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.

    His deep understanding of how we learn, his highly nuanced, empathetic humor, and his gentle regard for fellow learners of any age combine to provide the reader with 'aha after aha.'-Bea Warner, Staff Development DirectorEscondido, CAMake your job easier! Find out what really works for effective classroom management and reap the benefits of engaged and productive students!Conscious Classroom Management is a delightfully rich text that incorporates meaningful stories, insights, humor, and invaluable strategies for what really works in the classroom. And while classroom management is the primary factor behind how successful teachers can achieve sustained student learning, this wonderful text also addresses the human elements of teaching, focusing on three primary subjects: the students, the teacher, and the relationship between the two. Comprehensive and practical, Conscious Classroom Management helps teachers to: Eliminate power struggles with your most challenging students Discover how holding your ground can help students cooperate Uncover your teacher presence while reducing stress Create lessons that help students remainfocused, eager, and willing to learn Appreciate your craft at a deeper level Think ahead and prepare to teach Energize and invigorate how you mentor and train other teachersFor the novice, first-year teacher to the veteran, classroom-tested teacher, classroom management is the most critical factor for sustained student learning. And eliminating the cycle of student misbehavior is the cornerstone for effective classroom management. This reference transcends every level of preparation and provides new and experienced teachers with the practical and comprehensive strategies necessary to get the most out of every student. Written in an easy-to-read and humorous, conversational style, this resource is indispensable for new teacher induction or regular staff development.

    The main difference is that our lessons put student curiosity and engagement first. -Harvey Smokey Daniels and Nancy SteinekeIn this highly anticipated follow-up to Texts and Lessons for Content-Area Reading, Harvey Smokey Daniels and Nancy Steineke share their powerful strategies for engaging students in challenging, meaningful reading of fiction and poetry using some of their favorite short, fresh texts-or, as they put it, full-strength adult literature that gives us English majors a run for our interpretive money- but is still intriguing enough to keep teen readers digging and thinking. Use the 37 innovative, step-by-step, common-core-correlated lessons with the reproducible texts provided, with selections from your literature textbook, or with your own best-loved texts to teach close reading skills and deep comprehension strategies. Give students opportunities to read and synthesize across texts with the 8 thematic text set lessons provided, or use the model unit outlines for using the lessons with The Giver, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Great Gatsby as springboards for planning your own novel studies. Better Together! Used together, Texts and Lessons for Teaching Literature and Texts and Lessons for Content-Area Reading give you all the lesson ideas you need for all text types. Save 15% when you buy them together in a Texts and Lessons Bundle.

    He explores what parents, teachers, and employers must do to develop the capacities of young people to become innovators. In profiling compelling young American innovators such as Kirk Phelps, product manager for Apple’s first iPhone, and Jodie Wu, who founded a company that builds bicycle-powered maize shellers in Tanzania, Wagner reveals how the adults in their lives nurtured their creativity and sparked their imaginations, while teaching them to learn from failures and persevere. Wagner identifies a pattern—a childhood of creative play leads to deep-seated interests, which in adolescence and adulthood blossom into a deeper purpose for career and life goals. Play, passion, and purpose: These are the forces that drive young innovators. Wagner shows how we can apply this knowledge as educators and what parents can do to compensate for poor schooling. He takes readers into the most forward-thinking schools, colleges, and workplaces in the country, where teachers and employers are developing cultures of innovation based on collaboration, interdisciplinary problem-solving, and intrinsic motivation. The result is a timely, provocative, and inspiring manifesto that will change how we look at our schools and workplaces, and provide us with a road map for creating the change makers of tomorrow. Creating Innovators will feature its own innovative elements: more than sixty original videos that expand on key ideas in the book through interviews with young innovators, teachers, writers, CEOs, and entrepreneurs, including Thomas Friedman, Dean Kamen, and Annmarie Neal. Produced by filmmaker Robert A. Compton, the videos are embedded into the ebook edition in video-enabled eReaders and accessible in this print edition via QR codes placed throughout the chapters or via www.creatinginnovators.com.

    Kids take a vacation from books and those with limited access to books lose ground to their peers. You may have thought there's nothing you can do about it, but there is. No More Summer-Reading Loss shows how to ensure that readers continue to grow year round.School-based practitioners Carrie Cahill and Kathy Horvath join with renowned researchers Anne McGill-Franzen and Dick Allington to help you make summer readers out of every student. You'll stop summer-reading loss as they help you:identify practices that inadvertently contribute to it understand the research on its implications and its prevention take research-based action with 8 instructional strategies. Building independence. Keeping kids on grade-level. Closing the achievement gap. These are just a few of the valuable outcomes that No More Summer-Reading Loss can support. Most importantly, it will help you pass on a love of reading that knows no season and gives readers confidence when they return in the fall. About the Not This, But That Series No More Summer-Reading Loss is part of the Not This, But That series, edited by Nell K. Duke and Ellin Oliver Keene. It helps teachers examine common, ineffective classroom practices and replace them with practices supported by research and professional wisdom. In each book a practicing educator and an education researcher identify an ineffective practice; summarize what the research suggests about why; and detail research-based, proven practices to replace it and improve student learning. Read a sample chapter from No More Summer-Reading Loss.

