How is that you can walk into a classroom and gain an overall sense of the quality of math instruction taking place there? What contributes to getting that sense? In "Math Sense," Chris Moynihan explores some of the components that comprise the look, sound, and feel of effective teaching and learning. Does the landscape of the classroom feature…

When Caren Holtzman and Lynn Susholtz look around a classroom, they see "a veritable goldmine of mathematical investigations" involving number, measurement, size, shape, symmetry, ratio, and proportion. They also think of the ways great artists have employed these concepts in their depictions of objects and space--for example, Picasso's use of…

Just as athletes stretch their muscles before every game and musicians play scales to keep their technique in tune, mathematical thinkers and problem solvers can benefit from daily warm-up exercises. Jessica Shumway has developed a series of routines designed to help young students internalize and deepen their facility with numbers. The daily use…

In her previous books, "Literacy Work Stations and Practice with Purpose," Debbie Diller showed teachers how to productively occupy the "rest of the class" while meeting with small groups. Now Debbie turns her attention to the groups themselves and the teacher's role in small-group instruction. "Making the Most of Small Groups" grapples with…

Most educators want to provide appropriate instruction for the diverse learning needs of their students, however moving from theory to practice can stymie both novice and experienced teachers. The author shows middle- and secondary-level teachers how to plan a differentiated lesson from start to finish, detailing the steps to take before, during,…

Do students often struggle with difficult novels and other challenging texts? Do they think one reading of a work is more than enough? Do they primarily comprehend at a surface-level, and are they frequently unwilling or unable to discover the deeper meaning found in multi-layered works? Do teachers feel that they are doing more work teaching the…

Tired of assigning weekly spelling lists that students memorize for the test only to have them misspell the words in their daily writing? Then join Max Brand in his fifth-grade classroom where word learning is integrated fully into literacy workshops. Using spelling investigations, word study notebooks, reading logs, and writers' notebooks,…

This book provides research, practical methods, detailed strategies, and resources for read-aloud, shared, guided, and independent reading. In addition, the author outlines solutions for many of the literacy dilemmas that teachers face every day: (1) understanding what gets in the way of reading; (2) rethinking and reorganizing time and resources;…