Customer Reviews:
A Balanced Approach - 4th Edition.......2007-02-10
I purchased this book for a class I took in spring 06 and found it extremly helpful. I've applied the balance approach method in working with young children. I've also applied the information helping my 3 year old learn to read. He is now 4 and enjoys reading. I highly recommend this book.
Great book!!!.......2006-12-27
I found this book to be fantastic!!!! The green pages at the back give many great ideas for teachers of literacy.
Very useful.......2006-03-11
I needed to order this book for a class. It is well written and easy to read. As a reading teacher I can say that I will keep this book as a reference long after the class has ended. This edition comes with a CD (or DVD) which I have not previewed yet, but the instructor of my class raves about it.
A must have!!.......2003-03-08
I was first introduced to this book in one of my graduate literacy courses and I have been hooked every since. The teachers at my school pass it around constantly looking for ideas. My favorite aspect of this book is the fact that there are real teachers giving real examples of what works in their classrooms. There are no strategies that seem too hard implement in your classroom, because the layout is right there!! You know it can be done and it words because the examples in the book are proof! You don't feel like you are reading about some ideal or Utopia of a classroom. You are reading about REAL classrooms. I absolutely love it!
Excellent resource for teachers.......2002-11-17
This is an excellent resource. It is concise and contains a wealth of information. I teach second grade and am working on a Master's degree in literacy. I am finding this book to be invaluable. Much of the information is sorted into charts for easy referencing. So many of the books I have read lately seem to ramble on and on. This book makes it's point and moves on to other salient information. I get rid of so many of the professional books I purchase after I read them. This one is a keeper. It is very pertinent to the current trend in improving the literacy of our children.
Book Description
THE CHALLENGE OF EFFECTIVE SPEAKING is a classic in the field. Written by true teachers of public speaking who have been in the classroom for many years and who have adapted their methods to best meet the needs of their changing student body, this Thirteenth Edition stays true to what has made it a market-leading text for hundreds of thousands of students. THE CHALLENGE OF EFFECTIVE SPEAKING presents the speechmaking process in a six-step framework based on classical and contemporary theory. The straightforward writing style and effective use of examples enables students to understand and effectively perform key speechmaking activities. The six-step framework emphasizes topic selection, audience analysis and adaptation, effective research (including appropriate use of Internet resources), organization (with emphasis on outlining), language and delivery. The six action steps are introduced in generic form and then later adapted to follow principles of informative and persuasive speaking. THE CHALLENGE OF EFFECTIVE SPEAKING prepares students to take what they have learned in the classroom and apply it to their everyday lives.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful Book!.......2000-06-12
A must-have book.Informative and excellently written.Gives all the information you want on Public speaking.
Average customer rating:
- Analytical explanation of reading
- Excellent book
- Great Resource for Literacy Coaches
- Individual chapters cogently provide examples
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Explaining Reading: A Resource for Teaching Concepts, Skills, and Strategies
Gerald G. Duffy
Manufacturer: The Guilford Press
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Yellow Brick Roads: Shared and Guided Paths to Independent Reading 4-12
ASIN: 157230877X |
Book Description
Exemplary teacher research has established that explicit teaching plays a vital role in the K-8 classroom, with particular benefits for struggling readers. This book is a practical resource for explaining reading to students who do not learn to read easily. Identified are 22 major skills and strategies associated with vocabulary development, comprehension, word recognition, and fluency. Ways to explain each skill or strategy are illustrated with abundant concrete examples, which teachers can use as starting points for developing lessons tailored to the needs, strengths, and interests of their own students. The book also shows how to move from the teacher's explanation to the student's independent use of new concepts, and how to embed explicit teaching within a context of rich, engaging literacy experiences.
Customer Reviews:
Analytical explanation of reading.......2007-01-04
I am a tutor for third and fourth graders (employed by the school) and have found this book to be priceless in explaining the strategies of reading to 8, 9 and ten year olds - my target audience. The book is structured well and offers many examples of how to help struggling readers learn the "secrets" of good readers. After looking at several other 'Reading Comprehension' books, I chose this one based on the TOC and the foreward. It has proven to REALLY help me clarify each objective and teach the invisible process of active reading to my students. I'm very excited about the book and what it has to offer. Thanks!
