Writing thieves read widely, dive deeply into texts, and steal bits and pieces from great texts as models for their own writing. Ruth Culham admits to being a writing thief-and she wants you and your students to become writing thieves, too! A major part of becoming a writing thief is finding the right mentor texts to share with students. Within this book, discover more than 90 excellent mentor texts, along with straight-forward activities that incorporate the traits of writing across informational, narrative, and argument modes. Chapters also include brief essays from beloved writing thieves such as Lester Laminack, David L. Harrison, Lisa Yee, Nicola Davies, Ralph Fletcher, Toni Buzzeo, Lola Schaefer, and Kate Messner, detailing the reading that has influenced their own writing. Ruth's beloved easy-going style and friendly tone make this a book you'll turn to again and again as you guide your students to reach their full potential as deep, thoughtful readers and great writers. There's a writing thief in each of us when we learn how to read with a writer's eye!

    This new book presents today s most successful cooperative learning methods. The Kagans make it easier than ever to boost engagement and achievement. You ll still find all the practical and proven Kagan Structures, including Numbered Heads Together, RoundTable, and Three-Step Interview direct from the man who invented cooperative learning structures. And there s still plenty of ready-to-do teambuilding and classbuilding activities to make your class click. But in this expanded edition, you will find new step-by-step structures, hundreds of helpful management tips, many more teacher-friendly activities and forms, and up-to-date research on proven methods. You hear how schools have used Kagan Cooperative Learning to boost academics, close the achievement gap, improve student relations, and create a more kind and caring school community. After decades of training and working with hundreds of thousands of teachers, the Kagans have refined and perfected the most widely used and respected form of cooperative learning ever. The Kagans make it easy for you to dramatically increase engagement and achievement in your class!

    The authors acknowledge both the structural and sociological issues that contribute to low-performing schools and offer multiple tools and strategies to assess and improve classroom management, increase literacy, establish academic vocabulary, and contribute to a healthier school culture.

    If you are a high school teacher or a kindergarten teacher, the seven steps in The Wild Card will give you the knowledge and the confidence to bring creative teaching strategies into your classroom.You'll learn: Why the deck is not stacked against you, no matter what kind of hand you've been dealt Why you should never listen to the Joker How to identify the "Ace up your sleeve" and use it to create classroom magic How to apply the "Rules of Rigor" in order to fuse creativity with learning How to become the "Wild Card" that changes the game for your students

    A brain that is susceptible to adverse environmental effects is equally susceptible to the positive effects of rich, balanced learning environments and caring relationships that build students' resilience, self-esteem, and character.Drawing from research, experience, and real school success stories, Teaching with Poverty in Mind reveals* What poverty is and how it affects students in school;* What drives change both at the macro level (within schools and districts) and at the micro level (inside a student's brain);* Effective strategies from those who have succeeded and ways to replicate those best practices at your own school; and* How to engage the resources necessary to make change happen.Too often, we talk about change while maintaining a culture of excuses. We can do better. Although no magic bullet can offset the grave challenges faced daily by disadvantaged children, this timely resource shines a spotlight on what matters most, providing an inspiring and practical guide for enriching the minds and lives of all your students.

    This book has been replaced by Close Reading of Informational Sources, Second Edition, ISBN 978-1-4625-3945-1.

    And not just during playtimes. We believe there is play in work and work in play, they write. It helps to have practical ways to carry that mindset into all aspects of the curriculum. In Purposeful Play, they share ways to:optimize and balance different types of play to deepen regular classroom learning teach into play to foster social-emotional skills and a growth mindset bring the impact of play into all your lessons across the day. We believe that play is one type of environment where children can be rigorous in their learning, Kristi, Alison, and Cheryl write. So they provide a host of lessons, suggestions for classroom setups, helpful tools and charts, curriculum connections, teaching points, and teaching language to help you foster mature play that makes every moment in your classroom instructional.Play doesn't only happen when work is over. Children show us time and time again that play is the way they work. In Purposeful Play, you'll find research-driven methods for making play an engine for rigorous learning in your classroom.

