Education Teaching Books

I am a successful veteran teacher, and every summer I still revisit this book to get motivated for the new school year ahead. I had the pleasure of watching the entire video series of Mr. Wong, and so perhaps I can appreciate the book more than others who have not. Both are thoughtful, and I have gained many tips. I find his information particularly helpful at the middle school level, where classroom procedures must be crystal clear. I have read a lot, still haven't found the "perfect" teacher book - but this is as good as it gets!

This is a very interesting and helpful book for beginning teachers, or teachers who wish they ran a more effective classroom. This book is full of practical tips that you can implement right now, and is written in a very user-friendly format with lots of graphics and main ideas in bold. This is a great book.

An excellent book, Harry K. Wong's The First Days of School changed my teaching style forever. It changed my life!

If this volume is assigned, as it was in my case, our opinion doesn't matter. I find Highlights Magazine for children to be a more penetrating look at ANYTHING than this revenue generator. Good luck, sorry if you, too were required to buy it.

...outdated, very few useful ideas, centered around elementary education, and an absurd tone of cheerfulness mixed with condescension.

When I was a new teacher I really hoped this book would prepare me for running a smooth classroom but it just steered my thinking in the wrong direction and ultimately it probably did more harm than good.

This books "popularity" is simply due to the fact that it is a fad book within administrative circles. This is because Wong goes out of his way to argue that teachers who criticize inservice and professional development activities are just bad teachers.

This book is an excellent research for primary level reading teachers! It clearly outlines ways to support children's development and organize a literacy block.

This book had so much information about workshop AND classroom management. It was worth the price I paid and it would have been worth double the price. Excellent for anyone who teaches children whether you are new to teaching, have many years experience, do workshop in your classroom or not.

The Daily Five: Fostering Literacy Independence in the Elementary Grades is a hands-on, practical book that can be readily implemented in any classroom. It's an easy read with great ideas, and a step-by-step guide. Thank you to the Sisters!

My first year, I tried using centers. It required a lot of work and management from my perspective. Also, some of the kids would just get going on something and they'd have to stop. With the methods of The Daily Five, the kids had choice (five choices). They could really get into what they were doing, whether it was reading a book, writing a story or working on vocabulary. When I would announce the end of literacy, sometimes they would beg for just a few more minutes. Because of this format, distractions are minimal and I was able to really focus on my reading groups. Team work was abundant and the kids learned a lot. Even my principal remarked on it! (I worked with 3rd graders my first year and 1st graders my second year. Both classes were integrated ESL classes.) This takes the literacy block to a whole new level. (I should add that I did not follow the methods perfectly since it was my first year using it, but the results were still amazing.)

I heard so much about this book, so I decided to purchase it. What a great resource!! I have done many of the ideas in this book individually, but not together as an organizational piece. Great book! Great examples! Great Motivator!

I bought this book about 9 months before I actually took my GRE. The paper practice sections and tests were very helpful however some of the explinations lacked. The math was more helpful than the vocabulary, I would recommend additional help in that area.

I studied a number of GRE texts to maximize my chances for a good score. I found the 2009 Barron's to be the most comprehensive guide out there right now.

I actually return this book because I don't need to take the test anymore. As I look through it, there are lots of questions in this book and large amount of vocabs that we need to know. So I think it's great to have one.

So far, this book has been helpful. I can't really fully review it until later after taking the test. I would recommend it.

I read the reviews when selecting a book to study for the GRE. Based on that information I choose to purchase two books, Barron's GRE and The Princeton Review's "Cracke the GRE." I used both books to study. The Barron's book confused me, not only was it unhelpful but the "assistance" with the math section scared me. I lost sleep due to this book. Save your money and invest in the Princton Review. Not only was the math section more helpful the essay section provided several great suggestions for creating an excellent essay.

This book gives valuable detail to ensure that your school year gets off to a great start. It covers songs, games, rules and procedures to be used during the first six weeks of school. It is the best of many books I've read. I highly recommend this one!

This book provides exactly what it says it will. It gives you a week-by-week schedule for all elementary grade levels and the rationale behind doing each thing. This would be really helpful to have before the first week of your first year teaching.

This book is a great source of information and guidance for new teachers or teachers whose school is encompassing the Responsve Classroom Approach.
IT IS AMAZING! It is explained clearly through out and the student's adaption to the concepts is simply wonderful to watch.