Excellent book.......2006-02-20
I bought this book last year from Amazon, after being recommended it by a resource literacy teacher. It is very helpful to me, a classroom teacher. I would recommend it as great value for any teacher. I recently had the pleasure of hearing G Duffy speak at a day's conference here in New Zealand. He was so clear, so able to show the recent history of the teaching of reading, and how we might go about showing students the skills of comprehension, and what good readers do. In this book, G Duffy helps teachers model what good readers do. He is realistic and down to earth.
Great Resource for Literacy Coaches.......2005-05-04
This is a wonderful book to use while working with teachers in your building. Use it as a resource for yourself or share it with teachers to support what you are saying or modeling in their classrooms. After you have identified the strategy or skill the students are having trouble with, locate the skill in the index. Then read through the pages as Dr. Duffy describes the conceptual understanding that must be in place for the students to learn the skill. He also outlines how to introduce the skill, model the thinking, scaffold towards independence, apply it in reading and writing, and determine how to know if the lesson was successful. Some topic categories are vocabulary, comprehension strategies, word recognition, and fluency.
Individual chapters cogently provide examples.......2003-10-14
Gerald G. Duffy is a former classroom teacher and professor emeritus at Michigan State University. He draws upon his many years of experience and his considerable expertise in Explaining Reading: A Resource For Teaching Concepts, Skills, And Strategies to provide the reader with a solid guide for aiding in their teaching literacy to students who are slow to absorb the skill. Individual chapters cogently provide examples and ideas for explaining vocabulary, teaching word recognition, comprehension strategies, and a great deal more. Explaining Reading is highly recommended as an excellent and detailed advice guide -- especially for classroom teachers and home schoolers involved in a literacy instructional program.
Average customer rating:
- Textbook
- Careful...
- Great bookq
- Misleading Title
- not the actual book
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Looking Out, Looking In (with CD-ROM and InfoTrac) (Wadsworth Series in Communication Studies)
Ronald B. Adler ,
Russell F. Proctor II , and
Neil Towne
Manufacturer: Wadsworth Publishing
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Understanding Nutrition (with CD-ROM and InfoTrac) (Understanding Nutrition)
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Widening the Family Circle: New Research on Family Communication
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Student Activities Manual for Adler/Proctor II/Towne's Looking Out, Looking In, 11th
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The Art and Strategy of Service-Learning Presentations
ASIN: 0534636284 |
Book Description
Used by more than a million readers, LOOKING OUT, LOOKING IN has been the leading interpersonal communication text for almost 30 years. Written in a reader-friendly voice that links scholarship to students' everyday lives, this popular text motivates students to improve their interpersonal skills and sharpen their critical understanding of the process of communication. Through thoughtful, diverse examples that include fine art, music, poetry, film, and more, students can consistently see the importance of interpersonal communication and how it affects their society and their lives.
Customer Reviews:
Textbook.......2007-03-03
It has a clear organization, and interesting insets. For a textbook, it intrigues. The comic inserts are a tip of the hat to culture, and everything is up-to-date.
Careful..........2007-02-24
This is an okay book for note taking and has a lot of the terms identified, but please note THIS IS NOT THE TEXT BOOK!!! I'm not sure whose fault it was but when I went to buy it it only stated the tilte and cover of the textbook. I had to go back and buy the book elsewhere. Please be careful! As for the book itself it is a thin paperback notebook with key tearms (arbitrary as well as book terms) on the left side and a blank sheet to write notes on the left. The terms are pretty well chosen and helped me on a test. If this is all you want then get it but once agian be careful.
Great bookq.......2007-02-17
I love the book. I am using it for a communication class I am taking and it is extremely helpful and easy to read. It uses today's terminology and is very up to date in regards to examples used and the way that its worded. It is a great book to learn a lot about communication that we don't necessarily learn from day to day interaction.
