It looks at what it means to be a teacher and a student in urban America, and deals with the critical moral issues teachers must face.

    Draws from stories from classrooms, examples, of student writing, and illustrations.

    But studies show that when educators empower students to address and correct misbehavior among themselves, positive results are longer lasting and more wide reaching. In Better Than Carrots or Sticks, longtime educators and best-selling authors Dominique Smith, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey provide a practical blueprint for creating a cooperative and respectful classroom climate in which students and teachers work through behavioral issues together. After a comprehensive overview of the roots of the restorative practices movement in schools, the authors explain how to * Establish procedures and expectations for student behavior that encourage the development of positive interpersonal skills; * Develop a nonconfrontational rapport with even the most challenging students; and * Implement conflict resolution strategies that prioritize relationship building and mutual understanding over finger-pointing and retribution.Rewards and punishments may help to maintain order in the short term, but they're at best superficially effective and at worst counterproductive. This book will prepare teachers at all levels to ensure that their classrooms are welcoming, enriching, and constructive environments built on collective respect and focused on student achievement.

    The Growth Mindset Coach provides all you need to foster a growth mindset classroom, including:A Month-by-Month ProgramResearch-Based ActivitiesHands-On Lesson PlansReal-Life Educator StoriesConstructive FeedbackSample Parent LettersStudies show that growth mindsets result in higher test scores, improved grades and more in-class involvement. When your students understand that their intelligence is not limited, they succeed like never before. With the tools in this book, you can motivate your students to believe in themselves and achieve anything.

    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.

    It is here that students brainstorm topics, play with leads and endings, tweak a new revision strategy, or test out a genre for the first time.In Notebook Know-How, Aimee Buckner provides the tools teachers need to make writers' notebooks an integral part of their writing programs. She also addresses many of the questions teachers ask when they start using notebooks with their students, including:How do I launch the notebook?What mini-lessons can be used throughout the year to help students become more skilled in keeping notebooks?How do I help students who are stuck in writing ruts with notebooks?How do I help students use their learning from notebooks for other writing?How do I organize notebooks so that the design is flexible, yet still allows students to access information easily?How can writers' notebooks help students become better readers? How do I assess notebooks?This compact guide is packed with lessons, tips, and samples of student writing to help teachers make the most of writers' notebooks, without sacrificing time needed for the rest of the literacy curriculum. In fact, Notebook Know-How shows how smart and focused use of writers' notebooks enhances and deepens literacy learning in both reading and writing for students in grades 3–8.

    It provides a detailed discussion of the nature and causes of reading difficulties, which will help develop the knowledge and confidence needed to accurately assess why a student is struggling. Readers will learn a framework for organizing testing results from current assessment batteries such as the WJ-IV, KTEA-3, and CTOPP-2. Case studies illustrate each of the concepts covered. A thorough discussion is provided on the assessment of phonics skills, phonological awareness, word recognition, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Formatted for easy reading as well as quick reference, the text includes bullet points, icons, callout boxes, and other design elements to call attention to important information.Although a substantial amount of research has shown that most reading difficulties can be prevented or corrected, standard reading remediation efforts have proven largely ineffective. School psychologists are routinely called upon to evaluate students with reading difficulties and to make recommendations to address such difficulties. This book provides an overview of the best assessment and intervention techniques, backed by the most current research findings.Bridge the gap between research and practice Accurately assess the reason(s) why a student struggles in reading Improve reading skills using the most highly effective evidence-based techniques Reading may well be the most important thing students are taught during their school careers. It is a skill they will use every day of their lives; one that will dictate, in part, later life success. Struggling students need help now, and Essentials of Understanding and Assessing Reading Difficulties shows how to get these students on track.

    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.

    The book is rooted in Jennifer's belief that teachers know what they need when it comes to professional development in literacy, and the best literacy leaders are those who listen to and respect the educators in their midst. Grounded in research but thoroughly practical, Jennifer shares advice on:organizing a literacy room with resources for classroom teachers, including book lists, bins of children's books tied to craft and strategy lessons, bulletin board ideas, and files with instructional materials;developing intervention classrooms for struggling readers and writers built on collaboration between teachers and literacy specialists;setting up assessment notebooks for teachers, and preparing new and veteran teachers for student assessments across grades;creating model programs for dealing with schoolwide problems like reading fluency, and then moving from the pilot to implementation in many classrooms;coaching new and veteran teachers in the latest literacy practices, without taking on the role of expert;analyzing and using books, videos and journals in professional development programs;infusing routine staff meetings with discussions of new literacy curricula;leading teacher study groups using a variety of formats;finding and budgeting money for professional development programs in literacy;protecting time and scheduling priorities, to ensure the literacy specialist position doesn't become a “catch-all” for the random needs of teachers or administrators.At a time when all administrators are urged to be literacy leaders, this insider's view helps to define what leadership looks like and shows how to create an environment that fosters professional development. Jennifer Allen shares the balance leaders struggle with, as they strive to support and honor the fine practices of teachers, even as they nudge colleagues to improve their literacy instruction. Ultimately, Becoming a Literacy Leader is a hopeful book, an optimistic and realistic portrait of life in schools among teachers committed to doing their jobs well.