    Research-based methods for boosting phonemic awareness, phonics, and instant word recognition

    In this groundbreaking book, Berit Gordon offers the complete solution, a blended model that combines the benefits of classic literature with the motivational power of choice reading. With the blended model, teachers lead close examinations of key passages from classic texts, guiding students to an understanding of important reading strategies they can transfer to their choice books. Teachers gain a platform for demonstrating the critical reading skills students so urgently require, and students thrive on reading what they want to read. In this research-backed book, Gordon leads you step by step to classroom success with the blended model, showing:The basics of getting your classroom library up and running How to build a blended curriculum for both fiction and non-fiction units, keeping relevant standards in mind Tips and resources to help with day-to-day planning Ideas for selecting class novel passages that provide essential cultural capital and bolster students' reading skills Strategies for bringing talk into your blended reading classroom How to reach the crucial learning goal of transfer A practical, user-friendly approach for assessing each student's progress No More Fake Reading gives you all the tools you need to put the blended model to work for your students and transform your classroom into a vibrant reading environment. Berit Gordon coaches teachers as they nurture lifelong readers and writers. Her path as an educator began in the classroom in the Dominican Republic before teaching in New York City public schools. She also taught at the Teachers College of Columbia University in English Education. She currently works as a literacy consultant in grades 3-12 and lives in Maplewood, New Jersey with her husband and three children.

    This anniversary paperback edition features a new introduction by Delpit as well as new framing essays by Herbert Kohl and Charles Payne.In a radical analysis of contemporary classrooms, MacArthur Award–winning author Lisa Delpit develops ideas about ways teachers can be better “cultural transmitters” in the classroom, where prejudice, stereotypes, and cultural assumptions breed ineffective education. Delpit suggests that many academic problems attributed to children of color are actually the result of miscommunication, as primarily white teachers and “other people’s children” struggle with the imbalance of power and the dynamics plaguing our system.A new classic among educators, Other People’s Children is a must-read for teachers, administrators, and parents striving to improve the quality of America’s education system.

    She wants children to learn how to care for themselves, their fellow students, their environment, and their work. Her book is loaded with practical wisdom. Using Charney's positive approach to classroom management will make the whole school day go better."- Nel Noddings, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University, and author of CaringThis definitive work about classroom management will show teachers how to turn their vision of respectful, friendly, academically rigorous classrooms into reality.The new edition includes:More information on teaching middle-school studentsAdditional strategies for helping children with challenging behaviorUpdated stories and examples from real classrooms."Teaching Children to Care offers educators a practical guide to one of the most effective social and emotional learning programs I know of. The Responsive Classroom approach creates an ideal environment for learning—a pioneering program every teacher should know about."- Daniel Goleman, Author of Emotional Intelligence"I spent one whole summer reading Teaching Children to Care. It was like a rebirth for me. This book helped direct my professional development. After reading it, I had a path to follow. I now look forward to rereading this book each August to refresh and reinforce my ability to effectively manage a social curriculum in my classroom."- Gail Zimmerman, second-grade teacher, Jackson Mann Elementary School, Boston, MA

    In ReadWriteTeach, Linda offers the what, how, and why of a year's worth of reading and writing for middle and high school students with a framework that is as flexible as it is comprehensive....This book isn't a compilation of tear-out reproducibles designed to help us replicate Linda's practices, writes Maja Wilson in the foreword. Instead, it's the most powerful gift that a master teacher can give us: the story of her thinking and feeling as she teaches. Linda's insights and beliefs are woven throughout a comprehensive overview of best literacy practices, which include:essentials in the reading-writing workshop grounding our choices in our beliefs getting to know ourselves and our students as readers and writers. Students' voices, through examples of their writing, drawing, and thinking, resonate throughout the book and characterize the thoughtful readers, writers, and citizens of the world that they become under Linda's guidance.Online companion resources include all of the handouts that Linda uses in her own classroom. Download a free sample chapter!

    This is where Regie Routman steps in: giving clarity, support, specific demonstrations, and confidence to teachers so they can teach reading in a manner that is consistent with research and learning theory and respectful of students' needs, interests, and abilities. In Reading Essentials, she realistically describes how to achieve these goals-and get high test scores too.Based on her continuing work teaching in schools, Routman proves that good teaching doesn't have to mean lots of hours spent planning. What's necessary is good thinking-thinking about what matters to kids, what kids need to know, how we can move them forward, and how to ensure that they comprehend and enjoy what they read-including struggling students. Readers will discover research-based strategies, immediately doable ideas, and detailed lessons-all based on an instructional framework that includes:demonstrations shared demonstrations guided practice independent practice. Thoughout the text, Routman emphasizes the use of professional common sense and demonstrates how to maximize your time, making the most of every teachable moment. Practical, philosophical, and political, Reading Essentials gets to the heart of what excellent reading instruction is all about-and puts the fun back into your teaching.

