And not just for kids who read well. They also work for kids who struggle in reading, who don't respond to abstract concepts. -Tanny McGregorInside, every kid wants to love reading-sometimes they need our help to see it.That's where Tanny McGregor's memorable, sensory-driven lessons come in.The chapters in this book, she writes, are a collection of ideas about how to launch genres, how to introduce your students to the personalities of each, and how to build a curiosity and appreciation for what each genre has to offer. Use the seed ideas suggested in this volume with a genre of your choice and see how it grows!Genre Connections makes learning achievable, accessible, and incremental for all readers-including struggling readers. Tanny's lessons use everyday objects, works of art, music, and her much-loved anchor charts to help readers get acquainted with seven commonly taught genres and to discover what makes them unique.Her launching sequences gradually release responsibility for learning about text types, and they can be adapted for any genre. They help readers weave creative, sensory threads into a tapestry of understanding by taking them from a fun introductory object lesson to an immersive experience.Looking for the perfect partner for Tanny's Comprehension Connections? Or for a new way to bring the inner reader out in any student? Let the ideas in Genre Connections inspire you to help your students get to know genres quickly, confidently, and effectively.

    Since then, the ways we process written language have changed dramatically with many concerned about both their own changes and that of children. New research on the reading brain chronicles these changes in the brains of children and adults as they learn to read while immersed in a digitally dominated medium.Drawing deeply on this research, this book comprises a series of letters Wolf writes to us—her beloved readers—to describe her concerns and her hopes about what is happening to the reading brain as it unavoidably changes to adapt to digital mediums. Wolf raises difficult questions, including:Will children learn to incorporate the full range of "deep reading" processes that are at the core of the expert reading brain?Will the mix of a seemingly infinite set of distractions for children’s attention and their quick access to immediate, voluminous information alter their ability to think for themselves?With information at their fingertips, will the next generation learn to build their own storehouse of knowledge, which could impede the ability to make analogies and draw inferences from what they know?Will all these influences, in turn, change the formation in children and the use in adults of "slower" cognitive processes like critical thinking, personal reflection, imagination, and empathy that comprise deep reading and that influence both how we think and how we live our lives?Will the chain of digital influences ultimately influence the use of the critical analytical and empathic capacities necessary for a democratic society?How can we preserve deep reading processes in future iterations of the reading brain?Who are the "good readers" of every epoch?Concerns about attention span, critical reasoning, and over-reliance on technology are never just about children—Wolf herself has found that, though she is a reading expert, her ability to read deeply has been impacted as she has become, inevitably, increasingly dependent on screens.Wolf draws on neuroscience, literature, education, technology, and philosophy and blends historical, literary, and scientific facts with down-to-earth examples and warm anecdotes to illuminate complex ideas that culminate in a proposal for a biliterate reading brain. Provocative and intriguing, Reader, Come Home is a roadmap that provides a cautionary but hopeful perspective on the impact of technology on our brains and our most essential intellectual capacities—and what this could mean for our future.

    A host of specialists have contributed to the collection. This new edition includes more detailed discussion of a wider range of reference-related services including interlibrary loan, document delivery, and readers' advisory services. There is also increased attention to ethical issues and a stronger focus on user-centered services, both face-to-face and mediated by technology. In addition, the authors discuss Web sites of significant value to reference services and the impact of the Internet and World Wide Web on reference services. This carefully designed and readable text explains the essential theory and provides the practical knowledge necessary for an initial reference course. Its broad scope and organizational clarity will benefit students and practitioners.

