Teaching Books

"Exploring Language" has a good format--thematically related groups of essays mostly on contemporary issues. However, in each succeeding edition I was required to use, I have found some of the most effective essays replaced by those seemingly less related to the the themes of the sections they are in. Further, as we all know, textbooks often are extremely overpriced. I find it disheartening that this anthology is needlessly revised so often that re-sale value is short-lived, which is a hardship for many of my students. Most of my students need to sell back texts outside their majors. Instead, they end up being stuck with books that inevitably will languish on shelves, collecting dust, or in adding to a landfill. It is for these reasons I would rate this as a so-so textbook.

I used this book, coupled with some dry, boring, pretentious linguistics book, in my Anthropology class "Language and Culture." Goshgarian did a wonderful job putting it together. It would be a great tool for any student of sociolinguistics. Some of the books for sociolinguistics have forgotten who they're writing to; they try so hard to sound intelligent and end up making themselves look foolish when nobody understands. This book however, completely avoids that. Goshgarian should be applauded for this work. I can't wait for the next edition to come out!

Delivery was a blast(2 days). Packaging was perfect, and the book was new as promised . This book has many great essays and written works by famous writers and various other people. It has guidelines for writing essays and speeches, also it has language visuals e.g. cartoons, ads, media, e-mails. Detailed explaination of every topic plus writing assignment and critical thinking. Great book for college studies and teaching.

this book is highly recommended by cityu of hk students, as it can inspire your interest in writing, surely you can gain a lot and improve your writing skills after reading this book.

I am very happy!!! I got an additional $12.00 savings by the time the book arrived. My university wanted $98.00 for the book & that is not including tax. I was able to save $38.00, NOT TO MENTION THE TAX i SAVED.
Thank you Amazon & nward!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! : )

Great book, great shipper. Came fast and I am happy with the whole purchase.

I had to buy this textbook last year, as I was getting my teaching endorsement in Special Education. It is a good text, although mostly only useful if you are studying this for ceritification (I haven't used since I've been teaching).

This book is an excellent resource for all special education teachers. I especially recomment it for new teachers because it basically covers, in depth, the information that a first year teacher needs to organize their classroom, implement programs for facilitating teaching (e.g. peer tutoring,setting up reading and math programs, etc.).
It is a very challenging because of the amount of information covered. It teaches approaches to language arts and math (e.g. a concrete, representational, abstract approach to teaching math). It encourages and discusses ways to make teaching a more hands on approach to learning. I love it!

I have always used Cecil's book in my own research in developing materials. It is written clearly, is regularly updated, and presents sound thinking for special educators. If you work with students with learning and/or behavioral problems, this book is essential.

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.

Education isn't getting much play in the 2008 presidential election coverage. I suspect that with all the hoopla around the politics of politics, as well as the state of the economy, the Iraq war and Eliot Spitzer's future career plans, there won't be a lot of campaign coverage about how to create better schools that meet the needs of our kids.

So, as with many things, looking out for the best interests of our kids' education is up to us parents.

One author is trying to lend us a hand on that front with her new book, Your Child's Strengths.

Author Jenifer Fox has presented a theme I really agree with -- old ways aren't always the best. Old ways in teaching our children, old ways in preparing curricula, old ways in not worrying whether we inspire our children or focus on what they're best at when they're at school because teachers are too focused "the test."

For the most part, we, as parents, don't really have a role in choosing things that impact our children's formal learning. And with outdated ways of assessing children's strengths at school (if they are assessed at all), how are parents supposed to help?

Your Child's Strengths confirms what I suspected -- that the atmosphere in schoolrooms, with standardized testing and the No Child Left Behind mandates -- are doing a lot to kill our kids' natural love of learning and sense of curiosity. And isn't that precisely the information anyone needs to figure out where our individual strengths lie?

If we want to give our kids a shot are being something more than learning automatons, parents need to play a more active role in figuring out what our kids are good at and what makes them excited and inspired. I n her book, Fox gives us a new arsenal of tools to do that.

Some of her advice is common sense -- spend time with your children, focus on what they love, then nurture and encourage those strengths. If your child is a bit more inscrutable about revealing their passions, she's got a series of questions, tasks and activities that can help discover the things that energize and engage our children.

Initially some of the advice may seem overwhelming, but on second glance, much of it is based on parental assessment that comes from everyday life. For example, what household tasks do your kids do and not complain about or really like? I'm not sure what this says about her, but PunditGirl LOVES to mop the kitchen floor (am I a lucky mom, or what?!)

While some of the self-reflection required to do the suggested activities and assessments may be harder for some children than others, we as parents can use this advice to become more tuned in to the clues and signals our kids send us that we can then use to steer them toward things that will make them excited about learning.

As for eight-year-old PunditGirl, we're having a hard time narrowing things down at the moment -- but I think she's leaning toward being a poet, an Olympic ice skater, a babysitter or a pirate.

A must for any serious art student. Sarah Simblet also has a Sketchbook for the Artist that I recommend.

Great way to get familiar with the human body, different positions than the boring usual, a book for more advance artists looking to improve and to know those little details only a model or this book could reveal to you.

Excellent book for studying the human body! This book retails for $40.00 in a book store.

