Education Teaching Books

A few things we didn't like: There are way too many coloring sheets for us since ds hates to color. There are plenty of other valuable worksheets though. I wish the parent guide was a little more informative. Some of the directions are very long and confusing for a first grader. The math sections are kindergarten level at best. In all it was worth the few bucks I paid for it.

This book is a summer review book before going into the [...]. I have twin girls that just finished kindergarten. Everything that is in this book was covered in their kindergarten class. Last year, I purchased the kindergarten Curriculum Book and that was also much review but it also had some challenging concepts that they had not learned previously in preschool. I would not use this Grade 1 book as a companion for their [...] learning but I think it is a wonderful source for continued summer learning and review before children enter the [...].

I used this book with my daughter Victoria during her summer vacation 2002. She has been diagnosed ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). After having a tough year in kindergarten I wanted to make sure she had a head start on all the learning requirements for 1st grade. As her first week of 1st grade came to a close we received many comments on her reading skills and other skills. I enjoyed using this book as a 1 on 1 tool with Victoria and her self-confidence has been boosted because she does see that all the hard work this summer has paid off. She completed 200 pages of the 440 + pages of work and will hopefully complete the book on weekends and vacations so that she can start the next level next summer. Highly recommended.

Good for extra practice at home. Not good for teacher wanting something reproducible and easy to tear out.

This book will teach your child from reading skills,math, english,enviromental,science,grammar,spelling,writing amd study skills so basicly your child will learn lots from one book.

Excellent practical application book of concepts in the English language. The emphasis is on sentence structure and word usage (like verb agreement, capitalization, punctuation, etc.), and the analogies are good in terms of reinforcing word meanings. The only thing missing for me is the instructions for the concepts covered. For instance, explaining the use of quotation marks would have been helpful (my son is more of a visual learner than auditory - so having instructions written out helps him understand the concepts better than a lecture from me). In spite of this, my son likes this book almost as much as I do!

What I LOVE about it is the daily practice and review. I am a firm believer in small doses of practice everyday - makes a real difference in holding onto a concept. My only regret is that I didn't find this kind of book 2 years ago! You won't be disappointed!!

This book keeps my students current with the information they need to build and improve their grammar skills. They look forward to the daily exercises and participate willingly each morning. I have shared this book with other teachers and they have all since bought their own. I would highly recommend this book to any educator.

I love this book! I have been teaching first grade for eight years, and this book really addresses first grade writers as they truely are. It has some wonderful, concrete ideas for improving their writing. I especially like the suggestions of Read Aloud titles to teach specific writing points.

Stephanie Parsons' book speaks directly to teachers. It explains the thinking behind a writing workshop - what we need to understand in order to set our own goals for our students and to plan and organise successful units of study. I love the way she has provided a consistent framework for the development of each unit of study; this so helps my own planning and then develops each part of the framework giving examples of possible teaching points. I have recommended this book to every First Grade teacher I know.

This is a helpful guide for First Grade teachers who want to incorporate the writing process into their classroom. The information is clear and well-organized and follows the flow of the school year.

I purchased this book and the audio cd to go with it based on reviews I read. I was led to believe my children and I would enjoy the cartooning and listening, but it didn't happen. The book was far too complicated and the cd did not follow the book at all. Yes we were listening to Latin, but we had no idea what it was saying which made it really boring. I have sent both items back and am hoping to get my hard earned money back.

I love this whole series. I use it in homeschooling my kids. Latin, while not used in communication, helps in grammar and spelling. I recommend this to any educator.

I'm teaching Latin to my eight year old daughter and her eight year old friend. I'm not used to teaching this age group, but this book is making it pretty easy. They enjoy the comics, especially if I have them act them out, and they remember the lines afterward; they don't even mind the vocabulary drills. The only real "work" on my part is writing one-two page Latin stories or mini-histories so they can get some practice translating and reading Latin prose.

I purchased this book for my daughter's homeschool. She loves it. Easy to follow and good accumulation of vocabs. Many hand-on activities for each lesson in Teacher's guide book, so strongly recommend to get both. Audio CD is OK... Love children's voice actors,but recording quality is not so great.
Still must to get audio CD along this book.

