Education Teaching Books

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 have been teaching for 5 years at every level K-3 and have used this book for the first 6 weeks every year! Contains great team building activities for different ages and different times of the school year. I love it love it love it!!!

This book helped get me through those difficult first weeks of my first year of teaching. 7 years later I still pull it off the shelf at the start of the year.

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.

Absolutely a must-read for any parent, teacher or relative of a child with autism (including Asperger's Syndrome). Helps you get out of the emotional and mental storm that can accompany dealing with your child, and instead make order in your thoughts, priorities and actions. Empowers you to replace irrelevent cliches with effective intervention.

I ordered this book for my daughter her son has autism and she is always looking for ways to improve her skills with him. He has made alot of progress because of her and doctors. She said the book is good some
helpful things to do and try.

this is one of my favorite books about autism, it is easy to read, gets right to the point and is not to long. i bought and gave one to each of my family members and to my boys teacher each year.

It really opens your eyes to the daily struggles of every day life with autism...the best book on how to help rather than hinder a child with autism

This is a short book that helps understanding your child's feelings and concerns and how to deal with them (it does not break down the different ASDs). The book is written as if your child is speaking to you, which makes it more personal. It has 10 short main points from the child's view, then explains every point more detailed in the second part of the book. This book might help people who are involved with your child, but who don't want to read complicated books on autistic spectrum disorders. I have read many other books on ASDs, but I keep looking into this one to remind myself to be patient and understanding (I especially like points #7 and 10, to focus on the child's strengths and to love him/her unconditionally). If you already know a lot about ASDs, then you probably won't get a lot of new information from this book, but it may help you understand and respond to the child better -- it helped me focus on my child's feelings better than reading a clinical book about ASDs. If you are new to ASDs, then this book is definately helpful, but you might still want to read additional clinical info books about the different ASDs and personal stories written by people with an ASD (like "Born on a Blue Day").

This book is an excellent resource for newbie teachers looking to improve their classroom management/student performance skills. The book is easy to follow and gives great examples. I have also taken a class on the skills discussed in this book, but for the money I think the book is all you need. Highly recommended.

I haven't finished reading this book and I already have a ton of new ideas. The premise is that you establish a relationship with your students where they can choose for themselves how to behave properly in the classroom. We must be fair with our consequences, hearty in praise, and rather than making demands, we must teach students to make good decisions. They won't have someone to make demands of them their whole lives. Highly recommend it, especially for nervous soon-to-be teachers.

This book is entirely about how to manipulate and control your students without them realizing it. The book doesn't seem to address getting to the root of the problem or listening to students. The only this mentioned was how to get students to do what is expected. The first pages tell of a principal who ignores a student until he confesses to having stolen from a teacher. The student just asks to apologize for the deed, but no one ever bothers to find out why he did it in the first place. Another suggestion for showing "empathy" was that a father told his daughter that she must feel horrible getting such horrible grades and that he couldn't possibly make her feel worse by pointing out she was failing. Then he told her that she would end up repeating school, but hopefully her friends wouldn't "dump" her because she was behind them. First of all this is not empathy, empathy is being able to understand what someone is going through. This involves having felt the same way. The father obviously hadn't and used his mock empathy to make her feel stupid and worse than she already did. He never got to the root of the problem, why her grades are bad, and she lost trust in him as well. What good did this do. If she gets better grades, why is she doing it, so she will be smarter, to show her father, or to stay with her friends. What if they needed to move away and she no longer had these friends anyway. What would be her motivation to get better grades then.
Everything in this book was about finding ways to control and manipulate your classroom. The punishments were not logical and I believe the authors are confusing control with love, or at least with conditional love. I am appalled and want to return this book, what a waste of time and money.

I came in contact with "Love & Logic" when my daughter was around 7. Many friends had heard about this and were talking about the tapes, and passing them around. I hesitated, as I didn't want to listen to long boring speeches about the degradation of youth. My friend said I was in for a treat. Jim Fay is a gifted speaker, he explains, tells, sympathizes, and TEACHES with a great sense of humor! I love listening to him. When he came to our town we didn't hesitate to pay to hear more about how to help our children learn about the "real world" and how not to punish ourselves at the same time! You actually learn how to discipline children, ( even grown children who come back into your life and home) with dignity and respect. As with any program it's not magic, I've seen friends of mine read and read BUT NEVER APPLY what they learned, like LETTING A CHILD ACTUALLY SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES OF HIS ACTIONS!!!! WOW doesn't that sound like LOGIC? There are many gems in each book, tape, and I recommed them all in every aspect of life. It works, my daughter is balanced, married, and we never suffered outright rebellion, or the "teenage disasters" so common today. Children need structure and this is a great basis.

