Teaching Books

I bought right through Amazon, I got my book in a timely manner and it arrived in perfect condition. It was great. Thanks!

The seller was nasty and non professional replaying to an e-mail. He blamed defects on book on post office and his customer,he refused to assume responsability.

This text was great. I was very impressed with the thoroughness of the info. and found it to very informative for my class. I went in with a wealth of knowledge for sure

Batshaw's Children with Disabilities is a "must have" book for anyone who works with children with disabilities...almost. Written by doctors for those in the medical professional most of the recommended interventions come from a decidedly medical model. It is, on the other hand, fairly comprehensive with sections dealing with genetics, development, developmental disabilities, and interventions with the bulk of the book dealing with specific disabilities from the obscure (Fragile X Syndrome) to the more common (AD/HD). I have not found Appendix A or B particularly useful (Glossary and Syndromes of Inborn Errors of Metabolism) but turn to Appendix C and D frequently (Commonly Used Medication and Resources for Children with Disabilities) Finally, while the book offers a nice mix of theory and application, I would like to see (maybe in a 5th Edition?) the incorporation of some of the so-called "new brain research." Nevertheless, I still turn to this book several times each month.

This reference book covers developmental, clinical, educational, family, and intervention issues of concern to teachers working with children with disabilities. Written by doctors, it thoroughly explores issues than impact child development starting from conception through adulthood. Factors that can cause disabilities, current methods of treatment, commonly used medications, and guidelines for intervention are addressed.

This comprehensive reference book will be invaluable tool to access when teaching children with disabilities and parents. Appendixes provide a through list of resources, and glossary of terms so non-experts, like myself, can avoid getting lost in a morass of acronyms. Brookes Publishing provides a companion website which I expect to consult for the most current information and up-to-the-minute research.

A concise text explaining everything an educator needs to know to develop and expand a literacy program.

I found this book very useful. It helped me make the transition from teaching English as L1 to English as a Second Language. The text contains many strategies and activities that have proven effective and can be applied to ESL and is also useful for teachers reviewing for their certification exams.

This is one of the most comprehensive and interesting books I had ever come across in my educational career. The authors not only teach the basics of reading instruction, but put forth a plethora of differing strategies/methods for application in the elementary and middle grade classrooms.

This book is written very well and is very informative. I found this book to be a great tool for teachers. I read this book for a class and I felt that it kept my interest and made for easy reading material. This book provides parents and/or teachers with insight on how to help children learn to read. This book also includes many great activities and strategies to use to strengthen and encourage literacy (no matter what age the student is). I have tested many of the activities on students myself, and found that it made teaching and learning to read more enjoyable for everyone involved. Overall, I thought this book was great. I plan on keeping it as a resource in my classroom or even in my own home.

thank you for the book, it was in great condition and will work well for my class!

This is an excellent book for anyone who is in the teaching profession, and especially those who teach beginning readers.

This book was in excellent condition and just as described. I received it in a timely manner and am very happy with my purchase.

This book arrived in excellent condition and in a timely fashion. I was able to use it before I went back to school and I need it to teach elementary and middle school aged students in the fall. Thank you very much.

Let me start by saying this book builds off of Guiding Readers and Writers, also by Fountas and Pinnell. If you haven't yet invested in that book and you teach reading or writing to grades 3-12, that's where you want to start. This book will not be nearly as helpful until you have read and engaged in the teaching strategies laid out in Guiding Readers and Writers. However, if you are currently looking to build and add to your literature circles and your reading and writing workshops, this is the book you want.

This book is loaded with resources for teachers. It comes with an interactive DVD to show teachers exactly what they are describing as mini lessons. This was truly the most helpful to me - being able to see teachers in action, working with students, using the techniques I had just read about helped to enable me to create the same learning environment and use the same techniques. The DVD also includes over 100 blackline masters/forms/worksheets ready to use! As a teacher, that in it's self is worth $100 not to have to make everything yourself!

