Managing classroom book clubs can be hard. Real hard. But honestly, is there any better way to get students vested in reading? When book clubs work, don't they create a culture of reading unlike anything else? One that brings out the very best in our students?With both infectious enthusiasm and a realistic perspective, Sonja and Dana take on teachers' doubts and concerns about book clubs, and build a compelling case for their value in every classroom. They provide all the nuts and bolts for creating and managing successful book clubs, including:Dozens of pitfalls and pathways minilessons that address common roadblocks Tips for using technology to enhance book club work for deeper student engagement Suggested book bins for book club work, organized by grade level and genre. Whether you're looking to breathe new life into book clubs or begin implementing them in your classroom, Sonja and Dana give you essential strategies to make book clubs work. Because book clubs, they write, are where students fall in love with reading.

The Ramped-Up Read Aloud: What to Notice as You Turn the Page [Grades Prek-3]


Maria P. Walther - 2018
    In this remarkable resource, Maria Walther shares two-page read-aloud experiences for 101 picture books that tune you into what to notice, say, and wonder in order to bolster students' literacy exponentially.A first-grade teacher for decades, Maria is a master of "strategic savoring." Her lesson design efficiently sparks instructional conversations around each book's cover illustration, enriching vocabulary words, literary language, and the ideas and themes vital to young learners.Teachers, schools, and districts looking to energize your core reading and writing program, search no further: The Ramped-Up Read Aloud delivers a formula for literacy development and a springboard to joy in equal parts.

Best Practices in Literacy Instruction


Lesley Mandel Morrow - 2003
    The field's leading authorities present accessible recommendations for best practices that can be tailored to fit specific classroom circumstances and student populations. Provided are strategies for helping all students succeed—including struggling readers and English language learners—and for teaching each of the major components of literacy. The book also addresses ways to organize instruction and innovative uses of technology. Chapters include concrete examples, Engagement Activities, and resources for further learning. New to This Edition*Incorporates the latest research findings and instructional practices.*Chapters on motivation, content-area teaching, new literacies, and family literacy.*Addresses timely topics such as response to intervention, the new common core standards, English language learning, and policy issues.

Inside Words


Janet Allen - 2007
    Effective vocabulary instruction is particularly vital in the content areas, where the specialized language used by “insiders” often creates a barrier to understanding for those new to the subjects. In Inside Words, Janet Allen merges recent research and key content-area teaching strategies to show teachers how to help students understand the academic vocabulary found in textbooks, tests, articles, and other informational texts.Each instructional tool is listed alphabetically along with its purpose: building background knowledge; teaching words that are critical to comprehension; providing support during reading and writing; developing a conceptual framework; and assessing students' understanding of words and concepts.Inside Words builds on Janet's previous books Words, Words, Words and Tools for Teaching Content Literacy, to provide a much-needed middle and secondary school resource for teaching vocabulary, not only in the language arts, but in all of the content areas.

Role Reversal: Achieving Uncommonly Excellent Results in the Student-Centered Classroom


Mark Barnes - 2013
    A results-only classroom is rich with individual and cooperative learning activities that help students demonstrate mastery learning on their own terms, without being constrained by standards and pedagogy.By embracing results-only learning, you will be able to transform your classroom into a bustling community of learners in which?* Students collaborate daily on a number of long-term, ongoing projects.* Students receive constant narrative feedback.* Yearlong projects target learning outcomes more meaningfully than worksheets, homework, tests, and quizzes.* Freedom and independence are valued over punitive points, percentages, and letter grades.* Students manage themselves and all but eliminate the need for traditional classroom management.Learn how your students can take charge of their own achievement in an enjoyable, project-based, workshop setting that challenges them with real-world learning scenarios--and helps them attain uncommonly excellent results.

Lenses on Reading: An Introduction to Theories and Models


Diane H. Tracey - 2006
    Readers learn why theory matters in designing and implementing high-quality instruction; how to critically evaluate the assumptions and beliefs that guide their own work with students; and the benefits of approaching everyday teaching situations from multiple theoretical perspectives. Every chapter features classroom application activities and illuminating teaching vignettes. Of particular utility to graduate students, the book also addresses research applications, including descriptions of exemplary studies informed by each theoretical model.

Discipline in the Secondary Classroom: A Positive Approach to Behavior Management


Randall S. Sprick - 1985
    Discipline in the Secondary Classroom, Second Edition gives high school teachers step-by-step guidance for designing a behavior management plan that will help prevent misbehavior and increase student motivation. The book is a hands-on resource that contains easy-to-implement strategies distilled from a research-based approach that is proactive, instructional, positive, and effective. Discipline in the Secondary Classroom, Second Edition is filled with forms, samples, and evaluation tools that will help teachers continually fine-tune their management plan to reach more students. Both new and seasoned teachers will find this book invaluable for designing a management plan that prevents problems, motivates students, and teaches them to behave responsibly. The book also equips the teacher with techniques for responding to misbehavior in a calm and consistent manner.