    Now, with Guiding Readers and Writers (Grades 3-6), Fountas and Pinnell support teachers on the next leg of the literacy journey, addressing the unique challenges of teaching upper elementary students. The product of many years of work with classroom teachers, Guiding Readers and Writers (Grades 3-6) is one of the most comprehensive, authoritative guides available today. It explores all the essential components of a quality literacy program in six separate sections:Breakthrough to Literacy: Fountas and Pinnell present the basic structure of the language/literacy program within a breakthrough framework that encompasses the building of community through language, word study, reading, writing, and the visual arts. The framework plays out as three blocks, which can be interpreted as conceptual units as well as segments of time within the school day. Specific information on how to structure a reading and writing workshop is provided. A practical chapter on organizing and managing the classroom will help you implement the principles in your own classroom.Independent Reading: It is essential for students to develop interests and tastes as readers, selecting books for themselves every day. Fountas and Pinnell devote four chapters to independent reading, exploring how to structure teaching, minilessons, conferences, groupshare, and ways to use response journals as part of a reading workshop.Guided Reading: The chapters in this section provide detailed information on planning for guided reading, dynamic grouping for effective teaching, and selecting, introducing, and using leveled texts. Fountas and Pinnell describe characteristics of texts related to difficulty and ways to organize texts in your classroom and school.Literature Study: This section of the book discusses how to make students experiences with literature as rich as possible. The authors offer specific suggestions for forming groups, guiding student choices, and establishing and teaching routines for literature discussion. A full chapter explores reader response and ways to help readers dig deep to uncover the meaning of texts.Teaching for Comprehension and Word Analysis: This detailed look at the reading process explores both oral and silent reading, processes and behaviors related to comprehension, and ways to help students construct meaning. Included are twelve systems for sustaining the reading process and expanding meaning, plus discussions of the important areas of phonics, spelling, and vocabulary.The Reading and Writing Connection: These chapters showcase the instructional contextspoetry, writers notebooks, writers talks, genre, content literacy, and student researchthat support students in connected reading and writing. An informative overview of the characteristics of fiction and nonfiction will help you teach students to read and write a variety of genre. Whats more, the authors suggest ways to help students learn the genre of testing and perform the kinds of reading and writing tasks that tests require. They also detail the continuous thoughtful assessment that guides all aspects of effective teaching.A special feature appears at the end of each section, in which Fountas and Pinnell provide indispensable suggestions for working with struggling readers and writers.

    Detentions. Suspensions. Expulsions. These are the established tools of school discipline for kids who don't abide by school rules, have a hard time getting along with other kids, don't seem to respect authority, don't seem interested in learning, and are disrupting the learning of their classmates. But there's a big problem with these strategies: They are ineffective for most of the students to whom they are applied.It's time for a change in course.Here, Dr. Ross W. Greene presents an enlightened, clear-cut, and practical alternative. Relying on research from the neurosciences, Dr. Greene offers a new conceptual framework for understanding the difficulties of kids with behavioral challenges and explains why traditional discipline isn't effective at addressing these difficulties. Emphasizing the revolutionarily simple and positive notion that kids do well if they can, he persuasively argues that kids with behavioral challenges are not attention-seeking, manipulative, limit-testing, coercive, or unmotivated, but that they lack the skills to behave adaptively. And when adults recognize the true factors underlying difficult behavior and teach kids the skills in increments they can handle, the results are astounding: The kids overcome their obstacles; the frustration of teachers, parents, and classmates diminishes; and the well-being and learning of all students are enhanced.In Lost at School, Dr. Greene describes how his road-tested, evidence-based approach — called Collaborative Problem Solving — can help challenging kids at school.His lively, compelling narrative includes:• tools to identify the triggers and lagging skills underlying challenging behavior.• explicit guidance on how to radically improve interactions with challenging kids — along with many examples showing how it's done.• dialogues, Q & A's, and the story, which runs through the book, of one child and his teachers, parents, and school.• practical guidance for successful planning and collaboration among teachers, parents, administrations, and kids.Backed by years of experience and research, and written with a powerful sense of hope and achievable change, Lost at School gives teachers and parents the realistic strategies and information to impact the classroom experience of every challenging kid.

    Materialism, pressure to achieve, perfectionism, and disconnection are combining to create a perfect storm that is devastating children of privilege and their parents alike.In this eye-opening, provocative, and essential book, clinical psychologist Madeline Levine explodes one child-rearing myth after another. With empathy and candor, she identifies toxic cultural influences and well-intentioned, but misguided, parenting practices that are detrimental to a child's healthy self-development. Her thoughtful, practical advice provides solutions that will enable parents to help their emotionally troubled "star" child cultivate an authentic sense of self.

    

    She argues that the US educational system is maintained by and profits from the suffering of children of color. Instead of trying to repair a flawed system, educational reformers offer survival tactics in the forms of test-taking skills, acronyms, grit labs, and character education, which Love calls the educational survival complex.To dismantle the educational survival complex and to achieve educational freedom--not merely reform--teachers, parents, and community leaders must approach education with the imagination, determination, boldness, and urgency of an abolitionist. Following in the tradition of activists like Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, and Fannie Lou Hamer, We Want to Do More Than Survive introduces an alternative to traditional modes of educational reform and expands our ideas of civic engagement and intersectional justice.

    Yet our curricula are largely print-based, and students must develop effective reading behaviours to be successful in school. This book provides middle school and high school educators with the resources they need to meet this challenge: literacy development strategies that emphasize effective learning in content contexts.

    It's not enough to just "do projects." Today's projects need to be rigorous, engaging, and in-depth, and they need to have student voice and choice built in. Such projects require careful planning and pedagogical skill. The authors -- leaders at the respected Buck Institute for Education -- take readers through the step-by-step process of how to create, implement, and assess PBL using a classroom-tested framework.

