This book demonstrates how to make your classroom more responsive to the needs of individual students with a wide variety of learning styles, interests, goals, cultural backgrounds, and prior knowledge. Focusing on grades K through 6, it showcases classroom-tested activities and strategies. Differentiated Instruction: A Guide for Elementary School Teachers shows you how to vary your instruction so you can respond to the needs of individual learners. The examples and classroom activities in...

Teacher, researcher, and consultant Amy Benjamin challenges the idea of “skill and drill” grammar in the second edition of this lively, engaging, and immensely practical guide.Does grammar instruction have to elicit moans and groans from students and teachers alike? Only when it’s taught the old-fashioned way: as a series of rules to follow and errors to “fix” that have little or no connection to practical application or real-world writing.Benjamin’s enligh...

This book demonstrates how formative assessments, unlike standardized tests, provide the kind of communication between teachers and students that help teachers make instructional decisions to improve student performance.

Learn how to make vocabulary instruction more effective by making better use of mini-lessons and word study time to achieve durable learning about words and how they work. In this essential new book, literacy expert Amy Benjamin presents her 4E model (Exposure, Exploration, Engagement, Energy) for teaching vocabulary so that students gain deep understanding, improving their overall language and literacy skills. Benjamin guides you through bringing these 4Es to life in your K-8 reading-writ...

This book shows content area teachers in middle and high schools how to boost student achievement by including lessons and strategies which focus on students' reading comprehension without detracting from content area focus. These mini-lessons and strategies are research-based and address the specific literacy challenges of each particular subject area (social studies, mathematics, science, etc.). The author has provided a large number of reading examples from texts, sample tests and asses...

This book helps educators improve students’ ability to write clear, coherent essays in response to on-demand writing prompts. While it focuses on students’ abilities to succeed at on-demand writing, it also promotes the teaching of writing as an expression of art and self. For grades 4 -12, it provides examples of responses to narrative and persuasive prompts, and provides savvy advice about what scorers look for.

Vocabulary at the Core, the expanded and updated edition of Vocabulary at the Center (© 2009), is the definitive guide for every teacher engaged in helping students learn essential academic vocabulary. In clear, precise language, Benjamin and Crow explain why vocabulary is at the core of all learning and communicating and why word study should play a more significant role in English class and across the curriculum—as emphasized by the Common Core State Standards.Y...

As schools shift to the Common Core, many English language arts teachers are left with questions about how their classrooms should look. Is fiction out? Can I still do strategy instruction? Does close reading mean deliberating on each word? Finally, there’s a resource with all of these answers and more. In Focus on Text, bestselling author Amy Benjamin provides practical guidance on how to realistically implement the Common Core reading standards. Part I of the book exami...

Help your students improve their language skills and become stronger readers and writers. In this timely book, literacy experts Amy Benjamin and Barbara Golub offer best practices for fortifying the writer’s workshop model with meaningful, relevant instruction in grammar.The book answers questions such as…What does a writer’s workshop look like and how does it fit into balanced literacy models? How does grammar fit into a writer’s workshop?How can you use na...

Do you spend entirely too much time correcting your students' papers? Do your students' essays and term papers take side trips to nowhere? Is their writing riddled with mechanical errors? Do their lab reports and essays lack specificity and clarity?Writing in the Content Areas, Second Edition is for middle and high school content area teachers who assign essays, term papers, lab reports, and other writing tasks to students. This book provides strategies and tips to help teachers of...

Instill grammar fundamentals using lessons that stick! In this book, authors Amy Benjamin and Joan Berger share procedures for teaching grammar effectively and dynamically, in ways that appeal to students and teachers alike. Ideal for teachers just beginning their work in grammar instruction, this book includes day-by-day units and reproducibles to help them embed grammar lessons into writing instruction.Using visuals, wordplay, problem solving, and pattern-finding activities, teac...

Do word problems and math vocabulary confuse students in your mathematics classes? Do simple keywords like "value" and "portion" seem to mislead them?Many words that students already know can have a different meaning in mathematics. To grasp that difference, students need to connect English literacy skills to math. Successful students speak, read, write, and listen to each other so they can understand, retain, and apply mathematics concepts.This book explains how to use 10 ...