Response to Intervention: A Practical Guide for Every Teacher

This book features 169 reproducible activities which provide opportunities for active learning and student practice in the study skills and strategies most important for students with special needs. Teaching students with special needs to use study skills and strategies effectively is an important step in transforming these students into independent learners. In addition to the reproducible activities themselves, each chapter in this book contains suggestions for using the activities, mastery assessment, and an answer key.

In opposition to traditional models of special education, where teachers decide when a child is deemed “ready to compete” in “mainstream” classes, Mara Sapon-Shevin articulates a vision of full inclusion as a practical and moral goal. Inclusion, she argues, begins not with the assumption that students have to earn their way into the classroom with their behavior or skills, it begins with the right of every child to be in the mainstream of education, perhaps with modifications, adaptations, and support. Full inclusion requires teachers to think about all aspects of their classrooms — pedagogy, curriculum, and classroom climate.

Phonemic awareness—the understanding that words are made up of sounds—is essential to a child’s early reading success. With this book, children gain this awareness through engaging, easy to teach activities.

Since the first edition was published, author Susan Winebrenner has spent eight years using it with school districts, teachers, parents, and kids across the U.S. and the U.K. this revised, expanded, updated edition reflects her personal experiences and the changes that have taken place in education over the years. Her basic philosophy hasn’t changed, and all of the proven, practical, classroom-tested strategies teachers love are still here. But there’s now an entire chapter on identifying gifted students. The step-by-step how-tos for using the strategies are more detailed and user-friendly. There’s a new chapter especially for parents. And all of the forms in the book are also on CD-ROM (sold separately) so you can print them out and customize them for your classroom.

This practical volume is designed to help school practitioners and educators build stronger connections with families and enhance student achievement in grades K-12. Beyond simply getting parents involved in schoolwork, the book describes how positive family-school relationships can socialize and support children and adolescents as learners throughout their academic careers. Identified are key pathways by which professionals and parents can develop common goals for learning and behavior, a shared sense of accountability, better communication, and a willingness to listen to different perspectives. The focus is on assumptions, goals, attitudes, behaviors, and strategies that professionals can draw on both to assess school-home connections that are currently in place and to implement new, more productive practices. Grounded in theory and research, the book features case examples, self-reflective exercises, and discussion questions in every chapter.

The middle level years are an extraordinary period of our human development. The only other time we grow as much physically, emotionally, and intellectually is form ages zero to two. But early adolescence is much more than just tripping over large feet and calling friends on the phone to discuss who likes whom. The ways we deal with conflict, relationships, and personal development as adults have direct connections to specific experiences we had between the ages of ten and fourteen. We can create a very positive future then, when we provide careful and compassionate experiences for today’s young adolescents.