Veteran teacher, trainer, professor, consultant, and author Cathy Vatterott distills her years of experience with all kinds of schools into a balanced approach that ensures homework leads to more opportunities for learning and teaching without turning off parents and students. Explore a new paradigm that helps you understand: How to avoid the "homework trap."Why viewing homework as formative feedback is the most powerful way to transform homework policies and practices.How to differentiate homework assignments to your students.Which teacher behaviors and attitudes reinforce good homework practices.How to ensure students complete homework and get adequate time and support.

    You don't even have to be able to draw. Just put the child before the chart.Marjorie Martinelli and Kristine Mraz Listen to an interview with Marjorie and Kristi, the Chartchums, on Education Talk Radio.Commercially available charts leave you hanging? Want the secret to jump-off-the-wall charts that stick with kids? Trust Smarter Charts.Did you ever want to know:What do great charts look like? How many is too many? Where are the best places for them in my classroom? How long do I keep them? How do I know if they are working? Then you'll want to meet Marjorie Martinelli and Kristine Mraz, the Chartchums. They struggled with the same questions, and Smarter Charts shares not only the answers, but the best practices they've discovered as well. Amp up the power of your charts with tips on design and language, instructional use, and self-assessment. Even better, discover surprising strategies that deepen engagement, strengthen retention, and heighten independence-all by involving students in chart making.Packed with full-color sample charts from real classrooms, Smarter Charts shares simple, brain-based strategies proven to make your classroom an even more active, effective space for literacy instruction and classroom management.

    In sharing lessons, anecdotes, and cautionary tales from his own experiences revamping assessment procedures in the classroom, Dueck offers a variety of practical strategies for ensuring that grades measure what students know without punishing them for factors outside their control; critically examining the fairness and effectiveness of grading homework assignments; designing and distributing unit plans that make assessment criteria crystal-clear to students; creating a flexible and modular retesting system so that students can improve their scores on individual sections of important tests.Grading Smarter, Not Harder is brimming with reproducible forms, templates, and real-life examples of grading solutions developed to allow students every opportunity to demonstrate their learning. Written with abundant humor and heart, this book is a must-read for all teachers who want their grades to contribute to, rather than hinder, their students' success.

    This practical resource shows teachers how to be effective and have a life! Author and educator Maia Heyck-Merlin explores the key habits of Together Teachers—how they plan ahead, organize work and their classrooms, and how they spend their limited free time. The end goal is always strong outcomes for their students. So what does Together, or Together Enough, look like? To some teachers it might mean neat filing systems. To others it might mean using time efficiently to get more done in fewer minutes. Regardless, Together Teachers all rely on the same skills. In six parts, the book clearly lays out these essential skills. Heyck-Merlin walks the reader through how to establish simple yet successful organizational systems. There are concrete steps that every teacher can implement to achieve greater stability and success in their classrooms and in their lives. Contains templates and tutorials to create and customize a personal organizational system and includes a companion website: www.thetogetherteacher.com Recommends various electronic or online tools to make a teacher's school day (and life!) more efficient and productive Includes a Reader's Guide, a great professional development resource; teachers will answer reflection questions, make notes about habits, and select tools that best match individual needs and preferences Ebook customers can access CD contents online.  Refer to the section in the Table of Contents labeled, Download CD/DVD Content, for detailed instructions.

    At the most important moments, when everyone else is silent, poetry rises to speak.This book is full of practical wisdom to help young writers craft beautiful poetry that shines, sings, and soars. It features writing tips and tricks, interviews with published poets for children, and plenty of examples of poetry by published writers—and even young people themselves.Perfect for classrooms, this lighthearted, appealing manual is a celebration of poetry that is a joy to read. Young poets and aspiring poets of all ages will enjoy these tips on how to simplify the process of writing poetry and find their own unique voice.

    Based on literacy learning and motivation research, they created a structure called The Daily Five which has been practiced and refined in their own classrooms for ten years, and shared with thousands of teachers throughout the United States. The Daily Five is a series of literacy tasks (reading to self, reading with someone, writing, word work, and listening to reading) which students complete daily while the teacher meets with small groups or confers with individuals.This book not only explains the philosophy behind the structure, but shows you how to carefully and systematically train your students to participate in each of the five components.Explicit modeling practice, reflecting and refining take place during the launching phase, preparing the foundation for a year of meaningful content instruction tailored to meet the needs of each child.The Daily Five is more than a management system or a curriculum framework; it is a structure that will help students develop the habits that lead to a lifetime of independent literacy.

