Teaching Books

and I can't be more thankful for the way the Lord used Dave Harvey to pen such bold truth.

Harvey has brilliantly published a book on biblical theology and the Cross-centered Gospel under the guise of marriage. He basically follows the example of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:22-33. The majority of people read that passage and think it's about marriage first and foremost, but when one takes a step back and they read it Theo/Christocentrically, they'll find that the passage is actually more about Christ and the Gospel than it is about marriage! Marriage is simply one manner in which Believers are called to "be imitators of God" (Eph. 5:1) and live by the power of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18).

So that when the Ephesians passage is written with Christ front and center, and all together glorious, then our marriages take the humble backseat to the blazing center of God's glory as displayed in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Thereafter, Paul teaches us that honoring our parents, parenting our children, and our lives in the workplace need to be theologically contextualized and lived out practically to the reflection of Christ, by the power of the Spirit, and to the glory and honor of God!

I appreciate Harvey continually placing before the reader that we need to think theologically about our marriages. And when we do, the Most High and transcendent God consumes our man-centered ideas of the "wife needing love" and the "husband needing respect..." Harvey moves us from thinking needs-centered to Gospel-centered.

I'm especially thankful to Tedd Tripp who, while at a conference back in the summer of 2007 in Modesto, CA handed me a free copy of "When Sinners Say I Do."

This book has a lot of practical guidance, it shows how the Gospel should influence our marriages to the Glory of God.

This is one of the best books I've read -- not just on "marriage" but on the Gospel and it's application in any kind of relationship (marriage or otherwise). I'm not married but I think this book would be a great primer for anyone, and a great resource for those who are already married. It isn't simply doctrinal, but Dave Harvey also throws in his own life experiences and anecdotes that made me laugh out loud, or brought me to tears. It's not a difficult read but still contains meaty scripture references and solid theology (which the author Harvey makes sure you understand right off the bat). The foundation of this book is GRACE and how if we see ourselves first as the chief of sinners, then we will be more willing to extend grace to those closest to us.

I have read many books on marriage. Some are good, some not as good. This one is fantastic. It gets to the root issue ,which is we have difficulties in our marriages because there are two sinners involved that many times do not look to the Savior daily.

Too many books out there are directed towards the wife (Let's face it, sadly, many men are not readers) and turn out to be nothing more than warmed over psycho-babble, talking about unmet needs and unfulfilled desires. When we look to our spouse, instead of Christ, to 'meet our needs' we are looking in the wrong place. It is true that the Lord often uses our spouse as a means to bless us and fulfill our needs and desires, but what happens when He doesn't? This is the strength of the book.

I have counseled people who are in marital strife and I will recommend this book to all of them as well as anyone that asks me to officiate at their wedding. This is required material for anyone that wants to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ in their marriage.

If you are looking for step by step guides as to how to make your home run smoothly, this is not the book for you. If you are looking for a book that is biblical, readable and one that either husband or wife can read. READ THIS BOOK. You will not be disappointed!

This is a good marriage book but the handful of others I've read have been better- Sacred Marriage, Starting Your Marriage Right, Sheet Music, and Love That Lasts. This one is a little too long for the subject and is pretty repetitive. It is worth your time but I wouldn't put it on top of the list.

Dr. Ogden has given the church, and especailly pastors who see the command to disciple, a great tool. Discipleship Essentials provides a frameword where "life on life" discipleship can take place. It is the catyist that allows men and women to go deeper in their relationship with Christ, and also growing together toward the goal of being reproducing disciples of the Savior. Hats off to Dr. Ogden! Doc, you're the real deal, thanks for serving the Savior with your fine work!
PC - Amery, WI

I'm two months into Discipleship Essentials with two other men, and I'm already seeing amazing results. This is by far the most effective approach to disciple making that I have ever experienced. It has revolutionized my ministry and given me a do-able, long-term strategy for training leaders and growing our local church. I also highly recommend reading Ogden's Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time before launching your own discipleship group.