The First Six Weeks of school was a useful guide to designing my first few weeks of school. There are good activities for the kids and practical procedural strategies for the classroom.

I began using Morning Meeting [ASIN:1892989093 The Morning Meeting Book (Strategies for Teachers, 1)] as a part of my teacher education program last year and found it to be a great benefit for encouraging positive social interactions between my elementary students. This year, I began following and implementing The First Six Weeks of School's suggestions and my students LOVE it! They enjoy greeting each other, sharing and doing the activities. I have likewise seen a decrease in the amount of behavioral issues within my classroom. The program will work with your own ideas of discipline, rules and expectations and I have found it to be invaluable as I begin my teaching career. I would recommend The First Six Weeks of School to any teacher (new or experienced) who wants to encourage a positive, socially interactive classroom experience for their students.

I got this book from the library first to start working with my 3 y/o. It really helped that the tasks were so short but I found that to incorporate it into her homeschooling program, we had to do the lessons multiple times. I would review the new sounds at each lesson and she would focus on those 2 sounds for the whole week. She likes to be read to and she pretends to read when she sees me or daddy with a book. She never asked me to teach her to read but she loves to make up stories with a book present so I thought I'd give it a shot. I am so patient with her and the lessons are so short and sweet, the repetition is not annoying or frustrating at all. We actually get lots of chances to make it fun. But I got tired of renewing it at the library and since our pace is so slow, I know its a good investment to have a copy in the house that we own.

I had tried teaching my 5-yr-old son to read using beginning readers and phonics flashcards, but English is such a dumb language. It's difficult to teach and learn because of all the rules and exceptions to those rules. I was worried about teaching my son to read, but my sis-in-law swore by this book and we have not been disappointed! I love how it tells you exactly what to say and how to correct your child. It's so easy!! My son loves to read now! He asks me if he can have reading time so he can learn more. It has given him such a sense of accomplishment. He loves being able to read words in the world around him. It really gets him excited!!

I have to say I agree with jn trotter. You can't exactly go from one page to the next. We started out that way but as the difficulty advanced my daughter began to get discouraged so we would review some lessons. One other thing she seemed to have problem with the practice sections. I thgink it just bored her to read random words that didn't form sentences. I wrote the words on flash cards and she did great after that. This way were able to concentrait more on her problem words and discard the ones she was more familiar with. Anyway she is reading now, and quite proud of herself.

I have been teaching my 8 year old sister from this book, yes she is behind. We didn't do everything in this book we did the new sounds and read the stories (I didn't let her look at the pictures until after because she would guess and not even try to sound it out) and when there began to be a lot of new sounds we would review every other sound so it wasn't too much at once, most of the time we would only do the ones she kept forgetting. Even with doing only half of the recommended stuff she progressed! She felt great because for once she could read! The only thing I wish was that they had easy readers to go with this book, it is confusing for kids to learn words one way and have it be different in other books (they have their own way of writing silent e and some other's too). It really does depend on how your child is... Nothing is a one size fits all when it comes to learning.

We purchased this book for our 3 and a half year old daughter who seemed very eager to learn to read. The lessons are short and work well with her attention span.

this is a very good book, because it can educate everyone about the importance of the respect of other poeple with a different culture.It's also very easy to be read and contemporary.

I agree that this book was written retrospectively because I was confused by Ms. Gruwell's introduction myself. I read it more than once because I was sure I had missed something. She clearly wrote it beyond the original point she claims to have written it.

After reading only two of the first "Diary" entries I had to stop and check through the book to see who was responsible for adapting because to me the editing felt like over kill and took away from the natural flow of what were most likely compelling narrations at some point. To me it felt unnatural and contrived -- yes the stories were heart breaking, but I felt like I was getting the stories through the eyes of say a Diane Sawyer or a Lisa Ling report instead of through the eyes of the 14 old CHILDREN that had been through it.

Being a writer means finding your own voice. A big red flag went up for me when all of the entries were written in the same exact voice. The beginning entries were supposed to be private thoughts of FRESHMEN remedial students, but in no way was that reflected in the entries. You would be hard pressed to find a COLLEGE freshman these days with the vocabulary required for the entries.