Like all educational theories this book is another way for teachers to do classroom management. It does and can work, but it can be a bit harsh toward some students if followed exactly. I would recommend reading it but with an eye toward integrating the ideas that seem "logical" to you and your individual classroom situation.

I found this book very helpful in understanding features of law school that are important there but not necessarily taught there. It also is done in an interesting way, so that it's not just a completely practical guide to exams. It *is* practical, but it's got some intellectual content, too. Worthwhile for the law student.

I had Fischl for Contracts at UM a few years ago and highly recommend it if you find yourself in a similar position. The examples are pretty close to the type of questions he and other law school professors ask on exams. Think of this book as a Princeton Review type lesson on how to master the test not the material. It does a good job breaking down the different types of issue spotters etc and is helpful for those with no exam experience. I recommend it to my 1L friends (the ones I couldn't talk out of going to law school. 4 stars only because even knowing what to expect didn't help my grade in his class!

What a great book. I'm just sorry that I didn't discover it until my 2L year. I feel so much more prepared for exams this year, thanks to the great advice and information in this book. I plan to give my copy to the student services library when I leave law school, because I think every single 1L should read it!

It seems incomprehensible, not long ago, that this book did not exist! The information accumulated and distributed in this book is priceless. Many law-thought exercises, a challenging read for the mind but not tiring or boring when taken in chunks.

If you're going to law school or are in it right now, and haven't read this, you certainly will regret it!

Reading this book before school started had the benefit of getting me thinking about law and legal analysis. But it had no impact on my grades (I'm at or near the top of my class in all subjects and top overall). More importantly, it SHOULDN'T have any impact on one's grades. Attending the lectures, reading the cases, preparing your own outline, participating in class and seeking help from the professor when necesssary; THESE are the vital steps for success in law school.

I gave up using commercial aids for one crucial reason: they distracted me from getting inside the head of the professor and really grasping the nature of the topic. People who try to take artificial shortcuts like using a commercial aid will never excel. If their intellect cannot naturally expedite the studying process, how could a quick summary give someone that special, incisive grasp of a topic? In such a case one would be better off doing all the assigned tasks properly and methodically. Disagree with me at your peril!

To be fair, after reading this book, I was able to provide some clever answers in class during my first month at school. After that, I was so involved and interested in the assigned materials, I long surpassed what this book could offer.

Words Their Way is an excellent source for teachers to use for word study. It gives great insight into how kids learn to spell.

It's been shown that spelling provides a window to one's reading. This book explains the developmental stages children go through K- adult. The database software on one of the CDs that allows one to analyze the spelling inventories and sort the results is very easy to use. Classroom teachers appreciate the data I have been able to give them on their students. The word games and short videos on the 2nd CD are very helpful. The analytical phonics approach is very kid-friendly right up through high school. This is a very thorough resource that every ELA, SpEd, and Title I teacher should use.

The book is outstanding. The materials in the book is easy to read and follow. I use the activities and word sorts in my classroom each day. I have used the spelling inventory with my class, also.
I do have a problem with the CD that came with the book. I wish the word sorts involving words would be big like the picture sorts are. My students have trouble with the small size of squares.

This is a great resource. It gives many examples of how to impliment the program. One thing I really like about Words Their Way is the fact that is hands on. This will really help my students who are more concrete thinkers.

My children attended a public school where this program was used. When I brought them home due to their various LDs/allergies, I balked at the $40 price tag of this book and opted for the less expensive Spectrum Spelling books for their grade level. I found those to be rather annoying because often my children already knew the words. And the ones they didn't know, they would spell correctly on the tests, but they didn't necessarily continue to spell the words correctly in their writing. Mid-way through the year I abandoned the Spectrum books and purchased this one.

My favorite thing about this approach is how the kids really think about and interact with the words. It is a disciplined program, I require my kids to do a word sort and an activity in their spelling journals every day -- their choice. However, this typically takes less than 10 minutes a day.