Jesus commanded us in Matthew 28:18-20 to go and make disciples of all nations. This book helps do just that. It guides a person through the process of becoming a mature disciple of Jesus Christ. More than that, it is helping create strong intimate relationships between people. This is something that disciples need to do but we are often "too busy" to do.

I have used Discipleship Essentials with two different triads over the past two years and found it to be wonderful and effective in deepening spiritual maturity.

Greg has spent a lot of time creating study ideas for sessions with disciples. This is a practical curriculum for disciplemaking involving engagement with scripture, discussion, and issues to pray for. It's a book I would recommend for people looking for study ideas.
-Dennis McCallum, author Organic Disciplemaking: Mentoring Others Into Spiritual Maturity And Leadership

I originally borrowed this book from the library. I fell in love with it, so I bought a copy. This is a great book for adults and Children alike who are wondering what their specific strengths are and how to find them.

This is by far the best parenting book I have ever read, and I thank Jennifer Fox over and over for writing it! I am not often moved by an author, and I have never been inspired by a parenting book like I have been with this one. This book speaks directly to my heart and every story brings tears to my eyes and gives me hope for being a better mom. I'm glad I bought the hardcover because I will read this book again and again as my children grow.

This book by Jenifer Fox offers a unique view on the development and education of your children. Rather than depending on a rigid school curriculum and then using test results to pinpoint weaknesses, she advocates finding the child's strengths and interests and building upon these to improve their overall academic performance.

The book provides a guide to finding a child's main strengths - Activity Strengths (tasks that a child is good at, and enjoys doing); Relationship Strengths (things a child does for or with others that strengthens a relationship) and Learning Strengths (the way a child approaches and assimilates information)

The first part of the book provides a background to the strengths-based curriculum developed by the author, with real life examples, suggestions, and advice on how a parent can help a child to identify individual strengths through a series of simple non-invasive questions.

The second part is a comprehensive workbook for educators and parents, with a series of exercises to be completed with children and young adults of ages from four to eighteen. Though time consuming, a little daunting, and requiring a lot of input, there are some exercises that can be easily adopted to fit your personal family schedule. It is recommended that the exercises be done in the order laid out in the book, but you don't have to complete every single one before moving on to the next.

If used properly, this book could be the key to improving your child's all around performance, but be warned that it will take a lot of time and commitment on both sides.





Amanda Richards, August 24, 2008

The older we get, the more we realize that life is a journey of discover into who we are; and those who help guide us along that path are called our most honored teachers. In this easy to read tutorial, educator Jenifer Fox relies on stories from her life and her life's work with children to demonstrate the importance of integrating that process into your child's education and then provides the how-to-do manual.

Arguing persuasively against systems that place all comers into a common box and then looks to identify failure (weakness) as the path to growth, Fox reminds us that we are all unique, individual beings with both weaknesses and strengths. Recognizing that our weaknesses are most often the underside of a powerful strength, educator Fox shows us how to use this strength base as a foundation for growth and learning - starting not when we are adults, but starting from an early age by incorporating this concept into our educational institutions. Recognizing that this strength positioning applies not just to students, but also to the teachers, Fox created an Affinities Program as an alternative to standardized teaching and testing methodologies.

Applying the well accepted "Head, Heart, & Hands" framework to strength understanding, Fox categorizes children's (adults too, for that matter) strengths as Learning, Relational, or Activity based, and provides examples and discovery techniques for each. If you have done any introspective analysis yourself, you will appreciate that a book cannot give the answers to your child's strengths, but this one will surely help you start them on that journey and integrate it into their educational development.

Do not be off-put by the nearly 350 pages. The book takes only 160 pages to present the usual problem/solution argument - an easy two sitting read. The next 75 pages are the how-to-do application piece for working with the child - a worthwhile book in its own right. By including the Affinities curriculum as an appendix to the book, Fox expanded the book beyond the usual < 250 page limit for the easy read designation - consider this your free gift when you buy the book.