    Now, they will be able to buy a version of this national bestseller written specifically for teachers.What do great teachers do differently? What separates the top teachers from all the rest? As educators — and American society in general — continue to struggle with how to improve schools in the U.S., these questions become more pressing than ever before. At the heart of any education system — beyond principals, administrators and school boards — is the teacher. Their role is so essential that Gallup has, for decades, directed some of the leading thinkers in education and psychology to uncover what makes a teacher great. Written by two educators with a combined 70 years of experience in both classroom teaching and consulting with leaders of America’s schools, Teach With Your Strengths reveals the essential truths Gallup’s research has uncovered. But it zeroes on these monumental findings: While their styles and approaches may differ, all great teachers make the most of their natural talents. And, great teachers don’t strive to be well-rounded. They know that “fixing their weaknesses” doesn’t work — it only produces mediocrity. Worse, it diverts time and attention from what they naturally do well. In Teach With Your Strengths, readers will hear from great teachers — what they do differently, how they handle problem students, how they battle intractable school bureaucracies, and how they break through and inspire even the most troubled young people. The book also shows that the best teachers take unorthodox approaches to education that are sure to stir controversy and attention — especially among other educators. Teach With Your Strengths includes access to Gallup’s online CliftonStrengths assessment that reveals the reader’s top five strengths, and the book explains how they can put those strengths to work in the classroom. As America’s educators read this groundbreaking book, they’ll discover their own innate talents as teachers. And they’ll learn how to liberate those talents to inspire the next generation of students.

    What's the point? There's so much else to read. With these essays, Lizzie Skurnick has answered those questions. It's as if a kindly psychiatrist suddenly appeared with a sheaf of missing brain scans. Does the mere mention of a mink-trimmed coat make you secretly swoon, even though you are rabidly anti-fur? You have 'A Little Princess' complex. Do you long to cover your enemies with leeches? You're having a 'Little House' flashback... So stretch out on Dr. Lizzie's couch and find out why you think it would be kind of cozy to be locked up in an attic with your brother. Or learn to dissect the subtle class consciousness of Judy Blume's New Jersey. Ponder the way that Lois Duncan's characters come into unexpected powers, natural and supernatural alike, as they enter adolesence. And most of all, enjoy.

    Smokey Daniels travels the country supporting well planned and organized inquiry teaching, and he gets these two questions most often:Where do I find the time? What are some simple ways I can try with my kids? The Curious Classroom answers these questions. It shares a ladder of 10 inquiry structures. Begin with briefly modeling your own curiosity or start on a higher rung as you gradually move toward units driven by kids' own questions.Ever wonder how to get students genuinely engaged in your curriculum? Or wish you could let them explore those amazing questions they brim with? If so, Smokey provides research-based suggestions that help cover the curriculum by connecting what kids wonder about to the wonders you have to teach them. He shares 10 structures, 34 inspiring models from teachers nationwide, full-color photographs and examples of students work, plus specific suggestions for assessment and grading.Just getting started with inquiry? Looking for your own next step in student-driven inquiry? Or do you just want new teaching ideas to try? Read The Curious Classroom. "By the end of this book," writes Smokey Daniels, "I hope you will say two things:I never knew my kids were capable of working at this level; andThis is the most fun I have ever had in my teaching life."

    Instead of teaching students to be critical thinkers and problem-solvers, we are asking them to memorize facts for multiple choice tests. This problem isn’t limited to low-income school districts: even our top schools aren’t teaching or testing the skills that matter most in the global knowledge economy. Our teens leave school equipped to work only in the kinds of jobs that are fast disappearing from the American economy. Meanwhile, young adults in India and China are competing with our students for the most sought-after careers around the world.Education expert Tony Wagner has conducted scores of interviews with business leaders and observed hundreds of classes in some of the nation’s most highly regarded public schools. He discovered a profound disconnect between what potential employers are looking for in young people today (critical thinking skills, creativity, and effective communication) and what our schools are providing (passive learning environments and uninspired lesson plans that focus on test preparation and reward memorization).He explains how every American can work to overhaul our education system, and he shows us examples of dramatically different schools that teach all students new skills. In addition, through interviews with college graduates and people who work with them, Wagner discovers how teachers, parents, and employers can motivate the “net” generation to excellence.An education manifesto for the twenty-first century, The Global Achievement Gap is provocative and inspiring. It is essential reading for parents, educators, business leaders, policy-makers, and anyone interested in seeing our young people succeed as employees and citizens.For additional information about the author and the book, please go to www.schoolchange.org

    This title shows you how to get up and running fast with complete coverage of this useful scripting tool. The author covers ActionScript from a designer's viewpoint, showing you how to make the most of it without having to be a programmer.