    Organized according to the elements of explicit instruction (what? why? when? and how?), the Sourcebook includes both research-informed knowledge base and practical sample lesson models. Like the first edition, the updated and revised second edition of the Teaching Reading Sourcebook combines the best features of an academic text and a practical hands-on teacher's guide. It is an indispensable resource for teaching reading and language arts to both beginning and older struggling readers.New to the Teaching Reading Sourcebook, 2nd Edition:All new sample lesson modelsMore reproducible activity mastersA whole new section on reading fluencyMore about letter knowledge and multisyllabic word readingMore about the comprehension strategies that good readers useUseful information about the Comprehensive Reading Model (Three-tier Model)Highly respected contributing authors who are experts in the field of reading

    Parents wonder if it’s worth the tears, frustration, and nightly arguments. eachers debate whether it’s really helpful or just busywork that consumes their precious time. One thing everyone can agree on is that homework is a contentious topic. In Ditch That Homework, Matt Miller and Alice Keeler discuss the pros and cons of homework, why teachers assign it, and what life could look like without it. As they evaluate the research and share parent and teacher insights, the authors explore some of the benefits for ditching homework: * Better education for all students * Reduced stress for families * More intentionality with lesson planning * Increased love of learning * More time for teachers to focus on learning at school and enjoying their after-school hours And that’s just the beginning. Miller and Keeler offer a convincing case for ditching—or at a minimum greatly reducing—homework. They also provide practical guidance on how to eliminate homework from your lessons. You’ll discover strategies for improving learning through differentiation and student agency and by tapping into the way the brain works best. Are you ready? Read this book and you’ll understand why it’s time to Ditch That Homework!

    

    Included are 175 easy-to-use strategies, lessons, and checklists for effective classroom management, and over 50 reproducible samples that you can adopt immediately for planning, evaluation, or assignments. The Guide helps you create a classroom that reflects the excitement for learning that every English teacher desires.

    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.

    He shows you how to create an amazing learning environment that actually makes discipline, rules and consequences obsolete, no matter if you're a new teacher or a 30-year veteran teacher. Teachers they make movies about are innovative, engaging, and beloved Hacking Classroom Management is about putting the F word--FUN--into your teaching, and Mike Roberts shows you how to do this, while meeting your standards and teaching your curriculum.  Hacking Classroom Management shows you how to Build lasting relationships with your students Maximize teaching time Reduce behavior issues Enhance student ownership Improve parental involvement Experts love the Movie Teacher philosophy "No matter what grade you teach, there’s something of great value inside. Two Big Thumbs UP!" -Alan Sitomer, CA Teacher of the Year and Author of Short Writes"Immensely fun and illuminating to read!" -Jeffery D. Wilhelm, Distinguished Professor of English Education at Boise State University"Hollywood might not make a movie about you, even if you read and apply every suggestion in this book, but you and your students are much more likely to feel like classroom stars because of it." -Chris Crowe, English Professor at BYU, Past President of ALAN, author of Death Coming Up the Hill, Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case; Mississippi Trial, 1955; and many other YA booksWave Goodbye to classroom management issuesGrab Hacking Classroom Management today, become a movie teacher tomorrow, and forget about classroom management FOREVER!

    

    Packed with student examples, this detailed guide explains the unique features that make interactive notebooks more effective tools than conventional notebooks for science classrooms. This resource:Describes the nuts and bolts of implementing interactive notebooks, including execution, time management, and grading Uses the 5E Learning Cycle as the framework for science instruction Emphasizes the importance of writing in science and provides strategies for modeling effective writing Explores strategies to encourage collaborative student inquiry and foster whole-class discussions

    A class can be skilled and motivated to learn without a teacher always having to lead. Engaging learners in this way unpicks intrinsic motivation, the foundation that underpins a productive learning environment and helps to develop independent learning.Based on five years of intensive research through Osiris Education's award-winning Outstanding Teaching Intervention program this book is packed with proven advice and innovative tools that were developed in these successful outstanding lessons. Written in the same humorous, thought-provoking style with which they both teach and train, the authors aim to challenge all who teach, from newly qualified teachers to seasoned professionals, to reflect on their day-to-day practice and set an agenda for sustainable improvement.