Academic Icebreakers to Engage Students
125 icebreakers and 40 closure activities all in one book! Kick-Start Your Class: Academic Icebreakers to Engage Students by LouAnne Johnson is a teacher’s dream come true, says our reviewer Anne Anderson.
Category: Book Reviews
Good Guide to Teacher Research
Living the Questions: A Guide for Teacher-Researchers by Ruth Shagoury and Brenda Miller Power can help educators analyze, reflect upon and improve their practice, says reviewer Amanda Wall.
ESL Instruction That Works
Minding the Achievement Gap One Classroom at a Time by Jane E. Pollock, Sharon M. Ford and Margaret M. Black is a great resource for implementing Classroom Instruction That Works strategies for ESL/ELL students, says ESL teacher Julie Dermody.
Great Media Literacy Resource
Reviewer Jamey Cates says this ISTE guide, Media Literacy in the K-12 Classroom by Frank W. Baker, is an excellent resource for cultivating media literacy skills, with ready-to-serve lessons correlated to standards.
Leadership for RTI
What Every School Leader Needs to Know about RTI, a book for school leaders by Margaret Searle, “provides the steps and framework necessary to seamlessly apply the RTI approach within our schools,” says reviewer Linda Biondi.
Reading in the Content Areas
Teaching Reading in the Content Areas: If Not Me, Then Who? provides useful hands-on tools for frustrated content-area teachers who ask, “How can I teach reading? I’m a (fill in the blank) teacher!”, says reviewer Sharon Nelson.
Solving Behavior Problems
Caltha Crowe’s book, Sammy and His Behavior Problems, can help teachers at many grade levels take a responsive approach to children who challenge, says reviewer Linda Biondi.
A Love Letter to Reading
Reviewer Ellen Berg finds 2009’s The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller to be a refreshing glint of sunshine in the gathering CCSS storm – with ways teachers can support students’ journeys to love affairs with books.
Unorthodox View of Research
Though Christopher Lehman offers strategies to make the research process interesting to gr 4-8 students in Energize Research Reading and Writing: Fresh Strategies to Spark Interest, Develop Independence, and Meet Key Common Core Standards, his approach may prove too difficult, says reviewer Brooke Schultz.
Those Beautiful Howler Monkeys
Cindi Rigsbee & Laurie Wasserman each reviewed Heather Wolpert-Gawron’s ‘Tween Crayons and Curfews: Tips for Middle School Teachers, a middle school teaching guide. The two teachers drew the same conclusion: funny & full of great ideas.