Misleading Title.......2007-01-19
Was very disappointed when I received 'Cram101 Textbook Outlines' to accompany "Looking Out Looking In". I thought I had ordered the book "Looking Out Looking In". Very misleading when purchasing this. I don't know if something was listed wrong or not, but when ordering I usually type in the ISB # to find the book I need. Somehow I got the Looking Out... Textbook Outlines.
not the actual book.......2007-01-19
This is the Cram101 textbook outline, not the actual book. I was unpleasantly surprised by this when I received it in the mail after paying to have it expedited. The title that amazon puts is misleading, even the other customer reviews are misleading. The only place that mentions Cram101 is the publishers review - which I found only after I got this worthless book.
Book Description
This highly sought after program with an international following provides thorough instruction on the intonation, stress, rhythm, and the sounds that work together to give American English its distinct "accent".
Produced by a speech-language pathologist with expertise at training all components of American English speech, this program imparts a wealth of insights and techniques, accompanied by clear graphics.
This new edition includes 8 CDs featuring a variety of male and female voices, and more conversational exercises. Interactive exercises use everyday language of social-casual to professional-business-technical situations.
The American Accent Guide is highly relevant to speakers of all language backgrounds who want to attain mastery on all aspects of English as commonly spoken in North America.
Customer Reviews:
It's the best!.......2007-03-14
I recently purchased this product. I haven't got immensed into it but from listening to the CDs, it's concise, and applicable to daily conversations. I especially like the fact that it used the voices of both male and female. Other products I've perused only use one gender. I would recommend this product to anyone who wants to speak standard American English.
A complement to Ann Cook's American Accent Training.......2007-01-17
I bought this book because although I can pronounce words perfectly in English, I still have some problems with intonation. I have used Ann Cook's American Accent Training but there were still things not really covered in her book. The American Accent Guide has only two chapters on the subject but the last chapter on Intonation is covered in a way that I had never seen and goes beyond Cooks' book. It's really good. I highly recommend it but if your main interest is on intonation, you should also buy the American Accent Training since the latter has more exercises on intonation. However, if you also have problems with the sounds of English, The American Accent Guide is the perfect book for you. Maybe the only one you will ever neeed. My wife who is a U.S. born American is not happy with the book because I'm really losing my Brazilian accent which she thinks is very sexy. She says I sound too much American now. Well, if you're like me, that's not a bad thing, is it? We can always work on the sexy part some other way.
An Excellent Work.......2007-01-09
This is a complete and well rounded work. Eventhough I have been living in the US for over 17 years and earned an AS and a BS, I found myself having difficulties in the pronunciation of the english words. I have gotten a lot of helps from my kids, however after applying the American Accent Guide to my daily routines for a couple months, I have been feeling a lot more confident to express myself. The digital media is professionally prepared and the speakers are pleasant and very well articulated. I used the cds in my car and also ripped them into my mp3 player to listen to when I am excercising and riding with someone.
The Accent guide has helped me to be more aware of the subtle nature of the English Language. If you would like to speak the American Idiom better and more fluently this is a great resource to have. It works!!!!
In terms of bang-per-buck, I think one will be hard-pressed to find a better investment........2007-01-05
This book and CD program provides a systematic and intuitive approach for ESL learners who wish to improve their English at their own pace. Good investment for the price.
First, my native language is Chinese. I have been in the US for six years; and have had no intensive training in English. I consider myself an average, or slightly above average, ESL learner. Like many native speakers of syllabic languages, I had a tendency to apply the stress and intonation patterns of my first language when speaking English. In addition, I used certain vowels interchangeably. Listening to radio or hiring a tutor did not help much because I still couldn't figure out what to listen for and how I should sound. I always felt uncertain when speaking English.
The American Accent Guide has definitely been a big help and is the most insightful material I have used. The lessons can work as individual modules, but if you go through them in order a few times you will see that the organization is integral to gradually raising your awareness of how the speech factors work together to form the American accent.
The American Accent Guide also does a great job in conveying the ideas through integrating visual and audio aids. The Rhythm section is a good example: the practice sentences come with markings to show the stress in sentences, and the CD walks you through sets of sentences that have the same rhythm structure, which brilliantly demonstrate the idea of how to use stress and rhythm to improve the flow of speaking. It's really a very intuitive and effective approach that helps with both speaking and listening comprehension.