    As Rick has focused on bringing the professional learning community process to life in schools, he has relied heavily on Bob's vast research on effective teaching and effective leadership. Bob has come to the conclusion that the best environment for great teaching and leading is a powerful PLC. In Leaders of Learning: How District, School, and Classroom Leaders Improve Student Achievement, the authors have combined their passions into one book to articulate how effective leaders foster continuous improvement at the district, school, and classroom levels. Rick and Bob argue that no single person has all the knowledge, skills, and talent to lead a district, improve a school, or meet all the needs of every child in his or her classroom. They assert that it will take a collaborative effort and widely dispersed leadership to meet the challenges confronting schools. Leaders of Learning focuses on district leadership, principal leadership, and team leadership, as well as addressing how individual teachers can be most effective in leading their students by learning with their colleagues how to implement the most promising pedagogy in their classrooms.The first part of the book focuses on how district and school leaders create the conditions to support the collaborative culture of a professional learning community. In the second part, the authors turn their attention to the specific work that teachers undertake as members of PLCs. They discuss:The district's role in supporting the PLC process and five characteristics of effective district leadersThe principal's role in leading a PLC, including fostering shared leadership, training team leaders, and building capacityHow to create collaborative culture and collective capacity, specifically by fostering reciprocol accountability through meaningful teaming, time for collaboration, supportive structures for teaming, clarifying work, monitoring and providing direction and support to teams, avoiding shortcuts, and celebrating success and confronting those who do not contributeHow leaders in a PLC develop a guaranteed and viable curriculum, from identifying objectives to designing proficiency scales, and then montitor student learning in an ongoing way with specific guidance for designing and scoring assessments and reporting gradesHow teams of instructors design and deliver lessons that maximize the probability that all students will acquire the intended knowledge and skillsHow leaders and the system respond when students do not learn

    This research pool offers information and insights that can help educators decide whether certain curricular, instructional, and assessment choices are likely to be more effective than others. Learn how to implement differentiation so that it achieves the desired result of shared responsibility between teacher and student.

    Teachers are better. Blending new technologies into instruction is a non-negotiable if we are to help our students gain the skills they’ll need to thrive in careers. And so too is educators’ old school wisdom in planning intentional blended learning that works. Too often, sincere enthusiasm for technologies pushes proven instructional strategies to the wayside, all but guaranteeing blended learning that is all show and no go.   Bold School is a book that restores teachers to their rightful place in effective instruction. Bold School thinkers embrace Blended pedagogies and Old school wisdom. In Bold School, teachers are put back into the blended learning equation. Blended learning is demystified and distilled into the powerful, yet simple Bold School Framework for Strategic Blended Learning™—a methodology to help you meld purposeful technology use with your old school wisdom to enhance instruction and learning. After all, the goal of blended learning isn’t technology—it’s student achievement. With a Bold School mindset, every teacher is capable of finally delivering on the promise of blended learning.

    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.

    The Fundamental Five: The Formula for Quality Instruction, shares with teachers and school leaders the five practices that every teacher can, and should, use to dramatically improve instuctional rigor and relevance, and student performance.

    From one of America s most celebrated educators, an inspiring guide to transforming every child s education In a Los Angeles neighborhood plagued by guns, gangs, and drugs, there is an exceptional classroom known as Room 56. The fifth graders inside are first-generation immigrants who live in poverty and speak English as a second language. They also play Vivaldi, perform Shakespeare, score in the top 1 percent on standardized tests, and go on to attend Ivy League universities. Rafe Esquith is the teacher responsible for these accomplishments. From the man whom The New York Times calls a genius and a saint comes a revelatory program for educating today s youth. In Teach Like Your Hair s on Fire!, Rafe Esquith reveals the techniques that have made him one of the most acclaimed educators of our time. The two mottoes in Esquith s classroom are Be Nice, Work Hard, and There Are No Shortcuts. His students voluntarily come to school at 6:30 in the morning and work until 5:00 in the afternoon. They learn to handle money responsibly, tackle algebra, and travel the country to study history. They pair Hamlet with rock and roll, and read the American classics. Teach Like Your Hair s on Fire! is a brilliant and inspiring road map for parents, teachers, and anyone who cares about the future success of our nation s children. "