This book uses a variety of methods to deepen comprehension that overlap into to guided reading within the classroom. Interactive read-aloud using picture books is just one way I started deepening comprehension within my classroom using this book. Just two months in, I can see the difference in how my kids are reading and understanding! This is just one of the many pieces I use within reading workshop. The more and more I do this, the more I see my kids using skills that we've pointed out in reading workshop in their writing! This book helps kids think 'about the text', 'beyond the text', and 'within the text'.

This book also helps teachers (of any reading grade) set-up running records to increase fluency. Within the blackline masters, the forms are ready to use, and the layout is easy to use! I am able to do this while my kids are writing in their reader's notebooks or doing independent reading. This is a great tool to help assess where a child is and where a child should be.

This book is a powerful tool if used in combination with Guiding Readers and Writers. Teachers of all ages can find this book filled with useful strategies and practical ideas to use within their reading class.

PS - If you have a chance, check out Heinemann's website. Fountas and Pinnell are doing conferences across the US on small sections of this book. If you have a chance to go, they are well worth it!

As a teacher of qualitative research methods to doctoral students, I highly recommend this book. It is easy to read and gives students a broader understanding of qualitative approaches to research than books that focus specifically on one or more methods. I also appreciate the attention given to the impact of postmodernism in the field. I am an instructor who typically favors articles and chapters over textbooks, but I find this one to be a very solid foundation for the course.

this book is fine--amazon sent me two and it cost 70 dollars so it charged me for two books. i'm not happy about that. the book is fine

I had to buy this book for a sociology class, and I'm glad I did. The book is easy to read and covers many topics related to research, focusing on qualitative but noting quantitative as well. This would be a great read to learn how to get started doing qualitative research.

This book is written on a level that is very accessible and easily understandable. Therefore, I would recommend it if you haven't read much on the Kingdom of God and/or Jesus' message before. You may find McLaren's writing to be somewhat less "loaded" or profound than other writing on similar themes (take, for instance, that of N.T. Wright or Donald Miller). However, it still strikes some very relevant chords and makes some inspirationally "radical" observations. The thematic strands are very well laid out and easy to follow. A good read, all around.

Brian McLaren's goal in this book is a part of his journey to better understand Jesus, His message and His Kingdom. McLaren is curious, he is a learner, an explorer, an excavator, an observer, a discoverer, a thinker and a truth seeker. In this book McLaren explores three areas, Jesus and his times, the message of Jesus and our time, our world today and his hope is that our curiosity will not be satisfied in the reading of this book but ignited as we continue to explore its application.

I like McLaren's style of raising and asking questions, digging, searching, looking at the Jewishness of Jesus, the religious backdrop of prophet and priest of that history and context. This will be very helpful for people that consider Jesus a great teacher and or a prophet. He explores the political and social message of Jesus in a land that was occupied by Rome, the superpower of the day. I think that it is sometimes easy for us to read the Bible, consider the life of Jesus and even become followers today without fully grasping what that message meant to the hearers in Jesus' day. It was good to be reminded.

McLaren reflects on Jesus' private and public conversations, his parables, his language, his indirect or hidden approach that eventually becomes visible, that raise questions, that require further engagement not just the sharing of information. "This form of parable helps to shape a heart that is willing to enter an ongoing, interactive, persistent relationship of trust in the teacher." page 46. " It was the most religious who seemed to get the secret message of Jesus the least, and the least religious who seemed to get it the most." page 81.

What does this book say to us today? It raises the significant question, what does the Kingdom of God look like in the 21st century? How do we live out the life of God in every sphere of society today? If the Kingdom of God is in the midst of us today, what does it look like and when it comes, what can we expect? What is our role to play or where do we start? This book gives us some things to think about and to act upon.

McLaren puts the world of Jesus and what that might mean for us in perspective. Thought-provoking, Scriptural and potentially life-altaring. Much different perspective than most of our modern-day churches give us of Jesus.

Mclaren preaches what secular people want to hear, everyone must read the bible to understand the Truth.
I rated this a one because it asked for a rating. Otherwise I would of given it a zero. Read Gods word, don't rely secondhand. Question preachers who say they don't understand the Bible.