This book is highly recommended for anyone who loves a child.

Dennis DeWilde, Author of "The Performance Connection"

What an excellent book for parents, educators, and just about everyone else too. "Your Child's Strengths" by Jenifer Fox is a well-structured, logical, and methodical plan for bringing out the best in children, while inculcating resiliance and responsibility to help them face the ups and downs ahead of them.

Fox uses well thought-out plans, exercises, and examples to help her target audience learn how to re-focus their senses to work WITH children rather than trying to work ON children. Her approach is designed to assist the parent or educator in acting as a guide to the child who discovers their own strengths. I'm sure anyone who has ever had or worked with a child can verify that truths which come from within are much more powerful and have much more staying power than those others 'teach' TO us. Learning to recognize your own strengths vice talents can be compared to recognizing small epiphanies that occur in your life when you are happy, pleased, and self-confident. In this respect, the book is a manual for recognizing personal strengths in ourselves as well as enabling our children to learn to recognize and work with their strengths.
Fox is careful to explain the both the concepts behind this strategy and the actions needed to carry it out. The first part of the book explains the reasoning and successes of this method. The second portion provides descriptions and examples for recognizing strengths and how to delve deeper than mere words by utilizing all our senses to pick up what children can't or won't say. The final chapters are literally a textbook with exercises, suggestions, and charts each reader can use.

Even the appendices have structure and use as they detail lists and writings to implement this process individually, in the family, in groups, and grade-by-grade in schools. There are also success stories and contacts available for readers.

As both a mother and an educator, I'm very encouraged after reading "Your Child's Strengths". Both parents looking for guidance and educators screaming for help (although maybe I should phrase that the other way around!) can use the truths laid out so diligently in Jenifer Fox's book to combat the negativity so prevalent around us and infecting our children. I'll certainly be recommending it to my fellow educators and close friends. After all, with so much to learn the target audience need not be restricted to parents and educators. Personal growth is not, and should not be, only a childhood experience.

This is my first time buying a school book from Amazon and I wouldn't do it again. I did receive the book in time but then I had to return it because I couldn't take the class any longer. I had the book for about 7 days and then retuned it. I only got half of the price I paid because I took off the wrapper. The book was Brand New. I will never buy a book from Amazon again.

I accidently ordered 2 of the same books. The seller was very speedy with my refund and delivery!

Very educational book that gives a great introduction to the extremely important topic of Special Education. A must-have book for future and present educators.

The edition should speak for itself. As a special educator and in training to become a teacher educator, I have been using this book as a resource/reference for 8 years now and it keeps getting better: )

Yes, this was a text required for my class, but I find myself reading it just for the knowledge it contains, assigned or not. Well written, and quite comprehensive. A very complex topic addressed intelligently.

I "volunteer-teach" art to primary students. This year I am teaching 2nd grade. This is a great book - beautiful pictures, easy-to-reproduce projects. Be aware that not all projects in the book are for younger children. The age starts at 7 and goes to 12. There are a handful of projects for 7 year olds. Instructions are clear and well organized.
It has been a great help.

I teach art classes to groups of children who are preschool-age, K-5, and 5-8. I have used several of the projects from this book and everyone has loved them, including the parents of the children, the classroom teachers, and program coordinators with whom I've worked. Photos in the book are very helpful and the directions are percise. I have been able to tailor them to fit into short meetings or longer workshops. The work of my kids has been displayed all over town to rave reviews. I've had the parent of one of my art workshop kids borrow the book to duplicate a project I had done with her daughter for the youth group at her church and they loved it. My mother has a friend who works with kids and she saw pictures my mother had taken of the foil snake projects my workshop kids had done. I am now getting the information for the book for her.

LOVE the illustrations. This book is vibrant with color. I am most impressed with the fact that they included work from children. However, as a first grade teacher, I will only be able teach a few lessons. The projects are intricate and would probably require more than one session. Nonetheless, I'm still very happy with this purchase.