    Rather, a combination of causes can create a perfect storm of failure.” —Wiley BlevinsPicture a class of kindergarteners singing the alphabet song, and teaching phonics  seems as easy as one-two, three, A, B, C, right? In a Fresh Look at Phonics, Wiley Blevins explains why it can get tricky, and then delivers a plan so geared for success, that teachers, coaches, and administrators will come to see owning this book as a before and after moment in their professional lives. In this amazing follow up to his renowned resource Phonics From A-Z, Wiley uses the data he has collected over two decades to share which approaches truly work, which have failed, and how teachers can fine-tune their daily instruction for success. You will learn to focus on the seven critical ingredients of phonics teaching that produce the greatest student learning gains— readiness skills, scope and sequence, blending, dictation, word awareness, high frequency words, and reading connected texts. Then, for each ingredient, Wiley shares:   Activities, routines, word lists, and lessons that develop solid foundations for reading Ideas for differentiation, ELL, and advanced learners to ensure adequate progress for all learners Help on decodable texts, what not to over-do, and what you can’t do enough of for your students’ achievement Interactive “Day Clinic” activities that facilitate teacher self-reflection and school wide professional learning In a final section, Wiley details the ten common reasons instruction fails and shows teachers how to correct these missteps regarding lesson pacing, transitions, decodable texts, writing activities, assessment and more. A Fresh Look at Phonics is the evidence-based solution you have been seeking. Wiley Blevins, Ph.D., is a world-renowned expert on early reading, and author of the seminal book Phonics From A-Z among many other works. He has taught in both the United States and South America, and regularly trains teachers throughout Asia. He holds a Doctorate in Education from Harvard University, and has worked with numerous educational scholars, including Jeanne Chall, Isabel Beck, Marilyn Adams, Louisa Moats, and Dianne August, and others.

    Holding On to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones is my new favorite book about how to live as a teacher. Finishing it, I experienced what I can only describe as a state of grace-moved, renewed, and grateful that a mind like Tom Newkirk's has been intrigued by classroom matters for almost forty years now. Nancie Atwell Author of In the Middle, Second EditionClassic Newkirk: direct, incisive, and brimming with wisdom. Harvey Smokey Daniels Coauthor of Comprehension & CollaborationThis book is one of the best teacher books ever. I'll be giving copies of it to lots of teacher friends as we find our way back to trusting what we know about kids, about learning, and about teaching writing. -Gretchen Bernabei Author of Reviving the EssayHolding On to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones is for every teacher who has struggled under top-down mandates, who ever had to slavishly follow the script of a reading lesson, who ever felt that tests were driving instruction. It is for those whose good, humane, and sensitive ways of teaching literacy are threatened by rigid, mechanical programs. It is for teachers who feel they are losing control of their daily work.Hear a podcast, where Tom Newkirk and Nancie Atwell discuss teaching principles worth fighthing for.In Holding On to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones, Tom Newkirk eloquently defends teaching against the cult of efficiency that turns classrooms into assembly lines of knowledge. Newkirk goes beyond diagnosing the problem to present six ideas worth fighting for. These transformative practices gently but firmly return instructional decisions to where they belong: with you, our teachers. Newkirk shows how to:increase your instructional emphasis on writing to reflect the reality that producing text is more important than ever help students access deep knowledge and expand their thinking through time to write freely build strong connections between school learning and the real world by teaching with popular culture propel the development of reading skills by helping students discover the pleasure of reading provide the time and space for meaningful, long-lasting teaching and learning by uncluttering the curriculum spark professional growth and avoid stagnation by discussing failure and uncertainty with colleagues. Holding On to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones is affirming, not argumentative. It celebrates the humanity and unpredictability of teaching with Newkirk's blend of humor, passion, and warmth. Let it inspire a search for the things in your teaching that are most worth holding on to.

    Temple Grandin called "really helpful for teaching reading to children who are mathematical pattern thinkers..."For the past 70 years students have needed to break the complex code of English without help. This has resulted in low literacy rates and highly educated professionals who cannot spell. The principles taught in Uncovering the Logic of English describe 98% of English words and eliminate the need to guess.Simple answers are given for questions such as:* Why is there a silent final E in have?* Why don't we drop the E in noticeable?* Why is discussion spelled with -sion rather than -tion?As the rules unfold it becomes apparent how this knowledge is vital to reversing the educational crisis that is plaguing America. This slim volume is easy to read and accessible to parents and classroom teachers.

    They also argue that it should be taught in the simplest way possible. Drawing on twenty years of experience, the authors present the Question Formulation Technique, a concise and powerful protocol that enables learners to produce their own questions, improve their questions, and strategize how to use them.Make Just One Change features the voices and experiences of teachers in classrooms across the country to illustrate the use of the Question Formulation Technique across grade levels and subject areas and with different kinds of learners.