We do not "homeschool" but I wanted to use this book to teach my daughter Latin as a supplement to what she's learning in school. So far I have found it to be frustrating. Mostly because all the words are not defined. I have been having her translate the cartoons but she is not able to do it completely because of the lack of definitions. It would also be helpful to have a comprehensive glossary at the end. I have a Latin dictionary but it's not terribly helpful. For instance, they introduce "est" but none of the tenses. So along comes "erit" and I'm not sure how they're supposed to know that that is the future tense and means "is going to be"? And "erit" is not in the Latin dictionary. I am now going to have to sit down and write up a spreadsheet with definitions of all the words.

The mouse is cute and I like the addition of Roman culture and history.

I represent a private, non-profit organization that provides evaluation and tutoring services for children K-8. We strongly believe in professional development in order to maintain a high level of competency in the field of education. When our teachers have an opening in their schedule, they select books like this to review, to reflect and to write a summary, which is submitted to me for review and professional credit. Our entire teaching staff has found this book to be a good resource.

As a new resource teacher for my school this was one of the better books I found to help me with real life solutions to teaching learning disabled children. This was a great book for explanations of various learning disabilities and set exercises to use in class for all age groups. I work mostly one on one, but found the activities and strategies easily adaptable for individual use.

I am a preservice teacher and am studying special education. I saw this book on Amazon and was intrigued by the low price. I was so surprised when I received it. It is a wonderful resource for anyone who works with students with LD. It covers the whole gambit from identification, to characteristics, to strategies. It really is a complete handbook and for the price you can't find a better deal. I have found this resource much more useful than my textbooks on LD that cost me upwards 70-80 dollars. I would wholeheartedly recommend this book!

I found this book to be useful and very informative concerning special education. It covered testing, laws, terms and definitions. I've been using it to study for the Praxis Special Ed exams and feel that I will be well prepared.

Very informative. Very good reference for those taking the alternative route to teaching certification. Contains practical scenarios on how theories in education are applied.

This book was exactly what I wanted. It was in excellent condition and was very reasonable in price and shipping.

I love Amazon!
Brenda

This is a thoughtful book that helps to put you into the mindset of being an excellent teacher by really listening to and valuing the world around you, listening to and valuing your students, and encouraging them to cultivate the wonder in themselves.

Lucy McCormick Calkins' text "The Art of Teaching Writing" is very useful for prospective elementary school teachers or elementary school teachers looking for alternate ways to teach their lessons. Each chapter offers some new information for teachers to take into their own classrooms. Calkins makes sure to address important issues such as incorporating writing workshops into the classroom, and incorporating the importance of mini-lessons.

Calkins starts off chapter three, which is titled "Rehearsal, Living the Writerly Life," by saying that, "My hope is that in our writing workshops all of us - teachers and children alike - will be able to take the small threads and small stones of experience and of thought, declare them significant, and make something of them" (21). Calkins does an exemplary job making her text easy to follow and understand. Anyone could read this text and get a lot of great, useful information from it.

Calkins also states the many various reasons why mini-lessons are extremely helpful to students. Calkins notes that "The mini-lesson can serve as a forum for planning the day's work, as a time to call writers together (like the huddle at the start of a football game), or as a time for demonstrating a new method" (193). I thought it was very insightful that the author started off the chapter which was titled, "Don't Be Afraid to Teach: Tools to Help Us Create Mini-Lessons", by saying that mini-lessons can serve in the three above manners mentioned.

Calkins' text is a great source for prospective elementary school teachers as well as elementary school teachers that are looking for a new / different way to go about their lessons in a more effective manner. Calkins' lessons can also be helpful for middle school and high school teachers. I would highly recommend this text for prospective school teachers wanting to learn great teaching methods.

Lucy McCormick Calkins' "The Art of Teaching Writing" is a very useful text. This book caters to teachers of elementary school students and how they can appropriately teach important lessons to their class. Calkins addresses many important issues such as how to encourage children to write and how to further their writing. Each chapter provides new ideas and is especially helpful for soon-to-be or new teachers.


