Book Finder

Children, Schools, and Inequality examines elementary school outcomes in light of the socioeconomic variation in schools and neighborhoods, the organizational patterns across elementary schools, and the ways in which family structure intersects with children’s school performance. Adding data from the Baltimore Beginning School Study to information culled from the fields of sociology, child development, and education, this book suggests why the gap between the school achievement of poor children and those who are better off has been so difficult to close. The authors show why the first-grade transition — how children negotiate entry into full-time schooling — is a crucial period. This book can inform educators, practitioners, and policymakers, as well as researchers in the sociology of education and child development.

Making the Most of Summer is a resource for providers who want to improve the quality of their summer programs by meeting the academic and youth development needs of their participants. The handbook contains a variety of easy-to-use planning tools designed to help summer programs be able to do the following: (1) incorporate the characteristics of effective summer learning programs; (2) implement engaging thematic units that meet challenging academic and youth development standards; (3) improve the quality of summer staff development opportunities; and (4) evaluate the success of their programs and services; and e) develop a long-term strategy for sustaining their work.

Comprehensive and authoritative, this forward-thinking book reviews the breadth of current knowledge about early education and identifies important priorities for practice and policy. Robert C. Pianta and his associates bring together foremost experts to examine what works in promoting all children’s school readiness and social-emotional development in preschool and the primary grades. Exemplary programs, instructional practices, and professional development initiatives — and the systems needed to put them into place — are described. The volume presents cutting-edge findings on the family and social context of early education and explores ways to strengthen collaboration between professionals and parents.

This book identifies the six attributes that lead to success for children with learning disabilities — self-awareness, proactivity, perseverance, goal-setting, social support systems, and emotional coping strategies — and presents structured activities that foster those traits in students. Each of the 60 fun, ready-to-use activities contains a lesson plan and reproducible student worksheet, complete with modifications, accommodations, and helpful teaching tips.

“Life without friends is a lonely and barren existence,” but that’s a common fate for children who fail to develop proper social skills, writes veteran special education teacher Lavoie in his insightful guidebook to helping children with learning disabilities overcome social skill deficits. Eschewing sink-or-swim and carrot-and-stick approaches, Lavoie stresses communication and patience for parents looking to guide their children through the maze of social interactions encountered daily, from arranging successful play dates and navigating the hidden curriculum of school, to language difficulties, social anxieties and family issues. Lavoie, who has taught and worked in the special education field for over 30 years, shows how to detect learning disabilities, discusses their impact on a child’s social development and provides strategies for implementing behavior change.

This book is the leader’s discussion guide for the F.A.T. City Workshop (opens in a new window). This important program looks at the world through the eyes of a learning-disabled child by taking you to a unique workshop attended by parents, educators, psychologists and social workers. There they join in a series of classroom activities which, cause frustration, anxiety and tension — emotions all too familiar to the student with a learning disability.

Backed by decades of experience in the classroom, Lavoie explodes common myths and gives specific advice for motivating children with learning disabilities. He outlines parents’ and teachers’ roles, suggesting ways in which they can work together to encourage any child to reach his or her potential. Finally, he reveals what we can learn from some of the most powerful motivators in the world: advertisers. With empathy and understanding, Lavoie offers parents and teachers the key to unlocking enthusiasm and responsiveness, proving any child can be motivated to learn.

Learn what young children can do as competent, confident writers when we create writing classrooms that support their developmental patterns and provide them with multiple opportunities to write for numerous purposes across the curriculum. The authors spotlight the children’s strengths in brief case studies to help you understand the significance of their efforts, and offer specific recommendations you can use to help your own students use writing as a meaning-making tool in various subject areas and settings.

Kids will giggle as they count all the animals that have frightened the monkeys off the pages. Full of fun reader interactions and keeps readers guessing until the very last page!

When a skunk first appears in the tuxedoed man’s doorway, it’s a strange but possibly harmless occurrence. But then the man finds the skunk following him, and the unlikely pair embark on an increasingly frantic chase through the city, from the streets to the opera house to the fairground. What does the skunk want? It’s not clear ― but soon the man has bought a new house in a new neighborhood to escape the little creature’s attention, only to find himself missing something …

Sam and Dave are on a mission. A mission to find something spectacular. So they dig a hole. And they keep digging. And they find … nothing. Yet the day turns out to be pretty spectacular after all. Attentive readers will be rewarded with a rare treasure in this witty story of looking for the extraordinary — and finding it in a manner you’d never expect.

When a new family moves into his home and Leo the Ghost’s efforts to welcome them are misunderstood, Leo decides it is time to leave and see the world. That is how he meets Jane, a kid with a tremendous imagination and an open position for a worthy knight. That is how Leo and Jane become friends. And that is when their adventures begin. (Goodreads)

In his old school, everyone knew Miles Murphy as the town’s best prankster, but Miles quickly discovers that Yawnee Valley already has a prankster, and a great one. If Miles is going to take the title from this mystery kid, he is going to have to raise his game. It’s prankster against prankster in an epic war of trickery, until the two finally decide to join forces and pull off the biggest prank ever seen. (Goodreads)

It all starts here: The thrilling story of Steve Brixton’s first case. Our hero has a national treasure to recover, a criminal mastermind to unmask, and a social studies report due Monday – all while on the run from cops, thugs, and secret-agent librarians. (Goodreads)

Travel the world without leaving your living room. Much more than an ordinary atlas, this book of maps is a visual feast for readers of all ages, with lavishly drawn illustrations. It features not only borders, cities, rivers, and peaks, but also places of historical and cultural interest, eminent personalities, iconic animals and plants, cultural events, and many more fascinating facts associated with every region of our planet.

Follow the crow along a stream and a long and winding road, with other animals and landmarks along the way. At the close of each journey is a small map. Each map is joined together to show the wider world and how the different parts connect.

You live in your home…but where is your home? It’s in your neighborhood…but where is your neighborhood? It’s in your town, which is in your state, which is in North America, which is on the planet Earth, which is in the solar system, which is in a galaxy of stars called the Milky Way.

Have you ever wondered what a badland is? What about a gulch? Do you wonder what an isthmus is? Or a seamount? What about the difference between a plateau and a plain, or a knob and a knoll? The sixty-three entries from A to Z describe the earth’s features — its physical geography — from the highest mountain peak to the deepest ocean trench, in clear, concise terms. Each entry is beautifully illustrated in full color.

“The city lights/ up at night./ Going./Glowing./ Yellow/ Bright!” A family sets out for a nighttime jaunt to a street fair, against city skies that deepen from blue twilight to midnight blue, and a city skyline of clock tower, highrises, warehouses. Pictures of the crowded fair lose the family in a sea of puppet shows, magicians, musicians and clowns in a panorama that is magical and timeless. A quiet tucking in as the family comes home brings the city back to the present and familiar.

A sister and brother walk over the hill to spend Sunday afternoon with their French-speaking grandmother. Licking spoons, milking the cow, shaking cream into butter, and setting the table are all part of the fun. Meanwhile Grammy, seemingly without effort, produces a wonderful feast for all. When their parents come to pick them up, the children look forward to the following Sunday gathering.

Night settles over a town and families and neighbors get ready for bed by saying goodnight — everyone except for a wide-awake cat on the rooftop who wants someone to play with.

A retelling of 10 fables by Aesop including “The Fox and the Crow,” “The Crow and the Water Jug,” and “The Lion and the Mouse.”