Another strength of the material is that the practice sentences are quite useful in daily life, unlike many ESL textbooks with phrases that have little practical use and get boring after a few repetitions.
In short, the American Accent Guide is a well thought-out and executed study guide for ESL students of all levels One can listen to it again and again and each time learn something new to work on. In terms of bang-per-buck, I think one will be hard-pressed to find a better investment.
A very good treatment of intonation.......2006-11-23
After looking through the contents of the book and the amount of information it contained I was more than eager to buy it. After all, all that I needed for my pronunciation classes was there: comprehensive charts and graphs , streamlined layout, IPA symbols, grapheme-phoneme correspondence tables for problem areas such as the long / i / sound, and on top of that, a package with 8 CD's in a neatly-enclosed folder. Yet, oddly enough, I felt like something was missing. Then I reached the last chapters. "Boy, there's something new here," I thought. Very few authors have treated intonation this well: The attitudinal / emotional aspect of intonation is explored at length: higher pitch tones for heightened emotions and politeness. Swinging pitch inflections and slightly rising inflections for casualness. Longer pauses for the expression of meaning. So, although I think some of the sound discrimination exercises may lack creativity and sometimes fall short of raising students'awareness , the last chapters saved the day and may explain why shelling out over US$ 60 for this manual might have been a good decision after all.
Average customer rating:
- Bringing Words to Life
- Valuable Vocabulary Strategies
- easy read with quick interventions for vocabulary instruction
- Fabulous, Fantastic, Superb...should I say more?
- A Refreshing Solution to Dry Vocabulary Instruction
|
Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction
Isabel L. Beck ,
Margaret G. McKeown , and
Linda Kucan
Manufacturer: The Guilford Press
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ASIN: 1572307536 |
Book Description
Exciting and engaging vocabulary instruction can set students on the path to a lifelong fascination with words. This book provides a research-based framework and practical strategies for vocabulary development with children from the earliest grades through high school. The authors emphasize instruction that offers rich information about words and their uses and enhances students' language comprehension and production. Teachers are guided in selecting words for instruction; developing student-friendly explanations of new words; creating meaningful learning activities; and getting students involved in thinking about, using, and noticing new words both within and outside the classroom. Many concrete examples, sample classroom dialogues, and exercises for teachers bring the material to life. Helpful appendices include suggestions for trade books that help children enlarge their vocabulary and/or have fun with different aspects of words.
Customer Reviews:
Bringing Words to Life.......2007-07-22
While I appreciated the premise of the research outlined in this book, and have no doubt the approach recommended would be effective, I question the practicality for application in a classroom. It seems that it would take a considerable amount of planning and cumbersome documentation particularly with younger children or multiage classes. I plan to try to implement some of the suggestions and like the idea of working to help children establish their own definitions, moving away from traditional dictionary definitions that are only confusing for young students.
Valuable Vocabulary Strategies.......2006-05-01
Bringing Words to Life is an essential book for any classroom. It offers valuable insights and strategies for teaching vocabulary in all classrooms, elementary through high school. It's written so that it's easy to understand and each chapter ends with activities for the reader to better understand the content of the chapter. There is also an easy reference appendix for books to use with vocabulary instruction. If you're looking to enhance the vocabulary of your students, this book has everything you need!
easy read with quick interventions for vocabulary instruction.......2006-03-26
I read this for a graduate class and found it to be a quick, easy read. The authors give you simple ways to enhance your vocabulary instruction. I would recommend this book to teachers at all levels but especially those working 3rd grade and above.
Fabulous, Fantastic, Superb...should I say more?.......2006-02-25
A great easy to ready and easier to use tool to enhance everyday classroom teaching to support vocabulary in students! A must for all teachers!
A Refreshing Solution to Dry Vocabulary Instruction.......2005-10-20
I still remember when my high school teachers would assign the dreaded weekly vocabulary homework. We would painstakingly look up each word in the dictionary, write down what was usually the shortest definition, and then take a wild stab at writing the word in a sentence. I'm not sure how many of those words I actually learned, but I do remember being bored, frustrated and confused. Dictionaries are not necessarily the only tool for deriving meaning of new words.
