Learn the intricacies of mindfulness practice for both students and teachers in Dr. Thomas Armstrong’s Mindfulness in the Classroom. After explaining how stress affects the brain, he shows how mindfulness promotes concentration and calm in class, writes Kathleen Palmieri.
Class environment, student attitude toward writing, student choice, and teachers who write with kids are overarching themes that help to make Welcome to Writing Workshop a good resource for creating a productive writing program, says 5th grade teacher Kathleen Palmieri.
In his latest book, Super Spellers Starter Sets, Mark Weakland provides a classroom resource to support the principles he presented in 2017’s Super Spellers – that spelling should not simply be a list of words to know for a test but a learned skill essential to literacy.
Teacher Kathleen Palmieri strongly recommends the 2nd edition of Robyn Jackson’s book on the principles of mastery teaching, noting updated information, new tools and fresh topics that reflect Jackson’s own decade of learning. Included: a mastery self-assessment.
Jerry Burkhart’s explorations challenge accelerated students with Common Core based math study while engaging other students with creative, and differentiated, problems to solve. Kathleen Palmieri notes the fully developed resources that support the explorations.
Dina Brulles and Karen L. Brown help teachers think through the challenges of grouping and offer resources to develop effective groups and differentiate as needed for specific purposes. Teacher Kathleen Palmieri finds the author’s guidance on behavior particularly helpful.
In Super Spellers, Mark Weakland offers a “transformative path” to move away from memorizing 20 words weekly toward a developmental approach that provides students with strategies to become more proficient spellers, readers and writers, says Kathleen Palmieri.
Reading Stephanie Affinito’s Literacy Coaching can benefit classroom teachers as well as literacy coaches, writes educator Kathleen Palmieri. In addition to covering learning communities, PD, and collaboration, the book offers extensive digital resources to boost student learning.