Even if the student hadn't been remedial students the writing was so unbelievable! There is no way to convince me that any freshman in any academic level would chose the words and expressions to describe thier personal lives that were used in the entries. The editing did a huge disservice to the kids.

Through out the entire book, I found myself mumbling, "Yeah, right" and "What kid talks like this?" under my breath.

Of course we all picked up the book out of curiosity and admiration, but lets face it-- we also wondered about the authenticity. That is what hooks the reader from the start, draws you in and keeps you engaged. That is what shines more light on the cause.

To those of you who will figure this in bias to "inner city kids" save your breath because I was one. Also, I wanted to identify with the kids, but oddly enough, even though the subject matter is real and gritty, it feels forced and I dare say flowery. It seems they left in the four letter words for shock value, but took out the rawness, which as a reader I am much more interested in.

Although I was a little disappointed by writing style; I applaud and support the students and Ms. Gruwell and will continue to follow news about the Freedom Writer's Organization, but I must admit I was very much looking forward to settling in for an captivating read and I feel let down.

I also have a very difficult time believing that the projects the students discussed in their entries took place all in one school year let alone in one semester. You figure each class is less than an hour long there simply isn't enough time in a curriculum for it to hold true.

(Also, the movie is supposed to be an honest depiction of the book and there were entries that somewhat resembled some of the journal entries that were read aloud to narrate the movie, but the outcomes of the entries in the movie were completely different than ones in the book. So which is true the harsher stories read in the movie or the moralistic entries from the book?)

This book, the freedom writers diary, is one not to forget. Throughout the book they mention what they call the 'undeclared war', this is supposed to describe the gang violence and discrimination of Long Beach, CA. This book is wonderful and inspiring novel that will hit you emotionally. It is a definite page-turner

The novel The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them is an exceptional book detailing the extraordinary things that a teacher and her class managed to accomplish in four years of high school. The novel is a collaborative effort between a teacher, Erin Gruwell, and her 150 students. The novel takes place over a four year period, the four years of high school for these students from the fall of 1994 to the spring of 1998. The students decide to name themselves The Freedom Writers as an allusion to the Freedom Riders, a group of black and white people who rode a bus together as one from the north to the south during the civil rights movement as an act of peaceful protest.
The novel can be read and enjoyed by anyone. It was written to show that anything is possible to accomplish despite the hardships and obstacles that may be forced upon us. Furthermore, the novel aims to promote harmony and friendship among all humans no matter what their race or backgrounds. The students and Ms. Gruwell all go through highs and lows. They experience moments of greatness and moments where they feel insignificant. They all must find a way to get over this, while also dealing with scrutiny from their peers, the community around them, and even other teachers at the school.
However despite the overwhelming odds against them, these students achieve something unbelievable. The novel is broken into semesters and as a reader, we can see the progression of these students. In the first semester the students have no faith in their teacher or themselves. In the very first diary entry a student writes, "I always thought `odd' was a three-letter word; but today I found out it has seven, and they spell G-R-U-W-E-L-L. My freshman English teacher is way out there...The administrators should have known better that to giver her this class, but I guess she didn't know any better than to take it. How is she going to handle four classes full of this school's rejects?". The students dislike their teacher and they dislike her ideas that they can actually make something of themselves. They do not agree with her argument that anything is possible and that they can overcome their differences and accomplish something together.
Over the years Ms. Gruwell manages to change the student's perspectives through projects and literature. They read many selections to which they can personally relate, including Romeo & Juliet, The Diary of Anne Frank, Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo, and The Color Purple among others. Through their efforts the students are allowed to meet many other extraordinary people including Zlata, the author of Zlata's Diary, and Miep Gies, the amazing woman responsible for hiding Anne Frank and her family and also the person who discovered Anne's diary and shared it with the world. From hearing these stories the students begin to believe what Ms. Gruwell has been trying to convey to them.
Eventually the students start to connect to one another. One student writes about her friendship, "...yet I can't even go to a movie with my friend because she's white. Why does that matter any more? I thought we were in a new era and were getting over the race issue?". These students begin to question the ideas that cross-racial friendships and relationships are wrong. They don't see what the big deal is. The students even cross gender lines. While peer editing, a male student reads a diary entry about a girl who had to get an abortion and can empathize with her because his girlfriend had gotten an abortion and he saw what she went through. He even writes an encouraging note to the author telling her "I feel your pain--you're not alone!".
Following these students through their high school years we can see the amazing transformations they go through. They not only believe that they can accomplish the unbelievable, they actually do. I believe these passages, and the subsequent success of the novel, are proof of the author's validity. The original arguments made by Ms. Gruwell hold true in the end and the students accomplish remarkable things and destroy the stereotypes and restrictions that society has placed on them.
I would recommend this novel to anyone. It is great for students because it can help them through the difficult times faced in school. It is great for teachers because it shows what a teacher can accomplish if he or she does not give up and sticks to a dream. It is great for anyone else because it shares remarkable, true stories of ordinary people accomplishing the extraordinary.

