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Archive for December, 2011

INCLUSIVE CLASSROOMS AND FLUENCY

Posted by terryjamesresourcecentre on December 21, 2011

Literacy Is Not Enough: 21st-Century Fluencies For The Digital Age by Lee Crockett, Ian Jukes, Andrew Churches.  The fourth book in the 21st Century Fluency series identifies and explains the fluencies: solution fluency, information fluency, creativity fluency, media fluency, collaboration fluency, and global digital citizenship. The balance of the book introduces the framework for integrating the fluencies in traditional curriculum.

Link to Catalogue

Apps for Learning: 40 Best iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone Apps For High School  Classrooms by Andrew Churches, Harry Dickens.  Covers mobility apps categories for utilities, general classroom applications also specialty apps designed with unique learning tools that students can utilize both in class and on the go.  Includes detailed descriptions for some of the best apps around for high school students.  Explores the versatility of utility apps like Atomic Web Browser and GoodReader.  Make use of general apps like Evernote, Pages, and Dragon Dictation, or have fun on projects using Garage Band, iMovie, or Whiteboard HD.  Or create unique learning adventures using speciality apps like Comic Touch, StoryKit, Video Science, or NASA App HD. 

Link to Catalogue

The Active Classroom: Practical Strategies For Involving Students in the Learning Process by Ron Nash. Just by dipping into the book, teachers will be able to begin implementing Nash’s ideas immediately.  A highly valuable resource for busy teachers, who can look at almost any section and within minutes select an idea, a tool, or a strategy, and put it into action the next day.

Link to Catalogue

On Purpose: How Great School Cultures Form Strong Character by Samuel Casey Carter.  In telling the stories of twelve very different but equally extraordinary schools from all across the country, Carter explains how school cultures are made, how they form student character, and ultimately, how great school cultures harness student character to drive achievement.

Link to Catalogue

Making Friends PreK-3: A Social Skills Program For Inclusive Settings by Ruth Herron Ross, Beth Roberts-Pacchione.  Second edition. Revised edition of Wanna Play: Friendship Skills For Preschool and Elementary Grades. Reworked to be more effective and added to the program’s strengths for a more enriched social experience.  There are details guiding teachers with lesson objectives and goals.  More suggestions have been added for compensating for different cognitive and developmental levels.  Specifics about lesson preparation and implementation time have been added to help the flow of lesson planning.

Link to Catalogue

 Unison Reading: Socially Inclusive Group Instruction For Equity and Achievement by Cynthia McCallister.   Unison Reading is a method that shifts responsibility to children for determining which information sources to attend to during the reading process and how these should be integrated.  The method is also based on a commitment to social justice.

Link to Catalogue

Academic Instruction For Students With Moderate and Severe Intellectual Disabilities in Inclusive Classrooms by June E. Downing. The information and strategies are based in the understanding of the importance and interrelatedness of curriculum, context, and instruction for all students but especially for students with significant disabilities.  Students are not likely to pick up all the possible skills in general education classrooms unless the material has been adapted and the skills taught to them.

Link to Catalogue

Connecting Content and Academic Language For English Learners and Struggling Students Grades 2-6 by Ruth Swinney, Patricia Velasco. Focuses on amplifying the teaching strategies and modifying the instructional strategies so as to recognize the emergent bilinguals’ “cats and dogs,” and then build upon them.  Swinney and Velasco give teachers ways of leading emergent bilinguals to also find the lions, and tigers, and bears that they’re sure to find if they’re allowed to walk on the same challenging curricular road as all the other children.

Link to Catalogue

40 Active Learning Strategies For The Inclusive Classroom, Grades K-5 by Linda Schwartz Green, Diane Casale-Giannola. Terms such as brain-based learning, differentiated instruction, and information processing come alive through the vignettes, step-by-step directions, activities, and reflections.  The text steers students and teachers in the direction of learning for retention with active strategies that connect to both the concepts and individual learners.

Link to Catalogue

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QUICKREADS AND SAMPLE SADDLEBACK PUBLISHER SERIES

Posted by terryjamesresourcecentre on December 5, 2011

Newly acquired samples are available for  Language Arts Hi-Lo reading from Saddleback Educational Publishing.  Here are a few of the series with some of the sample titles.

Choices: Life strategy novels for striving readers. Reading level: 1.0 to 2.0 / Grades: Young Adult High School.

Link to Catalogue

Carter High Mysteries: High School with a twist.  Reading level: 1.0 to 2.0 Grades: Young Adult High School.

Link to Catalogue

District 13: Edgy Hi-Lo Sports Novels. Reading level: 1.0 to 2.0 / Grades: Young Adult High School.

Series written using carefully chosen vocabulary and simple sentences.  The novels offer compelling teen stories about characters that interest young adult readers.  Using sports as a backdrop, these edgy and mature titles confront issues that are of great importance to urban teens, especially teenaged boys:  coming of age, dating, fitting in, friendship, drugs, self-esteem, and school.  Straightforward plots move readers through the 48-pages of text quickly and efficiently with satisfying resolutions.

Link to Catalogue

The Heights: Low-level gentle reads.  Reading level: 1.0 to 2.0 / Grades: 5 to 8.

Link to Catalogue

Right Now!: …But what happens next!  Reading level: 1.0 to 2.5 / Grades: Young Adult High School.

The Right Now! series contains colorful high-impact graphics and cutting edge design, which adds drama to every page.  These 40-page stories, containing no more than 600 words each, are intended for striving readers who struggle with traditional classroom fiction.  The gripping realism of each story draws the reader on…but what happens next?  The endings are ambiguous – students can debate what’s next in a series of activities designed to further explore the subject.

Link to Catalogue

Strange But True: sure to intrigue even the most reluctant reader… Reading level: 3.5 to 4.0 / Grades: Young Adult High School.

Who isn’t fascinated by the world of the weird?  These stories are the ultimate in high-interest reading.  Fact or fiction?  Real or unreal?  Let your students decide.  The people, places and things in these story collections range from the peculiar to the preposterous, from the creepy to utterly terrifying, from the odd to the awful.  Yet all are based on eyewitness accounts or the solid scholarship of series investigators.

Link to Catalogue

True Crime: shocking stories of lawlessness and justice.  Reading level: 4.0 / Grades: Young Adult High School. One title in this series is  Forensics.

The science of forensics is little understood except for what we watch in prime time.  Five chapters explore forensic dentistry, ballistics, computer forensics, facial reconstruction, and fingerprinting.

Link to Catalogue

 

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