This was one of about 20 books I bought for I summer camp I was running. This book is worth every penny. I ended up using a project a day in the camp. Kids and parents loved it and I appreciated the step by step instructions and pictures. Truly a great buy!

THis book is awesome and full of great lesson ideas. The spiral binding makes it as functional as it is informative. This book has it all: art standard connections, easy to follow directions, photos and student examples.

This book is good, but not great. I would recommend this as a good 2nd or 3rd book to have. Start of with Robert Montauk, as it will provide better context for this this book.

Another thing to note is that thhese are not 65 complete applications, rather 65 essays. I was a little bummber when I realized that.

This book perfectly reflects the fact that in this particular part of the world, the long tongue means everything and what's actually behind that forehead bone means nothing. The Japanese hire based on their judgment on how good the person in question is. The Europeans hire based on their judgment on how good the person can eventually become. We hire based on our judgment on how good they can pretend to be. Isn't it nauseating?... Aren't we all becoming a little sick of paper superheroes, saviors of the world (environment, the poor, the Iraqis - substitute your own martyr)? Isn't it time to wipe out all our buzzwords and favorite cliches and just focus on results?..

Over time, the essays may become stale, so a regular update to this fluid topic is necessary. However, every essay is a worthwhile read for structure and for content. The most important take-away: what NOT write in an essay.

there are other books that tell you the whole process of applying and preparing your apps. you should get one of those but also get this one. this is one of its kind. it's a small book with some really great essays. exactly what i needed. it's easy to get confused in the whole process of preparing apps; selection of schools, school visits, selecting and talking to recommenders etc. and if you start reading tips of what to write and what not write in your essays, you can easily spend weeks just browsing the internet and taking notes.

this book will give you a good headstart for your essays.

This talks about essays which can win you prizes in the creative essay contests..but as far a s admission in today's world into MBA college is concerned..far from reality..

DONT BUY..!!..

As many of the other reviews suggest, this book should be required reading for parents and educators. First of all, the explanations of the mechanics of the brain are very well presented for a lay audience--very easy to understand. The neuroscientific explanation then lays the groundwork for the thesis that Hannaford presents--that we need to consider the impact of the body and movement on the development of the brain. This book is a great step forward for holistic modes of education. Power Brain Kids

Hannaford is the wise teacher who shows how the body and mind are connected and how certain moves and exercises can improve school performance and even attitude. This is an extremely valuable book for anybody who works with kids, and will open your eyes to the whole child, not just the child-as-student. VERY highly recommended. Should be required in every teacher preparation program in the country!

I'm a former teacher, current family lawyer, mother of a nine year old, and homeschooled last year. My daughter's current tutor recommended this book, and a lot of pieces are beginning to fall into place. Coordination, reluctance to ride a bike. I wish I'd had this book 10 years ago.

...the "thinking cap" exercise is my favorite -- there's a photo showing some young girl pulling her ear lobes down almost to her collar bone!...the accompanying text claims that such yanking on the ear lobes stimulates "energy sites" in a manner analogous to acupuncture and facilitates thinking...ouch!...I think I'll pass on that one!...and the "energy yawn"??...or the "calf pump"??...no doubt there are reams of scientific research supporting such "techniques" for stimulating thought -- they're just not on this planet...personally, I think you should save your money and attend some of Ms. Hannaford's presentations at the "New Thought Center of Hawaii" where, over the years, she has presented such enlightening seminars as "The Cosmic Order of Sound" and "The Heartful Experience Sufi Dancing at night"...or maybe go out and buy some nice crystals and incense...but whatever you chose, don't waste money on this book.

This book is easy to follow and is a great resource for those interested in improving functioning, particularly in children. The brain research included in the book is outstanding, maybe a little overwhelming for a lay person not used to reading this type of information, but made to be as user friendly as possible. One school I'm in has used some of the basic principles presented in the book with noticeable positive results in a very short time. This book is worth the money and time spent reading.