After seeing to movie and feeling moved to learn more about this group of writers, I purchased this book. As with the movie, there are some harsh realities brought to light, but it's a good read. Having grown up in a relatively easy-going community in very white America, I felt it was a good experience to see that things are not so easy for MANY kids. Now that I'm raising my own kids I feel it's important for them, also to gain a bit of perspective. This is really an important piece of literature...thanks to those who brought it to the public.

This book is awesome! I recommend it to any teacher wanting to make centers work! She gives great ideas, many of which I used and adapted to fit my teaching style and students. I highly recommend it!

I bought this over the summer to help the teachers in my building start centers. I loved it so much, I let someone borrow it, and they obviously loved it so much, they never gave it back. Debbie Diller gave practical ideas that are easy to implement in the classroom.

I purchased this by recommendation from a co-worker. This book is an excellent resource! The ideas for literacy centers work and I don't feel like I'm "wasting time" with centers that hold little meaning.

This is a great book if you are trying to set up centers in your classroom. I really like these literacy stations, because these stations can last the whole year. You don't have to keep changing them! There are so so many activities your students can do at each station. The sections about differentation were very helpful.

This book is by far the best that I have seen on the market pertaining to 'Literacy Centers'. It gives alot of ideas on how to set up centers. A valuable resource for teachers.

I got recommendation for Bob books from my kid's school teacher. I liked the content but for the price I paid for this, I expected better pictures. It seemed like the publisher skimped on colors etc. At times my kid asks that the book says 'red car'then why isn't car red? Well, because publisher saved a penny there! Either this needs to be a bit cheaper or the quality needs to be improved.

However, the reading content is very good. My kid is enjoying it and learning words. I would recommend this to beginner readers.

This is an excellent series for children who are first learning how to read. These small square books are 16 pages each, lightweight and nicely sized for little hands to hold. The hand-drawn illustrations are so cute! Most of the words are only three letters long which makes them very easy for kids to read. Yet even with such a simple text, the stories are unique and entertaining. These books aren't meant to be read to your child, but to have your child read to you. I really enjoy having my son read them to me. We used Bob Books in conjunction with the Alpha-Phonics program (Alpha-Phonics: A Primer for Beginning Readers), and my son was able to read the first two Bob Books all by himself after just finishing his second lesson in Alpha-Phonics. This was great because it helped him to build confidence in his new skill right away!

~Teri Ann Berg Olsen, author of Learning for Life: Educational Words of Wisdom

I love this series. We purchased this about 1 month ago and we are already on book 6. My son is very energetic and does not have a lot of patience. He did great on the first 2 books and then started to get bored and frustrated when he could not figure out the new words. I changed my teaching technique to where he would "teach" me how to sound out the word so I could learn new words. Since then, he has loved helping teach me to read.

We are on book 6 and getting close to starting 7. I am so impressed with how much he loves them. He reads them to his younger brother and is just so proud of himself. Bob books does a great job of keeping the books easy to read with cute stories and pictures. I am only giving them 4 stars because the books are very flimsy. None of them have fallen apart, but I have a feeling they won't last long with my 2 boys! It is such a small thing compared to how much my son has gained, though.

When using the Bob Books, I found if used in conjunction with a phonics program, it just reinforced what I was trying to teach. We homeschool so it was vital to find something that not only encouraged my child at the stage of very early reading but was also simple. I have an accelerated learner.
She started her first few Bob Books when she was just 3 yrs old... I know many of you may think that is too young, but she was writing her own name before she turned 3 and adding & subtracting a year later.

