Teach Like a Champion offers effective teaching techniques to help teachers, especially those in their first few years, become champions in the classroom. These powerful techniques are concrete, specific, and are easy to put into action the very next day. Training activities at the end of each chapter help the reader further their understanding through reflection and application of the ideas to their own practice.

Among the techniques:

• Technique #1: No Opt Out. How to move students from the blank stare or stubborn shrug to giving the right answer every time.
• Technique #35: Do It Again. When students fail to successfully complete a basic task?from entering the classroom quietly to passing papers around?doing it again, doing it right, and doing it perfectly, results in the best consequences.
• Technique #38: No Warnings. If you're angry with your students, it usually means you should be angry with yourself. This technique shows how to effectively address misbehaviors in your classroom.

A passionate plea to preserve and renew public education, The Death and Life of the Great American School System is a radical change of heart from one of America’s best-known education experts.

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 age

* Is your child halfway through first grade and still unable to read?
* Is your preschooler bored with coloring and ready for reading?
* Are you worried that your child will become lost in overcrowded classrooms?
* Did you know that early readers hold an advantage over their peers throughout school?
* Do you want to help your child read, but are afraid you'll do something wrong?

SRAs DISTAR® is the most successful beginning reading program available to schools across the country. Research has proven that children taught by the DISTAR® method outperform their peers who receive instruction from other programs. Now for the first time, this program has been adapted for parent and child to use at home. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is a complete, step-by-step program that shows patents simply and clearly how to teach their children to read.

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.

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons will bring you and your child closer together, while giving your child the reading skills needed now, for a better chance at tomorrow.

A road map for teachers who strive to be highly effective leaders in our nation's classrooms

Teach For America has fought the daunting battle of educational equity for the last twenty years. Based on evidence from classrooms across the country, they've discovered much about effective teaching practice, and distilled these findings into the six principles presented in this book. The Teaching As Leadership framework inspires teachers to: Set Big Goals; Invest Students and Their Families; Plan Purposefully; Execute Effectively; Continuously Increase Effectiveness; Work Relentlessly. The results are better educational outcomes for our nation's children, particularly those who live in low-income communities.

• Inspires educators to be leaders in their classrooms and schools
• Demystifies what it means to be an effective teacher, describes key elements of practice and provides a clear vision of success
• Addresses the challenges every teacher, in every classroom, faces on a daily basis

An accompanying website includes a wealth of tools, videos, sample lessons, discussion boards, and case studies.

All readers of any age need instruction and support that helps them become more independent and self-reflective in their work. – Gail Boushey and Joan Moser   In The CAFE Book, Gail Boushey and Joan Moser present a practical, simple way to integrate assessment into daily reading and classroom discussion. The CAFE system, based on research into the habits of proficient readers, is an acronym for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expanding vocabulary. The system includes goal-setting with students in individual conferences, posting of goals on a whole-class board, developing small-group instruction based on clusters of students with similar goals, and targeting whole-class instruction based on emerging student needs.   Gail and Joan developed the CAFE system to support teachers as they: ·         organize assessment data so it truly informs instruction; ·         track each child's strengths and goals, thereby maximizing time with him or her; ·         create flexible groups of students, all focused on a specific reading strategy; and ·         help students remember and retrieve the reading strategies they learned.   The CAFE system does not require expensive materials, complicated training, or complete changes to current classroom literacy approaches. Rather, it provides a structure for conferring with students, a language for talking about reading development, and a system for tracking growth and fostering student independence. The CAFE system’s built-in flexibility allows teachers to tailor the system to reflect the needs of their students and their state’s standards. And it’s a perfect complement to The Daily Five, “The Sisters” influential first book, which lays out a structure for keeping all students engaged in productive literacy work for every hour of every classroom day.

Winner of the American Book Award and the Oliver C. Cox
Anti-Racism Award of The American Sociological Association

Americans have lost touch with their history, and in Lies My Teacher Told Me Professor James Loewen shows why. After surveying eighteen leading high school American history texts, he has concluded that not one does a decent job of making history interesting or memorable. Marred by an embarrassing combination of blind patriotism, mindless optimism, sheer misinformation, and outright lies, these books omit almost all the ambiguity, passion, conflict, and drama from our past.

In this revised edition, packed with updated material, Loewen explores how historical myths continue to be perpetuated in today's climate and adds an eye-opening chapter on the lies surrounding 9/11 and the Iraq War. From the truth about Columbus's historic voyages to an honest evaluation of our national leaders, Loewen revives our history, restoring the vitality and relevance it truly possesses.

Thought provoking, nonpartisan, and often shocking, Loewen unveils the real America in this iconoclastic classic beloved by high school teachers, history buffs, and enlightened citizens across the country.

The Flat World and Education offers an eye-opening wake-up call concerning America's future and vividly illustrates what the United States needs to do to build a system of high-achieving and equitable schools that ensures every child the right to learn.



''We are so fortunate that Linda Darling-Hammond has provided this road map for educational excellence for all children in today's flat world. She thoughtfully emphasizes the basic strengths that we need in these changing times and then outlines what our schools must do to respond to 21st-century learning needs. Linda is one of the education researchers whom I most respect. 'All children' must mean all children and this book shows us how to do it.''

-Richard W. Riley, Former U. S. Secretary of Education



''When Linda Darling-Hammond speaks, America's teachers listen! I listened and learned from her as we together led the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and created the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. Excellent schools are the key to America's economic future, and superb teaching is the key to great schools. This book makes clear as a bell how to organize schools for successful teaching and what state and national policies are required to support it.''