I have used this book every year for the past 5 years to design our homeschooling curriculum. It is fantastic!
It lets you know what your child should be learning every year from pre school through 12th grade; giving many ideas for books, games, magazines, and web sites that you can use to teach every subject.

Oh, how I wish Rebecca Rupp would do an updated version of the book with newer web sites and newly published book suggestions!

I am new to homeschooling and this seemed to be a good starting point for establishing what I need my child to cover in the school year. It does not tell you exactly what curriculum to choose for your child's learning style but it does guide you over all the areas children should be knowledgeable in. There are several out of print books that are recommended as well as websites that are not available. It also has some very good information in the appendixes. Overall, I would recommend this book as a great tool.

This book is wonderful. It eased my fears about short changing my homeschooler or overlooking some educational aspect. while offering so much information. I like that it offers guidelines on where your child should be but remember that these are guidelines and you may want to check with your state's requirements.

Also, I agree with the reviewer who said that some of the resources/info may be a bit dated-hence the four stars. (Looking forward to a revised edition.) Don't forget to look for online resources as well. For example: [...] is helpful for kids learning to read.

Another thing that I appreciated was its reference-type, secular feel. I highly recommend this book whether just starting out or well into homeschooling.

As a homeschooler, I felt I need a book to help guide me to make sure I wasn't leaving anything out of my kids education. This book covers a lot for each grade level. It's a great source of guidance and referrences. But, just because the book SAYS your child should know a certain thing by a certain grade, doesn't mean you HAVE to teach that. Overall, I like the book and continue to use it for reference but I don't live by it.

The author offers some very realistic goals and insights for teaching your child at home. I was very dissapointed that the resource suggestions in the book were nearly impossible to find. I had to go to ebay for every book I was interested in. This would be a better book if the resource suggestions were updated to include books that are still in print.

This is a required textbook for class. It's good because it also gives online help.

This book is a pretty good introduction into research methods - I'd recommend it especially to Master's students in the areas of education, library and information science, and maybe public policy/administration.

The book was in excellent condition. It was shipped out quickly and I received it about a week before my class started.

This is an excellent text for anyone who has to conduct educational research. I had to purchase it as part of my MEd program and haven't regretted it. The information is clear and accessible. The text is enhanced with a plethora of annotated charts, images and tables. Each chapter begins with a beautiful photograph from a famous film with a humorous caption underneath it. Chapter objectives and summaries are included at the start and ending of each chapter. There are exhaustive appendixes and references. Self-tests, an excellent glossary and thorough indexes help to make this book an educational researcher's best friend.

This book provides a great overview of basic statistical concepts as well as experimental design. This is one that will stay on my shelves for a resource.

I am a student in intermediate Greek, and I frequently use this review sheet to remind myself of key concepts when I am translating passages. I find it extremely helpful, and would easily recommend it for anyone studying the Greek language.

The entire study package of Basics of Biblical Greek which includes the textbook, the study guide, the vocabulary cards, the summary sheet, and the lecture CD's is a blessed fruit of a long, thoughtful, meticulous, and high-tech labor of one of the world's best New Testament Greek scholars. I have to admit I have not studied Greek from other professors, but after studying Mounce, I simply can not imagine a better way to teach students an introduction to Biblical Greek than the one Prof. Mounce implements in this study packet. The structure and methodology are so impressively organized that I believe, without trying to diminish the role of an instructor, one can study by himself or herself without taking the class at a seminary. From start to finish, Prof. Mounce designs the lessons with solid exegesis skills as the goal in mind. He wastes no time but immediately exposes students with translation exercises using real Scripture passages in the study guide, even early in the first few chapters when he barely starts with nouns.

