Best Friends, Worst Enemies: Understanding the Social Lives of Children

The revised, updated, and expanded edition of the classic in the category.

This book outlines a unique and revolutionary program with a phenomenally high success rate in helping dyslexics learn to read and to overcome other difficulties associated with it. This new edition is expanded to include new teaching techniques and revised throughout with up-to-date information on research, studies, and contacts.

The author lays out a clear vision of what responsive middle level teaching should be. This is a book for all reasons - help for the novice teacher, support for the mid-career teacher wanting to improve her craft, and inspiration and confirmation for the later-career teacher as well. Part I creates a culture of learning, leading to Part II and many specific ideas on promoting higher student achievement through innovative and accomplished practice. Part III cycles back to the middle school context - effective teams, teacher-student advisories, outdoor adventures, and working with parents.

In this story, a primary age child called The Don’t Give Up Kid by his parents feels like giving up when trying to read. Includes a parent resource guide to learning disabilities.

“I’m normal because I am a normal kid — going to school, being happy, getting homework, having a family. I’m not normal because I’m dyslexic…” Thus begins the autobiography of an eleven-year-old boy who describes how he created a board game based on the popular Harry Potter series and entered it into his school’s yearly Invention Convention, where it became an instant hit.

Jim is worried. He’s not sure he’ll have any friends at school! The other children in kindergarten are scary strangers to him. He’s sure that he’ll never find a friend…until naptime, when he discovers someone who feels the way he does.

It’s September, which means it’s time for school to start! The alarm rings, but Sarah Jane Hartwell just burrows deeper into her covers, announcing that shes not going, wailing “I dont know anybody, and it will be hard, and … I just hate it, thats all.” Finally, Mr. Hartwell firmly orders her down to breakfast, puts her in the car and drops her off to join the children flooding through the school doors. But is Sarah who you expect her to be?