With passion and humor, acclaimed author and internationally respected literacy expert Mem Fox tells readers how she herself became aware of the astonishing effects that reading aloud and bonding through books have on very young children.She speaks of when, where, and why to read aloud and demonstrates how to read aloud to best effect and how to get the most out of a read-aloud session. She walks readers through the three secrets of reading which together make reading possible. She gives guidance on defining, choosing, and finding good books and closes with tips on dealing effectively with the challenges that sometimes arise when children are learning to read.Filled with practical advice, activities, and inspiring true read-aloud miracles, this book is a must for every parent-and for anyone interested in how children learn to read.

    With insightful commentary, she recalls her own trials as a student and teacher in our industrial, one-size-fits-all educational system. Then she encounters the needs of her young son. Finding a fit is like trying to stuff an odd-shaped child into a square hole. The love for her child propels her on a journey that sweeps her own children, and the children around her, into a learning environment driven by joy, exuberance and passion instead of heartbreak and defeat. Unable to read until ages nine and ten, they entered college at eleven and twelve, became systems administrators, chief technology officers, trained with the Berlin Opera and Hamburg Ballet, created digital images used in the film "Lord of the Rings," presented software solutions to TRW, Pac Bell, Industrial Light & Magic, NSA, Sony, and more, all before the ages of eighteen. The Call to Brilliance shows parents and educators how to redirect children's challenges into strengths, discover children's interests, fuel their interests into passions, and their passions into brilliance.

    Diane Ravitch—former assistant secretary of education and a leader in the drive to create a national curriculum—examines her career in education reform and repudiates positions that she once staunchly advocated. Drawing on over forty years of research and experience, Ravitch critiques today’s most popular ideas for restructuring schools, including privatization, standardized testing, punitive accountability, and the feckless multiplication of charter schools. She shows conclusively why the business model is not an appropriate way to improve schools. Using examples from major cities like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, and San Diego, Ravitch makes the case that public education today is in peril. Ravitch includes clear prescriptions for improving America’s schools:*Leave decisions about schools to educators, not politicians or businessmen*Devise a truly national curriculum that sets out what children in every grade should be learning*Expect charter schools to educate the kids who need help the most, not to compete with public schools*Pay teachers a fair wage for their work, not “merit pay” based on deeply flawed and unreliable test scores*Encourage family involvement in education from an early ageThe Death and Life of the Great American School System is more than just an analysis of the state of play of the American education system. It is a must-read for any stakeholder in the future of American schooling.

    There were class clowns, ruthless bullies, teacher’s pets, popular kids, and students no one wanted to be around. What if we admitted to ourselves that the public school system is tragically flawed, instead of blindly relying on the same misguided, decrepit bureaucracy for our precious children? “Because that’s how I grew up,” just doesn’t cut it anymore. Our children deserve better than to be institutionalized in an education system developed during the Industrial Age. School shootings, homework, and failing grades are all on the rise. Even school administrators admit that their students are falling farther behind. Politicians throw money at the problem and implement unproven and illogical new “standards,” while the teachers' unions contribute to their campaigns and protect their own. Sam Sorbo knows there is a better way… As a mom of three and the wife of Kevin Sorbo, an actor who travels frequently, Sam struggled with simply relying on the status quo for their young children’s public school education. On an extended trip for one of Kevin’s film shoots, Sam discovered she was playing a role herself, as the “substitute teacher.” Nobody likes the sub! Public school was forming a wedge between her and her young ones. It was this sobering recognition that launched her remarkable journey into home education. Home schooling provides a safer, sounder, and more spirit-centered didactic alternative, even for busy parents, and it's not as difficult as our bloated, entrenched education establishment wants you to believe. With extensive data and many shudder-worthy examples, Sam explores the systemic inadequacies plaguing the public education system. They may leave you wondering why any discerning parent still puts her faith in public school. Once you understand the disintegration behind the classroom door, the solution becomes clear. This book then guides you through implementing a better educational approach for your family, one that is tried and true. Sam’s extraordinary story, her discoveries, challenges, and triumphs, will encourage you to embrace the wonderful benefits and incredible possibilities of home education for your beloved children. * Concerned for the future of your children? * Think you can’t home school because you work full-time? * Frustrated with your child’s so-called teachers? * Anxious about schoolyard bullies? * Too scared to even consider home schooling your children? Be a hero to your children, skip the school drop-off lines and fund-raisers, and enjoy a better kind of parent-teacher meeting – the one in the mirror! This book can show you how.