The lessons are divided into three major parts; nouns, adjectives and verbs. Each chapter begins with exegetical insights related to the topic being taught in that particular chapter. He then moves on by explaining the English and Greek forms. The nouns and adjectives are not too bad. They are usually divided into three types of declensions. While the nouns usually take on one of the three declensions, the most common configuration of adjectives is either 3-1-3 or 2-1-2 where the first, second and third numbers indicate the declension type for masculine, feminine and neuter genders, respectively. There are some discussions on special-case nouns having slightly abnormal endings; pant and ent, for examples. Now verbs are considerably more challenging because they not only have more numerous categories and rules, but the biggest obstacles are the tense stems and when they form the real verbs through a combination of augments, tense-formatives, connecting vowels, and personal endings. The trouble can be illustrated by comparing it to having to memorize the English present, past and perfect tenses of irregular and regular verbs which the Greek version has six; present, future active, aorist active and passive, perfect active and passive, instead of three in English. And each of these six stems has different forms not only depending on the person and number, but also on the voices; active, middle, and passive. On top of these, there is another parameter, called aspect, where these verbs take on other forms, the indicative covered in the early chapters of the verbs, subjunctive, infinitive and imperative. Some are similar if not the same as the indicatives, which make them even harder to distinguish which one is which. Here Prof. Mounce reminds students to always watch for the contexts. Context is your best friend when it comes to translation. There is no easy way of getting around this issue completely except in my view, to get the Greek Morphology text, also by Mounce. At the end of some chapters, there is coverage on extended materials that deal with special cases, additional rules in translation, contraction and morphology.

The summary sheet consists of all important rules involving word formation, verb-ending charts, and all the forms of frequently used verbs. It serves as a handy guide for students when doing the translation so they don't have to flip through the pages of the textbook. Some flipping of pages is inevitable, though, because the last few pages of the textbook has the list of major lexicons.

There are two types of drills in the study guide. The first is chapter-by-chapter review where students are asked to parse ten words in a table having the forms that have been covered up to that chapter. Next, there is a warm-up translation section consisting of seven short phrases or sentences to be translated before the real translation exercise begins with twenty sentences; some are long ones. From my experience, I sometimes had a headache after completing the translation work due to the intensity it involves in figuring out not only what the words mean, but also their forms, and how to restructure the sentence in English format that both are understandable and make sense. The second type of drill is the exam-type where the test materials are combined every five chapters. The tasks include parsing, grammar rules, and translations usually from a New Testament passage.

As in any other languages, learning Greek requires extra memory power, but not brute-force memorization of every single word indiscriminately. Prof. Mounce always warns students only to memorize special-case words and rules such as endings and contractions, instead of every single word with all its garden variety of forms. Excellent advise.

Needless to say, I delightfully endorse Prof. Mounce as your virtual Greek instructor. If you decide to homeschool yourself, you can purchase the complete combo set at teknia dot com. I don't think Amazon sell the lecture CD set. But even if you are taking the class at the seminary, I don't see any harm for you to buy the combo set anyway, though you probably won't need the lecture CD's provided you have an excellent instructor.

I have found this to be a handy help with Koine Greek. It contains a great deal of useful information in a sturdy, durable folder. It fits quite well into the front or back of a three ring binder along with one's class notes. The font is small and crowded, but, afterall, this is a "cheat sheet". Generally, I think it is safe to say that this guide has most of the things that one might need help with as a student.

I have found this little cheat sheet very helpful. As one reviewer mentioned, its not a must have, but it is certainly nice to have. Wile learning another language, it is nice to have a quick reference guide readily available instead of thumbing through your textbook. If you are just learning Greek, you could certainly live without this chart, but its cheep and personally has helped me.

It is a handy tool for reviewing, but you don't have to buy it. As he/she make progress through the first year of Greek class, one can make his own review or cheat sheets, more through than this one, focusing on the issues he/she need to learn better. Not to mention the reviewing and the systematizing work itself that can provide a great help in order to organize the Greek grammar knowledge in one's mind (using different colors and highlights, tips and tricks, and so on).

You can spend your money more wisely by buying Mounce's BBG vocabulary cards, which are really helpful (unless you decide to make your own cards...)