Thankfully, this book helps educators to realize the importance of meaningful vocabulary instruction. It outlines various techniques for robust instruction in both primary and secondary grade levels. If you teach vocabulary, you should consider this book for your collection.
Customer Reviews:
Learn with your children.......2007-09-01
This book was purchased for my son for school, but I purchased two to refresh my memory. It is a wonderful book.
Art Education Student.......2007-08-16
I am preparing to take the Art education part of the GACE exam. Not only is ths book a must but all of my professors encourage us to study it. The color photos are perfect and you could not buy anything better.
Great summary.......2007-05-13
This book points out the specifics of different art movements in a brief and informative fashion. Don't expect in-depth analysis of specific works, but you will get a run-down of the important names and pieces from significant periods in Art History. This book helped me go from a 4 to a 5 in A.P. Art History practice tests. I highly recommend it for the price!
The Annotated Mona Lisa.......2007-05-07
Excellent book for AP Art History review. I have used it in my classroom for eight years with great results!
Not what I expected.......2007-03-16
The type is different all over the page and makes for hard reading. It is not cohesive and seems to be just bits and pieces. Quite disappointing - considering it was "recommended" when I purchased other books.
Book Description
The fifth edition of this landmark reference continues the tradition of offering the highest quality research and representing the best scholarship in the field. The selected pieces, 70% of which are new to this edition, will help educators develop an understanding of reading and literacy research and the ability to apply that understanding in generating new research and informing instructional decision making.
The volume is organized into the following sections:
Perspectives on Literacy Research and Its Application: Viewing the Past, Envisioning the Future
Processes of Reading and Literacy
Models of Reading and Writing Processes
Literacy's New Horizons: An Emerging Agenda for Tomorrow's Research and Practice
Although pieces from past editions of Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading have been retained, the editors highlight more recent works that reflect new findings and promising directions in the field. Section One contextualizes the fifth edition in today's rapidly changing literacy scene. Section Two emphasizes the role that sociocognition and literacy development play in reading processes, provides a catalog of key factors influencing the acquisition and mastery of reading processes, and explores the role of teaching and tutoring in literacy development. Section Three presents models that represent markedly different reading and writing theories. Section Four focuses on literacy's future potential to develop insights into reading processes, instruction, technology, and educational policy.
Questions for Reflection accompany each section to assist readers in transforming their current knowledge base through discussion and deeper thinking about theory, research, and instruction. Plus, a supplementary CD includes a number of other classic and recent research pieces to enrich readers' understanding of the selections in this updated volume.
Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading, Fifth Edition, is an invaluable resource for teacher educators, curriculum and administrative leaders, graduate students, and researchers in their efforts to help individuals learn to read and understand language.
Customer Reviews:
More educational fads.......2007-08-29
When will education get over the fads and get down to teaching. This is must more blah, blah, blah.
Teaching Best Practice for All Students.......2007-06-09
I have seen Cris use the same teaching best practices for her college prep classes and classes with struggling readers. Their academic acheivement from these supportive structures greatly improves and the kids read! From her book and visiting her classrooms, I saw her approach best practice for struggling students as best practices for all students and it works! The text is written in a way that us non-english teachers can pick it up and easily incorporate comprehension strategies into our classrooms too. I highly recommend any Tovani text.
Insightful and informative--lots of good ideas for struggling middle and high school readers.......2007-04-09
In this book, Chris Tovani invites you into one of her high school reading workshop classes. This reading workshop class is filled with students who are fluent readers, but who are also unable to comprehend what they read. Also, they have not elected to take the course, resulting in a room full of bored expressions and bad attitudes. The book begins at day one, and as you begin to read, you start to really feel sorry for Tovani, wondering how she is ever going to reach these reluctant students and turn them into better readers. But as she takes you through the class, and you read about each of her strategies, she makes it seem almost effortless. Tovani is able to connect with her students, and it is clear that they quickly gain her respect. You also learn that she herself was a "fake reader" until her 30s! I believe that this is a major reason why she is able to teach her students so successfully; she knows exactly what they are going through, and as a result, she is able to show them what really works. Tovani, a nationally-known reading consultant, continues to teach English and reading at the high school level because of this dedication to helping students.
