After meeting a bevy of baby animals— including a clever monkey, a sleepy leopard, and a dusty lion cub—the baby in this story discovers the most precious creature of all . . . itself, of course! With an exuberant rhyming text by bestselling author Mem Fox and adorable cut-paper illustrations by Caldecott Honor recipient Steve Jenkins, this book is an irresistible celebration of the joyful connection between parent and child.

This volume is designed to prevent and correct most word-level reading difficulties. It trains phonemic awareness and promotes sight vocabulary acquisition, and therefore reading fluency.

A practical, self-paced tutorial on the phonics, phonemic awareness, and word analysis topics students need to know to succeed on teacher certification or competency tests. A classic in the field, written by two highly respected authorities. KEY TOPICS: Recognizing Words: Helping Children Develop Word Analysis Strategies; The Early Stages: Phonological and Phonemic Awareness; Phonics: Onset, Rime, and Consonant Patterns; Phonics: Vowel Patterns; Context; Sight Words; Morphemic Analysis; Chunking Words into Smaller Units: Syllabication and Structural Analysis; The Dictionary and Word Analysis; Developmental Spelling Patterns: Insights into the Development of Word Analysis Skills MARKET: Pre- and in-service teachers preparing for the state reading exams now required in many states, and those who are taking teacher certification or competency tests.

Practical, effective, evidence-based reading interventions that change students' lives Essentials of Understanding and Assessing Reading Difficulties is a practical, accessible, in-depth guide to reading assessment and intervention. It provides a detailed discussion of the nature and causes of reading difficulties, which will help develop the knowledge and confidence needed to accurately assess why a student is struggling. Readers will learn a framework for organizing testing results from current assessment batteries such as the WJ-IV, KTEA-3, and CTOPP-2. Case studies illustrate each of the concepts covered. A thorough discussion is provided on the assessment of phonics skills, phonological awareness, word recognition, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Formatted for easy reading as well as quick reference, the text includes bullet points, icons, callout boxes, and other design elements to call attention to important information. Although a substantial amount of research has shown that most reading difficulties can be prevented or corrected, standard reading remediation efforts have proven largely ineffective. School psychologists are routinely called upon to evaluate students with reading difficulties and to make recommendations to address such difficulties. This book provides an overview of the best assessment and intervention techniques, backed by the most current research findings. Bridge the gap between research and practice Accurately assess the reason(s) why a student struggles in reading Improve reading skills using the most highly effective evidence-based techniques Reading may well be the most important thing students are taught during their school careers. It is a skill they will use every day of their lives; one that will dictate, in part, later life success. Struggling students need help now, and Essentials of Understanding and Assessing Reading Difficulties shows how to get these students on track.

Experts are raving about this "must-have" resource for primary teachers that includes dozens of fun activities to help children listen to language and play with sounds. Activity cards can be cut out and laminated to create a handy reference file of fun ideas. A wide selection of reproducibles (picture cards, word cards, and manipulatives) is included.

We've listened to teachers and created a comprehensive study guide that includes exactly what you need, including numerous examples and testing tips, to pass the Praxis II Elementary Education Multiple Subjects 5001 exam. Our study guide is fully aligned to the skills and competencies covered on the exam. As experienced teachers, administrators, curriculum writers, and assessment writers, we ensure our examples and practice test items mirror the types of questions and wording you can expect on the Praxis II Elementary Education exam. This study guide includes all four subtests: Reading and Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies and Science. Within each section, we included detailed explanations of each of the 175+ skills you are required to know on the exam. We include specific vocabulary, explanations, and tips for testing that are easy to follow. For the Reading and Language Arts subtest, there are detailed explanations for 63+ skills, multiple examples, testing tips, specific vocabulary, two full practice tests with detailed explanations. For the mathematics subtest, there are detailed explanations for 67+ skills, 98+ detailed examples/practice problems worked out, testing tips specific to the test, exam-specific vocabulary, and two full practice tests with detailed explanations. For the Social Studies subtest, there are detailed explanations for 18+ skills, detailed dates, events, and historical figures you need to know, multiple examples, testing tips specific to the exam, and two full practice tests with detailed explanations. For the Science subtest, there are detailed explanations for 28+ skills, multiple examples with detailed figures, testing tips specific to test, exam-specific vocabulary, and two full practice tests with detailed explanations.

"These Five Words are Mine" is a journey to awareness through the stories of every day life. It embraces the everyday conversations we have with ourselves. It captures the connections we see and those we live with others. It's an ordinary perspective with perhaps different eyes. It's a walk down that familiar road with all the lights on instead of the one we so often take surrounded by darkness. It's a jolt of fresh air when you can't breathe. It's days with a notebook, but not writing so you miss out on what you can't see when your head is down. The words are already so much a part of us, they don't even need to be written. Just felt. Have you ever felt a really deep connection to someone else? To a feeling? To words? Author Jen Croneberger brings awareness into our every day life by connecting us to all of it. Through every day stories, she takes us on a journey. One you will likely relate to as well. It's time to take that walk with eyes wide open. Let's begin" Review: "Far from an ordinary book. It is a friend. If read with an open heart, not only do we realize we are not alone, but we will never look at ourselves and those around us the same."--Daniel Matos, Spoken Word Artist.

Early Reading Instruction is a comprehensive analysis of the research evidence from early writing systems to computer models of reading. In this book, Diane McGuinness provides an innovative solution to the "reading war"—the century-old debate over the efficacy of phonics (sound-based) versus whole-word (meaning- based) methods. She has developed a prototype—a set of elements that are critical to the success of a reading method. McGuinness shows that all writing systems, without exception, are based on a sound unit in the language. This fact, and other findings by paleographers, provides a platform for the prototype. Other elements of the prototype are based on modern research. For example, observational studies in the classroom show that time spent on three activities strongly predicts reading success: learning phoneme/symbol correspondences, practice at blending and segmenting phonemes in words, and copying/writing words, phrases, and sentences. Most so-called literacy activities have no effect, and some, like sight word memorization, have a strongly negative effect. The National Reading Panel (2000) summarized the research on reading methods after screening out thousands of studies that failed to meet minimum scientific standards. In an in-depth analysis of this evidence, McGuinness shows that the most successful methods (children reading a year or more above age norms) include all the elements in the prototype. Finally, she argues, because phonics-type methods are consistently shown to be superior to whole-word methods in studies dating back to the 1960s, it makes no sense to continue this line of research. The most urgent question for future research is how to get the most effective phonics programs into the classroom.

This invaluable supplementary curriculum meets Reading First criteria and contains numerous classroom-ready activities designed to increase the phonemic awareness and preliteracy skills of preschool, kindergarten, and first-grade students.