A Better Beginning

Here's help for any school or district that wants struggling first-year and beginning teachers to survive and thrive. Written by seasoned administrators and teacher leaders who know the ropes, this guide covers every aspect of the topic, including: Best ways to support new teachers; Stages they go through in their first year; Effective induction programs that last five days, all summer, or an entire year; Mentoring programs that benefit all teachers involved; Strategies for improving new teachers' teaching skills without damaging their morale; and Systemwide solutions that combine induction and mentoring programs with ongoing assessment and professional development. Case studies of successful programs and insights from veteran and novice teachers give you plenty of fresh insights on how to maintain new teachers' confidence and encourage them to innovate and grow. Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.

Write on! Writing the Four-Blocks(R) Way gives teachers of grades K–6 a glimpse into writing classrooms throughout the school year. This resource includes ideas for setting up a writing classroom, motivating students to write and keep writing, teaching reading through writing, supporting struggling writers, and teaching different genres. This 240-page book supports the Four-Blocks(R) Literacy Model and features lessons on editing, revising, sharing, and publishing.

This book offers suggestions on how to retain good teachers, from strategies for welcoming new teachers to ideas for how to make veteran teachers feel valued.

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is now statutory in the UK for children from birth to five years, and other countries are experiencing similar developments; early years librarians, teachers, nursery nurses, playgroup leaders and childminders all require knowledge of how to promote and encourage communication, language and literary skills. Parental reading with young children is clearly vitally important, and libraries are uniquely placed to support the development of literacy skills in pre-school children. This book provides an understanding of how children develop such skills through enjoyable and meaningful learning experiences, and is a pioneering practical guide for library and information professionals involved in planning and delivering services in early years libraries. Drawing on the authors' underpinning contemporary research and examples from current best practice, it will equip practitioners with a broad range of knowledge and ideas. Key areas covered include: take them to the library: the role of the early years professional people and partnerships: working across interdisciplinary boundaries, and how to involve parents and carers buildings, design and space: the children's libraries of the future resources for early years libraries: books, toys and other delights reaching your audience: the librarian's role planning and organizing: projects and reading sessions. User-friendly and accessible, each chapter is clearly structured and sets outs the key issues for practitioners, scenarios offering insights into these, and practical ideas and resources for service provision. The book also includes case studies of successful pre-school library initiatives in a variety of global settings, useful information about relevant organizations, and links to helpful websites. This valuable text is essential reading for all library and information professionals working with young children - whether those with responsibility for the strategic planning of services, or those involved in delivering them at community level. Readership: Essential for students of library and information studies or childhood studies, and practitioners undertaking NVQ qualifications, it also provides a sound background in early years literacy and provision for a range of local authority practitioners, such as nursery teachers and Children's Centre managers.

"Offers mystery, adventure, and fantasy, as well as reflections on family, time travel, and stories. . . . Many readers will find something here to their liking." – Booklist Oscar Martin was fourteen when he mysteriously disappeared from his Iowa farmhouse in 1914. His sister claimed Oscar had rowed out to sea – but how was that possible? Nearly a century later, when Lucy Martin moves with her parents to that same Iowa farmhouse, she discovers the strange and dangerous Book of Story Beginnings, and soon Oscar himself reappears in a bizarre turn of events that sends the two distant relatives on a perilous journey. From a first-time author comes an intricate, spellbinding fantasy that lures you in and won’t let go.

A large body of research in disciplines from sociology and policy studies to neuroscience and educational psychology has confirmed that socioeconomic status remains the most powerful influence on children's educational outcomes. Socially disadvantaged children around the world disproportionately suffer from lower levels of educational achievement, which in turn leads to unfavourable long-term outcomes in employment and health. Education in the Best Interests of the Child addresses this persistent problem, which violates not only the principle of equal educational opportunity, but also the broader principle of the best interests of the child as called for in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Building on the children's rights work accomplished in their previous book, Empowering Children, Brian Howe and Katherine Covell identify three types of reform that can significantly close the educational achievement gap. Their findings make an important argument for stronger and more comprehensive action to equalize educational opportunities for disadvantaged children.

This is Volume 4 of a 4 volume set.

The public school system in the United States faces a perpetual challenge in attracting and retaining well-qualified teachers. In Teachers Wanted: Attracting and Retaining Good Teachers, Daniel A. Heller provides an insider's view of the sources of this ongoing problem--and powerful suggestions for resolving it. Drawing on national research as well as his own 30 years of experience as a teacher, a principal and an administrator, Heller argues for a new concept of public education, beginning with the nature of teacher training. He advocates partnerships between public schools and higher education to provide a real-world view of the profession to young teacher interns. Within the schools, Heller espouses active gatekeeping by teachers and administrators, effective mentoring between teachers, community induction programs, ongoing inservice training, and high performance standards. At the heart of many of these changes stands the principal. From upholding the mission of the school, to interviewing and hiring teachers, to empowering staff to make decisions affecting their own work, to creating an atmosphere in the school that fosters professional development, the principal plays a key role in breathing new life into the teaching profession. We can revitalize teaching--if we are willing to embrace new roles and responsibilities across the educational community. Teachers Wanted offers practical insights into the changes that are essential to building a dynamic, intellectually challenging school environment that will attract and keep the most highly qualified teachers. Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.