See Me After Class: Advice for Teachers by Teachers


Roxanna Elden - 2009
    And teachers, like the rest of the population, aren't perfect. Yet good teaching happens, and great teachers continue to inspire and educate generations of students. See Me After Class helps those great teachers of the future to survive the classroom long enough to become great.Fueled by hundreds of hilarious--and sometimes shocking--tales from the teachers who lived them, Elden provides tips and strategies that deal head-on with the challenges that aren't covered in new-teacher training. Lessons can go wrong. Parents may yell at you. Sunday evenings will sometimes be accompanied by the dreaded countdown to Monday morning. As a veteran teacher, Elden offers funny, practical, and honest advice, to help teachers walk through the doors of their classrooms day after day with clarity, confidence...and sanity!"You know how you've always thought that if you were a teacher you'd go insane? Well, this very funny book proves that you definitely would. But in a good way."--Dave Barry, Pulitzer Prize winning humor writer"A useful, empathetic guide to weathering the first-year lumps...a frothy, satisfying Guinness for the teacher's soul."--Dan Brown, NBCT, Director of the Future Educators Association, and author of The Great Expectations School"See Me After Class is a must-have book for any teacher's bookshelf. On second thought, you'll probably want to keep it on your classroom desk since you'll use it so much!"--Larry Ferlazzo, teacher and author of Helping Students Motivate Themselves"This is the kind of no-nonsense straight talk that teachers are starved for, but too rarely get...Roxanna Elden tells it like it is, with a heavy dose of practicality, a dash of cynicism, a raft of constructive suggestions, and plenty of wry humor."--Rick Hess, Director of Education Policy Studies at AEI, author of Education Week blog, "Rich Hess Straight Up"

Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters


Robert Probst - 2017
    Now, in Disrupting Thinking they take teachers a step further and discuss an on-going problem: lack of engagement with reading. They explain that all too often, no matter the strategy shared with students, too many students remain disengaged and reluctant readers. The problem, they suggest, is that we have misrepresented to students why we read and how we ought to approach any text - fiction or nonfiction. With their hallmark humor and their appreciated practicality, Beers and Probst present a vision of what reading and what education across all the grades could be. Hands-on-strategies make it applicable right away for the classroom teacher, and turn-and-talk discussion points make it a guidebook for school-wide conversations. In particular, they share new strategies and ideas for helping classroom teachers:–Create engagement and relevance–Encourage responsive and responsible reading–Deepen comprehension–Develop lifelong reading habits“We think it’s time we finally do become a nation of readers, and we know it’s time students learn to tell fake news from real news. It’s time we help students understand why how they read is so important,” explain Beers and Probst. “Disrupting Thinking is, at its heart, an exploration of how we help students become the reader who does so much more than decode, recall, or choose the correct answer from a multiple-choice list. This book shows us how to help students become the critical thinkers our nation needs them to be." Includes online resource bank.

An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement


Marie M. Clay - 1993
    It has introduced thousands of teachers to ways of observing children's progress in the early years of learning about literacy. It has also helped them determine which children need supplementary teaching. Now the revised Second Edition updates this important sourcework with new data, ideas, and implementations from U.S. and U.K. classrooms.

Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching


Anita L. Archer - 2010
    This highly practical and accessible resource gives special and general education teachers the tools to implement explicit instruction in any grade level or content area. The authors are leading experts who provide clear guidelines for identifying key concepts, skills, and routines to teach; designing and delivering effective lessons; and giving students opportunities to practice and master new material. Sample lesson plans, lively examples, and reproducible checklists and teacher worksheets enhance the utility of the volume. Purchasers can also download and print the reproducible materials for repeated use. Video clips demonstrating the approach in real classrooms are available at the authors' website: www.explicitinstruction.org. See also related DVDs from Anita Archer: Golden Principles of Explicit Instruction; Active Participation: Getting Them All Engaged, Elementary Level; and Active Participation: Getting Them All Engaged, Secondary Level

Total Participation Techniques: Making Every Student an Active Learner


Pérsida Himmele - 2011
    Total Participation Techniques presents dozens of ways to engage K 12 students in active learning and allow them to demonstrate the depth of their knowledge and understanding.

Guided Reading: Good First Teaching for All Children


Irene C. Fountas - 1996
    Nonetheless, children still bring to literacy a wide range of experiences and competencies. How, then, might teachers best support a literate community yet still meet the needs of individual readers? For Fountas and Pinnell, the answer lies in guided reading, which allows children to develop as individual readers within the context of a small group. Their new book is the richest, most comprehensive guided reading resource available today and the first systematic offering of instructional support for guided reading adherents."Guided Reading" was written for K-3 classroom teachers, reading resource teachers, teacher educators, preservice teachers, researchers, administrators, and staff developers. Based on the authors' nine years of research and development, it explains how to create a balanced literacy program based on guided reading and supported by read aloud, shared reading, interactive writing, and other approaches. While there is an entire chapter devoted solely to the process by which children become literate, every chapter clearly presents the theoretical underpinnings of the practices it suggests. Also included are guidelines for:observation and assessment dynamic grouping of readers creating sets of leveled books selecting and introducing books teaching for strategies classroom management. Best of all, there are well over 2,500 leveled books in the Appendixes, along with many other reproducible resources that teachers will use for years to come."Good first teaching is the foundation of education and the right of every child," assert the authors. With the publication of this book, educators themselves will find the foundation in reading skills instruction they so rightly deserve.

Grading from the Inside Out: Bringing Accuracy to Student Assessment Through a Standards-Based Mindset


Tom Schimmer - 2016
    While the transition to standards-based practices may be challenging, it is essential for effective instruction and assessment. In this practical guide, the author outlines specific steps your team can take to transform grading and reporting schoolwide. Each chapter includes examples of grading dilemmas, vignettes from teachers and administrators, and ideas for bringing parents on board with change.

Flash Feedback [Grades 6-12]: Responding to Student Writing Better and Faster - Without Burning Out


Matthew M Johnson - 2020
    Inundated with seemingly insurmountable piles of papers to read, respond to, and grade, many teachers often find themselves struggling to balance differentiated, individualized feedback with the one resource they are already overextended on--time.Flash Feedback seeks to alleviate these struggles by taking teachers to the next level of strategic feedback by sharing:How to craft effective, efficient, and more memorable feedback Strategies for scaffolding students through the meta-cognitive work necessary for real revision A plan for how to create a culture of feedback, including lessons for how to train students in meaningful peer response Downloadable online tools for teacher and student use