    Instead of fueling the debate, Dr. Jan Burkins and Kari Yates have immersed themselves in the research and produced Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom . This concise and practical guide integrates effective reading strategies from each perspective. Every chapter of Shifting the Balance focuses on one of the six simple and scientifically sound shifts reading teachers can make to strengthen their approach to early reading instruction in these areas:Reading ComprehensionPhonemic AwarenessPhonicsHigh-Frequency WordsCueing SystemsText SelectionPractical Instruction for Primary Grades: Whether your students are just learning to read or building more advanced reading comprehensive skills,  Shifting the Balance  is designed to help teachers meet the instructional needs of K-2 students.Six Manageable Shifts: Each chapter focuses on a key shift that helps educators understand common misconceptions and adjust their thinking around some common instructional practices that teachers have been using for decades.Evidence-Based Instruction: Burkins and Yates offer busy educators a blueprint for integrating finding from brain research, cognitive science, and child development into their daily instruction, while keeping meaningful experiences with books a priority.Classroom Applications: Shifting the Balance is full of sample activities and classroom vignettes that paint a picture of what these shifts look like in action with roomful of learners.The book has already helped countless educators by taking the guesswork out of how to blend best practices with the latest research while keeping students at the forefront of reading instruction. "We've written this book to support you in making sound decisions anchored in the best of science, the truth of responsiveness, and a relentless focus on providing all children learning experiences saturated with meaning," the authors write.

    KEY TOPICS: Learn research-based measures for reading improvement. Understand the relationship between reading instruction and assessment. Identify practical intervention strategies based on students' informal reading inventory results. Use viable writing strategies within the context of literacy intervention lessons. Address difficulties in word identification, fluency, prior knowledge and comprehension. Access lesson plans via an all new PDToolkit. MARKET: For reading specialists, K--12 literacy teachers and literacy coaches.

    The early formal years of education are the key to reversing the reading gap and setting up children for success. But K-4 education seems to widen the gap between stronger and weaker readers, not close it. Today, the Common Core further increases the pressure to reach high levels of rigor. What can be done?This book includes the strategies, systems, and lessons from the top classrooms that bring the habits of reading to life, creating countless quality opportunities for students to take one of the most complex skills we as people can know and to perform it fluently and easily.Offers clear teaching strategies for teaching reading to all students, no matter what levelIncludes more than 40 video examples from real classroomsWritten by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo, bestselling author of "Driven by Data" and "Leverage Leadership""Great Habits, Great Readers" puts the focus on: learning habits, reading habits, guided reading, and independent reading.NOTE: Content DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of the e-book file, but are available for download after purchase

    It is the quality of these, whatever the size of the organisation, which make the difference between organisations which thrive, and those which stagnate.This is not to argue for soft, easy and comfortable options. Instead it considers how top leaders manage to walk the line between the impossible and the possible, between the undoable and the doable, and to create conditions for productive work which transcend the difficulties which come towards us every day. Instead of dodging them, they embrace them. And by navigating high challenge, low threat, they show how others how to do the same.

    Each “Your Turn” lesson is built around the gradual release of responsibility model, offering suggestions for demonstrations and shared or guided writing. Reflection is emphasized as a necessary component to understanding why mentor authors chose certain strategies, literary devices, sentence structures, and words.This practical resource demonstrates the power of learning to read like writers. It shows teachers and students how to discover the ways that authors make writing come alive, and how to use that knowledge to inspire and improve their own writing.

    In a large-size format for easy photocopying, the book features more than two dozen reproducibles. It covers all the essentials of planning, administering, scoring, and interpreting a wide range of formal and informal assessments. Helpful examples illustrate effective ways to evaluate K/n-/8 students' strengths and weaknesses in each of the core competencies that good readers need to master.See also Reading Assessment in an RTI Framework, which offers systematic guidance for conducting assessments in all three tiers of RTI.

    The book is divided into three parts: Out of the Gate contains easy ideas to help you get started, More Reasons to Write shows you how to teach across genre, both fiction and nonfiction writing, and Refining Writing addresses everything you need to know about revision, grammar, punctuation, and assessment. In every chapter you'll find two running features: 1) “Try This”, ready-to-use lessons for you and your students; and 2) “Yeah But” where Barry answers the real questions and concerns he's collected from teachers around the country.

    It presents and discusses specific legal cases concerned with the multitude of issues facing the public school system-including teaching diverse student populations, teacher rights, and the role of the Federal government. There are over 1300 citations and excerpts of school law cases.