Effective teaching can be found where science and literacy overlap. This book helps teachers streamline busy schedules by focusing on cognitive skills shared by science and language arts. Designed to help build teacher confidence, it offers the background and insights teachers need to support students as they make sense of science content through language arts study. This unique approach pairs thinking routines from literacy—Observe and Wonder; Predict and Infer; Sort and Categorize; Analyze and Interpret; and Conclude and Apply—with hands-on science activities. The engaging strategies offer a fail-safe way for students to build knowledge and skills across the curriculum.
Coming in October 2023 — Pre-order today!
In 6 Tools for Collaborative Mathematics Coaching, Nicora Placa lays out a clear path to help you become a trusted, collaborative, effective math coach. The 6 Tools are flexible structures that you and your colleagues can use to learn together:
In this easy-to-use, practical guide, Nicora introduces each of the 6 Tools with classroom vignettes, step-by-step guidelines for rollout, connections to the literature, resources for further research, planning templates, and opportunities for you to adapt the tool for your particular context.
Whether you're a new coach who loves teaching math to children but is new to adult education, or a more experienced coach who is looking for new strategies to engage your teams, 6 Tools for Collaborative Mathematics Coaching can help you create learning opportunities that honor teachers as professionals. With a collaborative coaching approach, you can improve teaching and learning across your school and for all your students.
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This practical book invites teachers to investigate different strategies to teach both whole-class and individual intervention lessons in reading. The book strives to take students beyond the simple view of reading and make them active users of language who make connections among the elements that science tells us are part of the reading process. Teachers will find strategies focused on self-regulation, word recognition, and language comprehension, along with various ways to connect and strengthen each aspect of reading. The lessons address new research about the complexities of reading and focus on scaffolding and differentiating learning for students in elementary classrooms.
Coming in October 2023 — Pre-Order today!
This much-anticipated follow-up to the bestselling book for K–2 teachers, Shifting the Balance, extends the conversation with this new text built specifically with grade 3–5 teachers in mind, introducing 6 more shifts across individual chapters that:
Katie, Jan, and Kari know the pressure of the “Where to start?” question. In response, they offer a refreshing approach that is respectful, accessible, and practical—grounded in an earnest commitment to building a bridge between research and classroom practice.
Coming in September 2023 — Pre-order today!
In this comprehensive guide, literacy coach and staff developer Sara Kugler shows you how to combine the power of book clubs with assessment-driven instruction to support your students as they talk and think about texts together. Using authentic book club conversations as an assessment of academic talk and text understanding, Kugler raises the bar on typical professional discussions about book clubs, moving beyond teacher-directed interactions and surface-level conversations. With a dual focus on stronger comprehension and improved conversations, Better Book Clubs will help you establish effective book clubs that will engage your readers, enhance your learning.
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**A week-by-week, step-by-step instructional guide.**
This timely book offers a clear and structured method for integrating explicit phonics instruction into K–3 classrooms. An essential guide for teaching reading, the book is grounded in the cutting-edge, evidence-based science of reading. It provides a flexible and effective step-by-step progression that covers the essential phonics skills that teachers have been asking for, and addresses the needs of busy, diverse classrooms. This blueprint to effective instruction explores screening, assessment, and intervention, as well as working with English language learners. Tools for implementation include high-impact activities, lesson templates, word lists, phoneme-grapheme grids, word ladders, and more.
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Stop the Hate for Goodness Sake shows teachers how to confront racism and disrupt discrimination in order to deepen students’ understanding of social justice, diversity, and equity. Background information, statistics, and reports on incidents of hate will help students consider ethical and moral behavior. Forty step-by-step lessons involve discussion, oral and written narratives, case studies, assumption charts, and more. This thoughtful examination of today’s world will help teachers encourage reflection, foster inclusion, and inspire students to take action. This in-depth guide will show teachers of 8- to 14-year-olds how to start and manage important conversations that will lead to change.
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Reviews:
"With this book…I think we've found gold…There are things in this book I will use in my classroom tomorrow." — Michelle Muir, educator, writer, and spoken word artist
Many school principals have little background in literacy instruction. And yet, they find themselves leading teachers at a time of shifting literacy priorities. This practical book offers literacy fundamentals, builds confidence, and empowers principals to become instructional leaders. It deals with all aspects of literacy: from understanding the science of reading to planning, resources, oral language, word study, reading, writing, and creating a shared literacy vision. Each chapter In this comprehensive resource includes staff meeting discussion points to guide conversation with teachers, things to look for when working with the teachers and students within their schools, and much more.
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What should conversations about race look and sound like in the elementary classroom? How do we respond authentically and truthfully to children’s questions about the world? And how can we build classroom communities that encourage these meaningful conversations about race?
Matthew Kay and Jennifer Orr take on these questions and more in We’re Gonna Keep on Talking: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Elementary Classroom. A companion work to Kay’s Not Light, But Fire, this book focuses on the unique and powerful role discussions about race can play in the elementary classroom. Thoughtful and frank, the book is written for teachers who are willing to match children’s courage and brilliance, and who believe that “a foundation in meaningful race discourse will help [children] to seek justice for themselves and their neighbors, to be kinder, [and] more thoughtful.”
Writing with the humility and honest storytelling of two career classroom teachers, Matthew Kay and Jennifer Orr share:
Whether you are unsure of where to begin or looking to deepen your practice, We’re Gonna Keep on Talking will be your guide to the important work of race conversations in the elementary classroom.
Coming in June 2023 — Pre-order today!
Today’s students bring with them to the classroom a wide variety of understandings and ways of knowing. Sharing this richness of understanding, as well as students’ unique ways of looking at challenges, solving problems, and interpreting the world adds an incredible depth and meaning to all types of classroom learning. This thoughtful guide offers authentic, meaningful and purposeful activities that will lead students to share their thinking, and to support and mentor each other emotionally, socially, and academically. It explores numerous ways to create opportunities for shared learning, mentoring partnerships, and expanding student horizons.
Coming in July 2023 — Pre-order today!
Some of the most powerful moments in math class come from short, but intentional conversations between teachers and students immersed in a math task. In this practical guidebook to conferring, Gina Picha focuses on simple, but transformational ways that teachers can use math conferences to guide their instruction and build strong mathematical communities. This accessible approach to conferring gives teachers the tools to engage in powerful conversations that grow mathematical thinkers.
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