Here's the "Secret Message:" One doesn't have to die to go to Heaven!!!

The Kingdom of God, the one Jesus talked about, is here, right now, all around us, if we could (would) but see it.

There is a lot of difference in the Kingdom of God preached by Jesus and the Kingdom of Heaven as preached by Paul. They are not mutually exclusive, but one (Jesus) emphasizes life we live now, how we live it and says the Kingdom of God is at hand. The other (Paul) views Heaven as a destination or realm achieved, reached or obtained only after death.

In understanding this book, one phrase kept coming to mind again and again: "A peace that passeth all (human) understanding...Find that peace and you have heaven, a heaven here on earth, in this life and, perhaps, Paul's heaven in the afterlife.

"Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done...On Earth as it is in Heaven..." A lot of us say it, but not a lot of us--a whole lot of us--don't really mean it. We really want "our will' on earth, "..Thy will" in Heaven"

Simply put, that's what this book is about. Heaven on earth as Jesus taught it, and as the author beleives it to be, or Heaven in the life to come, as Paul saw it.

Find that peace that passeth understanding and you have, in my opinion, found Heaven.

I own the 3rd edition of this book. I don't know if the comments I have will still apply to this edition, but here they are anyway.
I looked everywhere for a book that illustrated grammar instruction through diagramming sentences, and this is the only one I've found! If you aren't into that, don't let it discourage you. They are only used as illustrations and to show the similarities and differences between sentence types.
This book takes a very logical approach to grammar that I was very thankful for and which was very easy for me to follow, as it added just the right next bit of information as I was ready for it. It was just what I was looking for.

I'm a fiction writer. And there are four books within reach of my writing desk. The most recent addition has been Martha Kolln's Understanding English Grammar. This bad boy has it all, folks. If you're like me, you get tripped up on lie and lay like the rest of us, and those kinds of words (and the rules underlying them) are at the very heart of what UEG sets out to clarify. I think I first went to Kolln's masterpiece for help with prepositions. I don't know who first introduced prepositions into the English language, man, but I'd like beat him with a wet dish rag!

As Kolln says on page 320: "Prepositions are among the most difficult words in the language for foreign speakers to master." I'd take this a step further; I'd say they're the most difficult words for _English_ speakers to master. A couple of examples she lists:

Be sure to fill out the form carefully.
Be sure to fill in the form carefully.

He wasn't fired.
He didn't get fired.

Can _you_ spot the correct usage above? Well, if it gives you pause then Understanding English Grammar may be the book for you. It is a model of grammatical clarity and a wonderful reference book to turn to in times of grammatical doubt:~)

Other books I keep close by my writing desk include: "The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms," Richard Lanham's "A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms," and The Holy Bible. If cleanliness is next to Godliness, grammatical perfection is like Zen awareness. You know it's possible to attain, but achieving it is another matter altogether. Kolln's book can help -- with the grammar, that is.

Yours,
Stacey

It turns out that this handbook makes a huge success of introducing the structural work on English syntax. This compendious guide will never prove to be a disppointment to those who see the value of structuralism.

I have been using this as the text in my grammar class at Stephen F. Austin State University and I find it very helpful. It is a wonderful place to start for anyone wanting to be a better writer. If you can find the workbook that goes along with it I suggest using it. My only complaint is the sequence of the chapeters. I would start with the last section and then work my forward.

I have just suffered through this book for a college grammar course and I was left in a muddle by this text. This book made me believe I understood it all, until I realized the authors did not discuss the exceptions such as the parallel uses of words listed under one category that really could be in two or three categories. Sometimes the authors gave such unclear explanations that I was left with many questions as to when the rule would really apply. And the organization of the book seemed backwards. Some of the end chapters needed to be discussed at the beginning. But what really upset me was the dishonesty. Giving us the line that descriptive grammar was so much better than prescriptive grammar (arbitrary rules), they inferred that language is like arithmetic, that there are rules to describe how language works. Unfortunately language is not so precise. Sometimes 2 plus 2 did not equal four, as their rule stated. There were many ways to interpret words and fit them into their forms and functions, yet this ambiguity was not admitted. Some of grammar will always be prescriptive. After believing I understood grammar, this book painted my knowledge of grammar in a confusing shade of gray.