The beginning of Calkins' book gives background information along with her personal experience in the classroom. As the book continues, however, Calkins thoroughly explains the importance of writing and how to get students to write. In chapter three Calkins talks about the importance of students writing often, and to help this process she suggests students have writer's notebooks. These notebooks will include students' thoughts, and will help them jumpstart their writing. She explains that hopefully these notebooks will form "small threads and small stones" which the students can "declare them significant, and make something of them" which will really help the students as well as the teachers (21). By using Calkins' idea of a writer's notebook, students will have ideas in front of them before they start to write. This is also very helpful for teachers because they can look at what their students have been writing, and help them to come up with ideas and stories.


Throughout Calkins' book she stresses the importance of students writing constantly, revising their work, and piecing words and thoughts together to form a finished product. One of the chapters that I found the most helpful was chapter eleven, entitled "Establish a Predictable Workshop Environment." This chapter discusses how important it is for students to have a predictable schedule, because their work is "unpredictable and complex," which I agree with (183). Calkins further explains the importance of this by saying, if students have a set time to write then they can "anticipate and plan for their own writing" (185). I think this is a very important idea because if students know when they will be writing, then they will be more productive and produce better work.


In addition I found chapter 22, called "Genre Studies," to be very interesting. This chapter discusses the importance of having students write in several genres. This was not something I would have immediately thought of as being necessary. After reading the chapter, however, I really agree with Calkins and I think it would help students quite a bit to write in many genres. This way students can learn which genres they like the best and explore all different sides of their personality.


Overall, Calkins' "The Art of Teaching Writing" is a great instructional tool. This book gives great ideas for new teachers, as well as examples of how to present these concepts to the class. This is definitely a book that I will use in my future of teaching elementary school, and a great book for everyone interested in education.

Lucy McCormick Calkins', The Art of Teaching Writing is an essential read to teachers of writing in any grade, but especially for the primary and middle levels. This book is also helpful for new teachers as well as veterans. Teaching writing to the primary and middle school grades can be a challenge, but the instruction she gives and the creativity of her ideas create an exciting guide for any teacher. As someone who plans to teach at the middle school level, I found many of Calkins' suggestions to be very useful.

Throughout the book, Calkins shows the need for meaning in writing and living our lives as writers, and demonstrating this to our students. Her ideas for the Writer's Notebook will allow the students a creative way of noticing the world around them as only a writer can. By giving the students an outlet to get out everything they want to say, they will begin to live the lives of writers.

Calkins stresses that students need to feel like authors to truly take ownership and be excited about their writing; she emphasizes the need for specific writing environments made to inspire and evoke emotion in the writer. These environments consist of cardboard desk separators decorated to each writer's own unique taste. Personal items and quotations may be used to cure any student of the dreaded writer's block.

Allowing the students to become the teachers is just another inventive way Calkins explains in order to allow them to flourish and grow as writers. She puts great importance on seeing and respecting every idea a students have. She realizes that teachers are students as well, and any idea, whether it comes from the teacher or the pupil, can be immensely inspiring.

These are just a few of her techniques, though she offers many more throughout the book. Genre studies, poetry, creative nonfiction, Mini-Lessons and conferences are just a few more ideas she touches upon in great depth.

By instructing teachers on how we can improve the writing environment for our young, impressionable students and explaining various methods in which to do so, Calkins' book is truly ground-breaking for anyone who wants to truly inspire their students to love writing. Any new or seasoned teacher of writing needs to read this book and even veteran teachers can take something away from the fresh look she gives us on the topic. It will open your eyes to all the possibilities there are in teaching writing!

The words on the cover of the book are misleading. The words in the book were far less challenging. My child whizzed through the book but I wonder how much she actually learned.

The vocabulary words on the cover include archipelago and medevac, but inside the book there are also many more rudimentary words. I'd be very concerned if my own kids didn't know the majority of these words before age ten. "Guidebook" and "masterpiece" are in the compound word section, "foul" and "fowl" in the homophone section, "thermometer" and "sympathy" under Greek. I do like the way that the workbook has variety and presents vocabulary in different ways. There's a tic tac toe antonym game, an explanation and fill in the blank area for eponyms such as bologna and tuxedo, and a crossword puzzle for Greek roots. The relatively few words that I consider remotely challenging include isthmus, tributary, onomatopoeia, snafu, and alliteration. This would be a fun book for a second or third grader, an ESL student, or someone in need of remedial help.