The other thing I do is pretest the kids every week to find out which words they need to study. If they already know a spelling pattern, then I don't give it to them and move on to the next one. Sometimes I pull misspelled words out of their writing, and then find the pattern that applies and give them those words for the week.

I will say, that for most homeschoolers, this book is pretty heavy on the theory, and the "how-to" is mixed up with the theory so it may take more work up front to start the program if you are unfamiliar with the idea of spelling notebooks and word activities. But it is quite fascinating, and will give you a new appreciation for a young child's emerging spelling skills, as well as concrete strategies for helping older students with more complex words.

As for content, the book covers spelling from pre-K through at least middle school, perhaps early high school.

And the CD-Rom is a real time-saver too, with its words for sorts and activities.

All in all, quite effective, very interesting, and a great value - you buy this once and then purchase simple notebooks or composition books for their spelling journals, and you are set for years to come.

The book is absolutely a must read. I highly recommend it, though I have a few issues with it. Here is one:

"We must not congratulate ourselves that our society now treats everyone fairly and manifests attitudes that allow accurate interpretations of the past."

I don't know what planet he lives on, but this is not the reality in my world and the folks I know personally. There is no such things as equality. Big Sistah Pat

"the problem of Reconstruction was integrating Confederates, not African Americans, into the new order." Since the textbooks find it hard to say anything really damaging about white people, their treatment of why Reconstruction failed lack clarity." True dat! True dat - Big Sistah Pat

"When the present investigator started his inquiry, the preconception was that it had to be focused on the Negro people.....But as he proceeded in his studies into the Negro problem, it became increasingly evident that little, if anything, could be scientifically explained in terms of peculiarities of the Negroes themselves.....The Negro problem is predominantly a white......problem." Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma

Problems:

I was relatively pleased with the author until he came to Lincoln. His assessment of Lincoln and Black folks was pure garbage. He made Lincoln to out to the friends of my ancestors. Lincoln hated them. He did not want to emancipate blacks. If they had to be emancipated he wanted them to be shipped off to Haiti, S America, and /or the African continent. He wanted them out of America. Unfortunately for him, the government did not have the resources to make this happen. The emancipation proclamation did not free black folks. The Lincoln myth has been propagated throughout America, the same as the myth that Columbus discovered America.

This is the reason I can only give the book a solid four stars. However, it is absolutely worth reading. However, I would encourage everybody to read Lerone Benett's Lincoln Forced Into Glory. If you would like to know how he really felt about the folks of African descent in his own words. I was disappointed in the author for trying to perpetuate the Lincoln lie.

I loved reading this book. It caused me to stop and think about some of the things I learned in High School.

I just bought my 2nd copy to give to a relative. I really love this book and I plan to save it for our daughter to read later on.

This book really is what is made out to be on the cover "Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong." Loewen points out many of the inacuracies taught in the American history classroom in a way that is enlightening for any citizen. The book is broken down into thematic chapters that help any student of history conceptualize the issues being dealt with at that time.

The points the author makes are fair, important and, up to a point, interesting. But the book seems to be sold more as an anecdotal "here's the history you don't know" when it's really more of a "here's how a conservative, pro-European, America-can-do-no-wrong bias has become the foundation of much of the teaching of US history." So it wasn't as fun a book as I expected it to be. And, after a while, I wanted to yell "okay, okay, I agree with you! Just stop arguing at me. I get it."

This book is just ok as far as a review of math goes. I haven't touched this kind of math in ages; therefore, I am relearning the material. This book does not go far enough into the explanations of the answers. It just simply gives the answers without explaining how the problem got solved. That is not helpful if you are not getting the correct answers and you feel you are doing everything right. I would not suggest this book to anyone for that reason, unless you have a solid grasp on the material and just need some practice.

If you're looking for a book to prep you for the quantitative section of the GRE, this workbook by Kaplan is not a comprehensive prep book. I personally found Barron's to be the best guide in helping me with the Math section of the GRE. I bought this book thinking it would a good practice book, but I found it to be average and the practice questions are much easier than the questions I found on the actual GRE.

Don't waste your time and money buying this book! It wasn't helpful at all! I found that Baaron's Math part is really comprehensive and educative. This book is very easy and has nothing to do with real GRE exam. I would also recommend to subscribe for some internet quiz to do better on actual test. Good luck everyone!