    

    Of course, in middle school and high school, almost everyone is an outsider: the nerds, the new girls, the band geeks, the loners; even the "popular" cheerleaders. Alexandra Robbins' The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth takes us inside the hallways of real schools to show us how shifting cliques and permanent marginalization affect children. Following individual students over the course of a year, she tracks the plight and possibilities of self-confessed nerds, freaks, punks, Goths, and weirdos. Her central message is heartening: Our increasingly homogenized society ultimately needs and welcomes the cafeteria fringe.

    It's a message that stressed-out parents are craving to hear: Letting tots learn through play is not only okay-it's better than drilling academics!Drawing on overwhelming scientific evidence from their own studies and the collective research results of child development experts, and addressing the key areas of development-math, reading, verbal communication, science, self-awareness, and social skills-the authors explain the process of learning from a child's point of view. They then offer parents 40 age-appropriate games for creative play. These simple, fun--yet powerful exercises work as well or better than expensive high-tech gadgets to teach a child what his ever-active, playful mind is craving to learn.

    John Holt was the first to make clear that, for small children, “learning is as natural as breathing.” In this delightful yet profound book, he looks at how we learn to talk, to read, to count, and to reason, and how we can nurture and encourage these natural abilities in our children.”

    In Raising Kids Who Read, bestselling author and psychology professor Daniel T. Willingham explains this phenomenon and provides practical solutions for engendering a love of reading that lasts into adulthood. Like Willingham's much-lauded previous work, Why Don't Students Like School?, this new book combines evidence-based analysis with engaging, insightful recommendations for the future. Intellectually rich argumentation is woven seamlessly with entertaining current cultural references, examples, and steps for taking action to encourage reading.The three key elements for reading enthusiasm--decoding, comprehension, and motivation--are explained in depth in Raising Kids Who Read. Teachers and parents alike will appreciate the practical orientation toward supporting these three elements from birth through adolescence. Most books on the topic focus on early childhood, but Willingham understands that kids' needs change as they grow older, and the science-based approach in Raising Kids Who Read applies to kids of all ages.A practical perspective on teaching reading from bestselling author and K-12 education expert Daniel T. Willingham Research-based, concrete suggestions to aid teachers and parents in promoting reading as a hobby Age-specific tips for developing decoding ability, comprehension, and motivation in kids from birth through adolescence Information on helping kids with dyslexia and encouraging reading in the digital age Debunking the myths about reading education, Raising Kids Who Read will empower you to share the joy of reading with kids from preschool through high school.

    That is a program that strikes even the most stalwart critics of contemporary educational mediocrity as quixotic, and perhaps even undesirable.Tracy Lee Simmons readily concedes that there is little reason to hope for a widespread renascence in the teaching of Greek and Latin to our nation's schoolchildren. But in this concise and elegantly wrought brief, he argues that, whatever its immediate prospects, an education in the classical languages is of inestimable personal and cultural value. Simmons first sketches the development of educational practice in the schools of the classical and Renaissance eras. He then presents a lively narrative of the fortunes of classical learning in the modern age, including accounts of the classical tongues' influence on some of the West's most prominent writers and statesmen, including, among many others, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Thomas Arnold, Theodore Roosevelt, Evelyn Waugh, and C. S. Lewis. Simmons demonstrates the personally cultivating and intellectually liberating qualities that study of the Greek and Latin authors in their own languages has historically provided. Further, by tracing the historical trajectory of Greek and Latin education, Simmons is able to show that the classical languages have played a crucial role in the development of authentic Humanism, the foundation of the West's cultural order and America's understanding of itself as a union of citizens.In Climbing Parnassus Simmons presents the reader not so much with a program for educational renewal as with a defense and vindication of the formative power of Greek and Latin. His persuasive witness to the unique, now all-but-forgotten advantages of study in, and of, the classical languages constitutes a bracing reminder of the genuine aims of a truly liberal education. About the Author Tracy Lee Simmons is a journalist who writes widely on literary and cultural matters. He holds a master's degree in the classics from Oxford.