To Dolores Hiskes:

I would like to thank you for your wonderful book! I am a 58 year old woman who learned to read without phonetics....the word recognition method. This method has not served me well either as a young student or as an older reader. I have always been a very slow reader and my spelling has been poor. I have always wanted to improve my reading skills but felt pretty discouraged about ever being able to do so. I saw your book advertised somewhere and got the idea to start myself back at the beginning (as it was) and work through Phonic Pathways. Your book is beautifully organized. The material is presented in a format very easy to take in and learn (not that I don't have to work at it though!!!!!).

It has taken me 6 months of daily disciplined study, but the results are very gratifying. I am also working through Reading Pathways, which is very helpful. I think my eye tracking ability is improving little by little as I go.

I am so grateful that you have provided me with a way to improve my reading and spelling skills.

B. Meltzer

I bought this book to start teaching my 4 yr old how to read It is very well organized and step by step , which I need.The way it is laid out you do not need any other books to teach reading with. The only complaint I would have is that it's all in black and white. No color which a 4 yr old likes. Wouldn't be a problem for an older child. This book is great for the parent who has no idea how to teach a child to read.

I teach in the resource room at my school and use your program with
grades K-7. My students range from IEP's to just struggling readers. I use both the Reading Pathways and Phonics Pathways books. I have seen HUGE success with my struggling kids; especially the younger ones. Parents are telling me over and over how much better their children are reading! Even the children are excitedly telling me "I can READ!" Needless to say, I am so thrilled at their success!

I just want you to know how much I love your program!! Even though I thought I had the training and resources I needed, I could tell I still wasn't reaching some of my students. So, I went searching and luckily found Reading and Phonics Pathways. I've had some training in Orton-Gillingham and I love Pathways so much better. I do incorporate a little of OG as well as some Morgan Dynamic Phonics, but your books are by far superior to them both. They make teaching and learning FUN!!

I have students begging me to do the pyramids. They can't wait to get
into my room and see what we'll be doing that day. Thank you, thank
you!

Excellent, excellent practice for my first grade daughter. She can read in her head faster than she can speak. The exercises in this book has been so helpful for her to read aloud more fluently. We love it.

This book has a lot of great phonics activities, but the little "worm" character that leads you through the book is a bit strange. I don't know that older students would really "buy into" it, although it is touted as being usable for multiple grades. The games are great, but some of the pages are kind of visually "busy," and I have had to retype the information for my kids so that they can focus on what they really need to learn. (Keep it simple!!!)

This is a extrmely good book for student to understand the theories and principles of human learning.
Especially, the author explain well various theories by the memories which she have had.
In case of difficult theories, the samples is very useful.

This is the best textbook I have ever used. It is engaging, VERY well written- basically- a page turner that will leave you with a true understanding of the concepts of cognitive science and learning. It is a joy to read, I have taken it with me for grad. school and will always have it close. Though it is an amazing reference tool to have around, this is really a joy to read--read it even if it is not for a class. I cannot say enough good things about this book.

Human learning gives a good basic understanding of learning theory for teachers and others who are interested in educational psychology. There are some very good examples for all theories discussed. The book jumps around a bit and some of the explanations are too technical.

This is an amazingly well written text. Ms Ormrod actually practices what she preaches, so the book is organised as an exemplar of how to help students learn. I bought the book as an optional text for a Masters in Education, then I sat up one night to check it out. It became compulsive reading, very hard to put down. It gives a broad overview of Educational Psychology thinking over a wide period of time, and encapsulates it. It is full of useful references. Many of my colleagues have borrowed this book for various courses and for course development for educational projects.

Was delivered within a week!! Both the book and workbook were packaged excellently together. Was not damaged in shipping.

This SAME book was being sold at my son's school book store for $50 MORE than the Amazon price! You can't beat that!!! And they ran out of the books at the store. There are some students 2 weeks into school with NO textbook! This was a super easy & less expensive way to get the SAME book.