I got this because since I am not in college anymore, there is a big shortage of nude models! :)

This is an excellent resource. The photography is incredible. The educational value exceptional. It has pictures and text with skeletal overlays for parts of the body - skull, spine, arms, torso, hip/thigh, feet and hands.

My ONLY complaint is that this - like almost all model books - does not provide various body types nor does it represent enough ethnic groups.

It's a really nice book. It has some amazing illustrations and photos in it and many of the illustrations are overlays that go right over the photo allowing you to further understand the relationship. It has been tremendously helpful in my figure drawing.

There is a lot of info. in this book. I took the CLAD exam 7 years ago and remember a lot of the same content. This book goes a step farther than theory and has real-life senerios with a focus on different cultures/children learning English. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about teaching English Language Learners.

This was exactly the book i needed and I got it for a great price. The delivery timing wa s perfect as well and very fast.

This book is an excellent tool for teachers seeking to improve their instructional practices. It is also a very useful tool for teacher trainers who wish to help educators in the process of reaching English Language learners (ELLs). It explains how effective teachers can reach ELLs. Although short, every page is worth reading.

This is one of many books that instructors can use to teach vocabulary. There's nothing that I haven't seen before in other places, but it is nice to have it in one book. The thing that makes this book unique is the listing of vocabulary terms specific to each subject and on 4 ability levels. For example, in "general history," the first term in Level 1 is "Abraham Lincoln," in Level 2 it is "A.D.," in Level 3 it is "adaptation," and in Level 4 it is "abortion." That is what I enjoyed and will be able to use in my library.

I found some great advice on teaching vocabulary for my middle school social studies class. I especially liked the graphic organizer where students must write their own definition and draw a picture to illustrate the concept. I used it for some Ancient Civilization terms and my students quickly grasped the concepts I taught them.

This book was worth the purchase because of the leveled word lists for ALL subjects. Almost 8,000 for 11 subjects - that includes all the topics covered in Social Studies, noncore classes, all leveled by grade range.
It does refer to the accompanying Marzano work often and I found I needed to purchase both to receive the full amount of understanding I wanted on the subject.
You need this if you are wondering how to start a vocabulary program. You would be interested in the list if you already have a vocabulary program.

This book changed the way I teach vocabulary! I've tried for years to improve vocabulary instruction in my classroom, and using the strategies from this book is the first time I've observed real, solid and enjoyable vocabulary learning in my students! This book has everything you need "soup to nuts" to set up a vocabulary program in your room. The best part is, you can do in about 15 minutes per day! I can't recommend this book highly enough. It's an easy read. The vocabulary lists make up the bulk of the book. Reading the actual information in this book took me less than an hour! It is a tremendous resource I refer back to all the time!

This book arrived quickly and in an excellent condition. A wonderful and useful guide to teaching phonemic awareness to our youngest learners.

I am a new teacher and I am trying to build up a library of resources. I bought this book hoping it would be helpful. I am so glad I purchased it. The activities are simple and concise, but they were developed with the children in mind. They will enrich your higher kids and strengthen your lower readers. Great for Kindergarten to intro basic phonics, super for first grade!! They will be fun to use in the classroom. The book is also FULL of information about phonics and linguistics. Do not hesitate purchasing this book.

If you are teaching kindergarten through second grade, you must have this and use it in your classroom. It has activities that covers every area of phonemic awareness. It gives you many activities for each section so your children will never get bored with your lessons. Uses all modalities. I can't say enough good things about this book.

This is a great book to use with prek students as well as kindergarten and first graders. The lesson plans are there to use as is or to be modified to fit the needs of your students.

I have found this book wonderful. It brings us tools to teach phonemic awareness to children that are struggling readers. It has a lot of activities they like and step by step are taking them to the beautiful world readers have.
This book is a must for every teacher!

My daughter, who's 13, uses it for her classes. The contents are great, and the drawings and pictures excellent.

Like most of other SCHAUM'S outlines, the book provides the essential and important knowledge about Differential Equations. If you are dealing with math, engineering and science and would like to have a structured reference about ODE, then this book definitely should be placed on your working desk.

I'm not one to say much so I'll keep this kind of short. It always helps to have another point of view and explanation other than those offered in the classroom, whether one struggles with this material or not. This book was definitely worth purchasing.

Got this to be an understandable reference after I couldn't understand the text I had to use for the class. Product did exactly that.

Used it to help me through 2 of my college classes...both of which I received A's. Definitely a great tool to overcome difficulty with ordinary and complex differential equation problems.

First, it must be said that the Schaum Outline series provides an inexpensive way for students to get more practice and check their answers. In general, I recommend these texts. That said, I used this as a supplement to a DE class I taught and it was such a pain. The notation is nonstandard, symbols for Bessel functions are downright wrong and things like this. The application exercises were more focused on converting from English units to SI units than on the variety of application problems. To add to the fun, the cgs system is also thrown into the mix. Granted, engineers and the like need to be able to switch, but that's not the point of a DE class. It is nice to have sections on the Laplace transform and first-order systems and most exercises are ok, if repetitive. Students will have to work hard to keep the notation straight and not confuse themselves. I wouldn't use this in another class.