     Twenty minutes a day is all you need, and within 100 teaching days your child will be reading on a solid second-grade reading level. It’s a sensible, easy-to-follow, and enjoyable way to help your child gain the essential skills of reading. Everything you need is here—no paste, no scissors, no flash cards, no complicated directions—just you and your child learning together. One hundred lessons, fully illustrated and color-coded for clarity, give your child the basic and more advanced skills needed to become a good reader.

    Shumway created a series of math routines designed to help young students strengthen and build their facility with numbers. These quick 5, 10, or 15 minute exercises are easy to implement as an add-on to any elementary math curriculum. Understanding Number Sense: Students with strong number sense understand numbers, how to subitize, relationships among numbers, and number systems. They make reasonable estimates, compute fluently, use reasoning strategies, and use visual models to solve problems. Number Sense Routines  supports the early learner by instilling the importance of daily warm-ups and explains how they benefit developing math minds for long-term learning.Real Classroom Examples: Shumway compiled her classroom observations from around the country. She includes conversations among students who practice number sense routines to illustrate them in action, how children's number sense develops with daily use, and math strategies students learn as they develop their numerical literacy through self-paced practice.Assessment Strategies:  Number Sense Routines  demonstrates the importance of listening to your students and knowing what to look for. Teachers will gain a deeper understanding of the underlying math skills and strategies students learn as they develop numerical literacy.Shumway writes, "As you read, you will step into various classrooms and listen in on students' conversations, which I hope will give you insight into the power of number sense routines and the impact they have on students' number sense development. My hope is that going into the classroom, into students' conversations, and into their thought processes, you will come away with new ideas and tools to use in your own classroom."

    With passion and wit, Mary Oliver skillfully imparts expertise from her long, celebrated career as a disguised poet. She walks readers through exactly how a poem is built, from meter and rhyme, to form and diction, to sound and sense, drawing on poems by Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and others. This handbook is an invaluable glimpse into Oliver’s prolific mind??—??a must-have for all poetry-lovers.

    , Rebecca Rupp presents a structured plan to ensure that your children will learn what they need to know when they need to know it, from preschool through high school. Based on the traditional pre-K through 12th-grade structure, Home Learning Year by Year features:The integral subjects to be covered within each grade Standards for knowledge that should be acquired by your child at each levelRecommended books to use as texts for every subjectGuidelines for the importance of each topic: which knowledge is essential and which is best for more expansive study based on your child's personal interestsSuggestions for how to sensitively approach less academic subjects, such as sex education and physical fitness

    Learn more. With hit books that support strategic reading through conferring, small groups, and assessment, Jen Serravallo gets emails almost daily asking, Isn't there a book of the strategies themselves? Now there is.Strategies make the often invisible work of reading actionable and visible, Jen writes. In The Reading Strategies Book, she collects 300 strategies to share with readers in support of thirteen goals-everything from fluency to literary analysis. Each strategy is cross-linked to skills, genres, and Fountas & Pinnell reading levels to give you just-right teaching, just in time. With Jen's help you'll:develop goals for every reader give students step-by-step strategies for skilled reading guide readers with prompts aligned to the strategies adjust instruction to meet individual needs with Jen's Teaching Tips craft demonstrations and explanations with her Lesson Language learn more with Hat Tips to the work of influential teacher-authors. Whether you use readers workshop, Daily 5/CAFE, guided reading, balanced reading, a core reading program, whole-class novels, or any other approach, The Reading Strategies Book will complement and extend your teaching. Rely on it to plan and implement goal-directed, differentiated instruction for individuals, small groups, and whole classes.We offer strategies to readers to put the work in doable terms for those who are still practicing, writes Jen Serravallo. The goal is not that they can do the steps of the strategy but that they become more comfortable and competent with a new skill. With The Reading Strategies Book, you'll have ways to help your readers make progress every day.