I felt I should write this review after seeing the bad wrap it got from another reviewer. I am doing my thesis on classroom discipline and out of all the books I've read on the subject, this one gave me the best insight and critique of the history of discipline research as well as great ideas for teachers on how to go about creating their own classroom management plan. This book touched on all areas important to successful classroom management; I have not found everything covered here in any other single source. This book is a must for all new teachers who really want to succeed!

I was required to purchase this book for a class I am currently taking. While the content of the book could be useful, the manner in which it is written is laden with ridiculous run-on ideas that could be communicated much more clearly. Here is an example from page 28:

"Regardless of the extent to which teachers decide to adapt to the norms and parenting styles of their student's culture or systematically assists students in learning to adapt while maintaining their cultural values, the point is that as educators we are willing to examine our own beliefs and way of working with students in light of the contextual variables existing in the classroom, school and community."

To students who may be required to read this text: Good luck. Perhaps you can change classes before it is too late.

To professors who may add this book to their required reading list: Please, please, please pass on this text and choose something more relevant and tangible for your students.

To educators who may choose this book to answer questions or add to their professional library: choose something else. This book is useless. My advice is your time will be better spent going to talk to teachers who have been in the field rather than reading this book.

I had to buy and read this book for a classroom management class. It is a great book for comparing the most recent research available. However, you usually need to read five to ten pages of what could have been stated in a paragraph. I do feel that I really understand the material by the time I finish reading the book. I have also used many of the ideas in my classroom to try and improve my classroom management in my student teaching experience.

This book is fabulous- it lays out all of the problems with teaching children and adults how to read, and stresses the importance of surrounding children with books at a young age. I learned a lot from this book!

Purcell-Gates opens up the important issue of literacy in America through the lens of an Appalachian mother and son, who have a non-literary background. Through the son and mother's attempts to learn how to read and write, we get a glimpse into the cultural background of the Appalachian people. Perhaps the book's most compelling findings are the stereotypical attitudes people have towards this white minority people. It is clear that many people need to spend time and understand the cultural background of people, and not just pass uninformed judgments upon them. This book is an important voice in the educational debates about how to approach learning in our public schools.

Having just finished the book for my Foundations of Literacy class in college I must say it gives a very good view of the life and struggles a family goes thorugh when in their world print does not exist.
Jenny and Donny, a mother and son have struggle for a few years on gaining literacy. Jenny, an urban Applalacian wants to learn to read so she can help her son with his schoolwork. She wants Donny to be retained a year so he can "catch up" on what he is missing. Together they embark on a quest towards literacy with the help of the author of this book.
When a book is required for school most of us will probably groan but I must say this was one of the most interesting books I have read. Considering my major is early childhood education and I am interested in topics about emergent literacy. Anyways the book really explores the life of those who live in non-print homes and must rely on others when it comes to reading/writing. I also liked how it introduced us to the urban Applalacian minority and how they are a "invisible minority." We learn about the stereotypes they are given, the values they hold, etc.
All in all the book was particulary interesting. I wouldn't reccommend it for pleasure reading unless of course you are VERY interested in topics about literacy but for those of you who need to read it for school do not fret! It is an easy and very interesting read.

Purcell-Gates avoids the weighty conventions of academic writing and thus opens her studies and insights to the larger world. The book recounts her experiences over two years tutoring a completely illiterate mother and her nearly equally illiterate son. Purcell-Gates, who at the time worked at the local university and literacy center, tells their story with compassion and a strong effort to get at the causes and perpetuation of illiteracy in 20th century American cities, schools, and families. Hers is a noble cause and this is a superb and educational book. She serves her subjects well.

Excellent insight. It will be a resource for many years, and a launching pad for further work. Highly recommended for those interested in the teachers-perspective to social change and education action.