Comprehending what we read really is something that most of us take for granted, and it's a skill that is very difficult to teach. Oftentimes, students who struggle with comprehension will simply read the words on a page and expect the meaning to arrive automatically. Tovani also acknowledges that some students want to make their teachers responsible for their thinking. When they are confused, they think that it is the teacher's job to fix it. Tovani tells us that many times, students don't realize that they actually have the tools to change their reading habits themselves. The trick is to make them think about their reading, and in this book, she provides a variety of ways to do so.
This book is divided up into three major sections. In the first part of the book, Tovani talks about "fake" readers, and she discusses some of the strategies they use to fool their teachers and pass their classes. This was eye-opening, to say the least! Tovani herself admits that for book reports, she used to select a very obscure book in the library, copy down what was in the inside flap of the cover, and then hide the book elsewhere in the library so her teacher would never find it! In the second part of the book (essentially the meat of the book), Tovani introduces various reading comprehension strategies, and she lets you take a look at how they work on real students in her reading workshop class. Some of these strategies include: setting a purpose for reading, knowing when you're stuck (and what to do when you are), making connections with unfamiliar subject matter, asking questions of the text, and making inferences. As you read the book, you get a glimpse of how students at first struggle with each of Tovani's lessons, then find success. The last section of the book contains actual tools (worksheets, diaries, etc.) you can provide to your students to aid them in their reading assignments.
I would highly recommend this book to any middle or high school teacher in any subject area. It appears that too many of our students are struggling with comprehension, and it is imperative that we do all we can to make them better readers. Unfortunately, most teachers do not have the extra time it takes to teach students how to read well, and a vast amount of material must be covered in middle and high school. Yet, reading is a lifelong activity, and we must give students the tools they need to become better readers, and we need to make them responsible for their own learning. This book shows you how. It was a very quick and easy read, and even if you walk away with one new idea for your classroom, it will be well worth it--for your students and for yourselves.
A reading comprehension book with lots of good thoughts for parents and teachers!.......2007-03-13
I liked this book for its content, but I didn't like it for its outline and structure. I found it to be wordy and a bit too conversational. I particularly enjoyed the real life examples of how kids failed at comprehending what they read, and the solutions the author provided to help the kids overcome their problems. I got the following seven messages from this book:
>>Preview What You Read Before You Read It
>>Have a Purpose for Reading Before You Read
>>Concentrate and Focus While You Read (Don't Fake Read)
>>Think While You Read So You Gain Understanding
>>Relate What You Read to What You Already Know
>>Diagram What You Read (Preferably in Writing)
>>Outline What You Read (Preferably in Writing)
I would have liked the book better if there had been seven chapters in the book with the above titles. Unfortunately the chapter titles in this book did not really help me outline the book in my head. And I think that is a major flaw. As a result, this book took me longer to read than it should have. But I'm glad I took an extra hour to read it.
If you have students and/or children you are training how to read intelligently so they can read quickly and comprehend what they are reading, then I highly recommend you read this book along with How to Read a Book authored by Mortimer J. Adler (ISBN: 0671212095). By reading these two books you will get two different wonderful perspectives on the same topic and be well on your way to becoming an expert on reading comprehension. 4 stars!
A Must Have for those who teach Reading.......2006-06-18
I have been doing alot of professional reading on strategies to help my students comprehend what they read. I teach reluctant readers and this is one of the best I've read for middle school comprehension. This puts a new spin on strategies I've already been doing. This book plus Strategic Reading-Guiding Students to Lifelong Literacy 6-12 by Jeffrey Wilhelm are my strategic plans for learning-centered teaching: I do You watch, I do You help, You do I help and You do I watch. Powerful research!!!!
Book Description
The informal, student-friendly tone of this rhetorically-organized rhetoric/reader/handbooks provides step-by-step instructions on writing a variety of short, 500-800-word essays. This is a text that both students and instructors can use easily.
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