-James B. Hunt, Former Governor of North Carolina and President of the Hunt Institute



''Her arguments are sound, rooted in evidence, and unencumbered by the kinds of ideological partisanship that characterizes too much of current educational debates. After reading this book, one will understand why it was that Barack Obama, when seeking advice from the sharpest minds in education, turned to Dr. Linda Darling Hammond.''

-Pedro A. Noguera, Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, New York University



''Once again Darling-Hammond brings clarity to complexity, thoughtful analysis to politically charged issues, and sound policy recommendations to the hysteria of what to do to save America s public schools. In this volume the macro meets the micro on terms that lets all democratically-minded citizens breathe a sigh of relief.''

-Gloria Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin Madison



''Anyone who desires a quantum leap in the educational achievements of American students-as opposed to the 'quick fix'-must address the issues raised in this carefully argued and well documented work.''

-Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education



''Linda Darling-Hammond has written the definitive description of the problems that drag down the quality and equity of our educational system. Writing with passion, solid scholarship, and compassion, she presents a vision of the changes that are necessary to build a better education system and a brighter future for all our children and our nation.''

-Diane Ravitch, New York University



''Linda Darling-Hammond's latest is a profoundly important book. She provides both a powerful rationale and a clear, detailed roadmap for how public education must be transformed to meet the challenges of teaching, learning, and assessment in the 21st century. It is a must-read read for educators, policymakers, and others concerned about the future of our country in a 'flat' world.''

-Tony Wagner, co-director, Harvard Change Leadership Group

The official guide from the makers of the TOEFL to ensure your exam success!

The Official Guide to the TOEFL® iBT is the leading guide to the most widely accepted English-language proficiency test in the world--the TOEFL test. Written by ETS, the makers of the test, this book includes two real full-length TOEFL tests for practice, as well as explanations of every section of the test and information on what is expected of you for every speaking and writing task. You will learn how to construct your answers and integrate the four skills needed to demonstrate academic English-language proficiency: reading, listening, speaking and writing. The accompanying CD-ROM provides on-screen interactive versions of both real TOEFL tests in the book, just like the one you will encounter on test day.

This book would be very useful for both university reading courses and classroom teachers. I use Words Their Way both in my first grade classroom and with college students as a way to implement word study. Kristi McNeal, CSU Fresno Words Their Way's developmentally-driven, hands-on instructional approach has been a phenomenon in word study, providing a practical way to study words with students. The keys to this research-based approach are to know your students' literacy progress, organize for instruction, and implement word study. This streamlined book and the DVD and CD-ROM that accompany it gives you all the tools you need to carry out word study instruction that will motivate and engage your students, and help them to succeed in literacy learning. Ordered in a developmental format, Words Their Way complements the use of any existing phonics, spelling, and vocabulary curricula. Knowing Your Students *Streamlined Chapter 2 provides step by step guidelines for assessing students. *NEW! Words Their Way Word Study Resources CD: Assessment Planning and Additional Interactive Word Sorts contains computerized assessments to gauge students' developmental levels.* Word Study with English Learner sections in each chapter help you organize and adapt instruction to meet the needs of students whose first language is not English. Organizing for Instruction *NEW! Words Their Way DVD Tutorial: Planning for Word Study in K-8 Classrooms reinforces and illustrates classroom organization and management, as outlined in Chapter 3. *Word Study Routines and Management sections in every chapter give you practical guidance on managing and implementing word study in your classroom. *NEW! Tech Notes throughout chapters pinpoint opportunities for you to use the DVD and CD-ROM to prepare for instruction. Implementing Word Study *Classroom-proven, research-driven activities end each developmental chapter, giving you the instructional practices to get your word study instruction up and running immediately. *NEW! Words Their Way Word Study Resources CD: Assessment Planning and Additional Interactive Word Sorts provides more than just assessments. You'll also find hundreds of additional word and picture sorts, games and templates, and an interactive Create Your Own section.* The Appendix at the back of the book contains a comprehensive bank of word lists, word sorts, picture sorts, games and templates. The theory behind and practice for word sorts allows even the novice teacher to understand how to use the assessments to organize instruction. The organization of the last five chapters creates a useful resource for teachers. Each begins with a research-based description and moves into sound instructional practices, giving the teacher a complete understanding of how to meet the needs of students. Cathy Blanchfield, CSU Fresno Meet the Authors *Donald Bear is Director of the E.L. Cord Foundation Center for Learning and Literacy at the University of Nevada, Reno, assessing and teaching students who experience difficulties learning to read and write. A former preschool and elementary teacher, Donald currently researches literacy development with a special interest in students who speak languages other than English, and he partners with schools and districts to consider assessment and literacy instruction.* Marcia Invernizzi is Director of the McGuffey Reading Center at the University of Virginia exploring developmental universals in non-English orthographies. A former English and reading teacher, Marcia works with children experiencing difficulties learning to read and write in intervention programs such as Virginia's Early Intervention Reading Initiative and Book Buddies. *Shane Templeton is Foundation Professor of Literacy Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno. A former classroom teacher at the primary and secondary levels, he researches the development of orthographic and vocabulary knowledge *Francine Johnston is Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she teaches reading, language arts, and children's literature. A former first-grade teacher and reading specialist.

The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation is filled with easy-to-understand rules,real-world examples, dozens of reproducible exercises, and pre- and post-tests.

This handy workbook is ideal for teachers, students in middle school through college, ESL students, homeschoolers, and professionals. Valuable for anyone who takes tests or writes reports, letters, Web pages, e-mails, or blogs, The Blue Book offers instant answers to everyday English usage questions.