I thought this would be a complete math review but it doesn't even go through the probabilities and the questions are way easier than the actual tests. If you have no knowledge of the math part it would work but if you are looking for high math score this is definitely not enough.

The explanations are good as far as they go, but they do not explain some of the harder math that shows up on the GRE like permutations and more advanced algebra. I took the GRE today and, although I scored 800 on both sections, the math definitely felt more difficult than the 'advanced' problems I had looked at in this book last night. I was shocked when I got my score and I guess I was lucky, but if you want to be sure of doing really well, I would look for more challenging practice and in depth review than this book provides.

Debbie Miller's disarming writing style makes you feel as if you're dialoguing with her about teaching reading in an elementary setting - the book nearly vanishes and there you are, sipping a cup of coffee and listening to Miller respond (patiently!) to your myriad questions. Throughout the text she takes the reader with her, through teaching hiccups and tough lessons learned, and anticipates every question you have. It's easy to see she's a realistic idealist, someone who has high expectations but doesn't beat herself up for making mistakes. That kind of tone is too often missing in other books about education and sets this one apart from the rest.

I can't say enough wonderful things about this book. It is easy to follow, has great pictures and really shows the author's thinking process behind why she does what she does. I have read and reread this book, tabbed it to death, and bring it with me to school every day. I used all the strategies last year with very minimal tweaking and had phenomonal results in the "thinking about reading" strategies of my 2nd/3rd grade students.

This book is an excellent to help new or veteran teachers add some spice to their reading lessons. Debbie Miller not only models many of her lesson topics but also gives suggested book titles for you to help make the lesson 'your own'. I would reccommend this book to anyone who teaches reading. The skills focused on in this book are superb lessons that all readers should know how to do!

I really care about reading books that are easy to read....where the author's voice is really simple to understand. Debbie Miller made me feel like she was talking right to me when I read this. AWESOME book - one of the best I've ever read....GET IT - WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? smile

This is a great book for any teacher to have. I work as a special ed teacher, so I work with one or two students at a time. The strategies described in this book are wonderful for teaching comprehension. One thing I really liked is that she explains how she does her lessons step by step. She even writes word for word what she says during each lesson. I think it's wonderful that teachers share their knowledge with others, share what has worked for them so we can all be better teachers. The book is focused on the kids enjoying reading and getting as much from every single book they read as possible. This book is geared especially toward teachers of smaller children (kindergarten, first, second) and even though my students are in 3rd, 4th and 5th grade I have found ways to adapt each lesson easily for them. It includes great pictures and some of the work her children have produced in her class. It is an absolutely valuable tool and I'm so glad I bought it.

The Essential 55 is well worth your money. We are using it for my fifth graders next year to teach manners and over all character education. It is an easy read and these "rules" will teach a lot of valuable information to anyone. More people should read this book because they will be motivated to be a better person.

A wonderful guide for first year teachers and parents who need a place to start raising disciplined, respectful children.

After reading all of your reviews of this book, I have to give my own opinion. I read this book like I read the Bible. This is a book that contains a lot of good ideas and many stories that you can use to apply to your own lives and your own classrooms. I do not believe that you are supposed to take every single one of these rules verbatim. Each of the 55 rules applies to Ron Clarke's classroom and how he teaches. There are many different ideas of what it means to be a good teacher. Just because Disney says that he is one of the best teachers in American does not mean that his rules or opinions easily apply to you. What I, being an educator, believe is that you should take Ron Clark's opinions on teaching and apply them to your own teaching style as best as you see fit. Use his rules to help you teach your classroom and nothing more. If you do not agree with one of his ideas, then good for you. You have a working brain and are able to sift through what you believe to be helpful information and what is just someone's opinion. Remember, there are as many ways to teach as there are colors in the rainbow. There is no one specific teaching method that is right. Take it for however you will and hopefully you will be a better educator for it.

This is an inspirational book for all teachers!!! Highly recommended for making your classroom better. It is also hilarious. You'll get a good laugh from it. Ron Clark just reminds us what education is all about.

This book is a great read. It is helpful for any teacher or parent to help their children succeed in school.

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, 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.

I saw the movie and thought it was great. I saw that they had a book and figured that it would be interesting to read, but it wasn't. The movie was enough..

VERY VERY GOOD. AS A TEACHER, I WAS HAPPY WITH THE ABILITY OF THIS TEACHER TO TOUCH AND CHANGE LIVES IN HER CLASSROOM.