Anyway back to the Bob Books, we originally started them and then she got hung up on one and didn't want to move on, I put the books away... Fast Forward a year later... when she was 4... we started using the phonics program called "Explode The Code" she quickly progressed and I pulled the Bob Books back out and started a reading tree, so that for every book she would read by herself, she would earn a leaf on her 'reading tree' and we put the date she read it. (This included the Bob Books) With the Bob Books we quickly mastered what was needed in addition to the Explode The Code workbooks and let me tell you.. She has EXPLODED with her ability to read.
The 2 working in conjunction the Bob Books and the Explode the Code set the stage for her ability to be strengthened as well as confidence and she is reading on a 2nd grade level and most of her peers are only starting Kindergarten this school year 2008-2009. I kinda let her learn at her pace and that is one of the many advantages of Homeschooling... we now don't have to wait for everyone to catch up... we can keep on going. :)


These are only some suggestions that have worked for our family.
Remember to do what is best for you and your family.

All parents need to start early and share in their child's reading experience- these books are a good beginning. Two pieces of children's literature that I also highly recommend that I used with my young children are:Life's Little Lessons: An Inch-By-Inch Tale of Success and The Big Squeal: A Wild, True, and Twisted Tail. Written by teachers, the kids loved them and the 10-page scripted teaching guide was invaluable for actually teaching them to read.

My family is getting ready to adopt a special needs child and they were told to purchase this book along with the Martian Child movie. We purchased both of these items and they are very good to help in the thought processes behind a special needs child. The book shows a completely different way in bringing up children versus the old fashioned way. We have not finished the book yet but we are darn sure it is going to help.

There are a ton of "parenting" books available but this one is helping me a great deal. Good illustrations and easy to read; the logic makes sense and the love is there.

This is a no nonsense approach to keeping your cool while
helping your kids listen and learn about life. Even though
it might not work with all kids this book is a must read
for any parent the earlier you read it the better.

One of the co-authors of this book (Foster Cline, M.D.) is the psychiatrist whose "attachment therapy" resulted in deaths and torture of children. (See "Advocates for Children in Therapy" at http://www.childrenintherapy.org/.) My child -- now 20 and an honors student adored by family and friends -- had oppositional and destructive behavior with tantrums. My husband and I followed advice similar to that in this book, culminating when our son became suicidal at age 8. At that point my husband and I looked at each other with the simultaneous unspoken thought: "We can't keep treating him this way." We instead relied on our own sense of how far to go. Later, when I read, "The Explosive Child" by Ross Green, I said to myself, "This man has written a book describing how we decided to raise our son!" It was such a relief to read, "The Explosive Child." Our change in approach paid off -- and the medications finally were tweaked correctly, and guess what: his behavior changed overnight from awful to excellent. It wasn't that he didn't WANT to behave like others: it was that he COULDN'T. As soon as the medications allowed him to control his behavior and distorted perceptions, all the good parenting and modeling we had done kicked in immediately. "Love and Logic" is based on the belief that natural consequences are all that's needed -- but if your child has a brain disorder that causes a distorted view of what's happening, the consequences you would have to resort to would be torture.
It's MUCH MUCH better to understand the disorder and how it is distorting your child's thoughts and perceptions, and get it treated by a board-certified child psychiatrist. Also, read, "The Explosive Child." (By the way, our son has not taken any medications in three years. The medications bought him time to mature enough to be able to make use of cognitive-behavioral techniques to control his anxiety. I also think the medications may have allowed his brain to develop normally so that eventually he didn't need them.)

This a an outstanding book for parents to learn those parenting skills necessary to raise happy and healthy children. Another must-read for parents is Bully-Proofing Children: A Practical, Hands-On Guide to Stop Bullyingwhich is about raising empowering children who will never become victims or bullies.

This book is exceptionally informative about what it is like to study for two years at Harvard Business School. The author, Philip Delve Broughton, a former jornalist for Britain's leading serious newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, writes very well and succeeds in really taking you with him into the classrooms, group study sessions and meetings with guest speakers. But the book offers far more than just a blow by blow account of life at HBS: it is a drole, thoughtful, profound reflection on the attractions and horrors of modern business life and it also provides a lesson for those of us who fancy ourselves as potential captains of industry: the world of business is often immoral and hypocritical, despite its Orwellian efforts to promote ethical standards, and for most of its foot soldiers it is often very boring. This is a great book and it is about far more than just HBS. It deserves to become a classic.