The Complete Guide to Special Education: Expert Advice on Evaluations, IEPs, and Helping Kids Succeed

Leo isn’t reading, or writing, or drawing, or even speaking, and his father is concerned. But Leo’s mother isn’t. She knows her son will do all those things, and more, when he’s ready.

Although much has changed in schools in recent years, the power of differentiated instruction remains the same — and the need for it has only increased.

Today’s classroom is more diverse, more inclusive, and more plugged into technology than ever before. And it’s led by teachers under enormous pressure to help decidedly unstandardized students meet an expanding set of rigorous, standardized learning targets. In this updated second edition of her best-selling classic work, Carol Ann Tomlinson offers these teachers a powerful and practical way to meet a challenge that is both very modern and completely timeless: how to divide their time, resources, and efforts to effectively instruct so many students of various backgrounds, readiness and skill levels, and interests.

With a perspective informed by advances in research and deepened by more than 15 years of implementation feedback in all types of schools, Tomlinson explains the theoretical basis of differentiated instruction, explores the variables of curriculum and learning environment, shares dozens of instructional strategies, and then goes inside elementary and secondary classrooms in nearly all subject areas to illustrate how real teachers are applying differentiation principles and strategies to respond to the needs of all learners.

This book’s insightful guidance on what to differentiate, how to differentiate, and why lays the groundwork for bringing differentiated instruction into your own classroom or refining the work you already do to help each of your wonderfully unique learners move toward greater knowledge, more advanced skills, and expanded understanding. Today more than ever, The Differentiated Classroom is a must-have staple for every teacher’s shelf and every school’s professional development collection.

This book is about helping youngsters with learning disabilities hold onto their dreams. It is also about helping their mothers and fathers negotiate the maze of challenges that so often leaves parents and students alike feeling overwhelmed and helpless. Writing with warmth and compassion Corinne Smith and Lisa Strick explain the causes, identification, and treatment of learning disabilities and present a wealth of practical strategies for helping youngsters become successful both in and out of the classroom.

Cutting edge scientific research has shown that exposure to the right kind of environment during the first years of life actually affects the physical structure of a child’s brain, vastly increasing the number of neuron branches—the “magic trees of the mind”—that help us to learn, think, and remember.

Best Friends, Worst Enemies brings to life the drama of childhood relationships, guiding parents to a deeper understanding of the motives and meanings of social behavior. Here you will find penetrating discussions of the difference between friendship and popularity, how boys and girls deal in unique ways with intimacy and commitment, whether all kids need a best friend, why cliques form and what you can do about them.

Adulthood is nothing to be frightened of, even if you have LD. This guide is aimed at helping prepare you not only for academic success, but for life as an adult. It helps explain how kids get into LD programs, clarifies your legal rights and responsibilities, and covers other vital topics including assertiveness, jobs, friends, dating, self-sufficiency, and responsible citizenship.