In recent years, the increasingly high stakes attached to norm-referenced reading tests have made it harder to hold onto what we believe about language arts education. Now, Lucy Calkins, Kate Montgomery, and Donna Santman meet us in the true trenches, offering companionship and guidance in the most lonely, complex, and sometimes heartbreaking area of our teaching: preparing students for standardized reading tests. 
 Written with the intimacy, inspiration, and classroom-based practicality we've come to expect from The Art of Teaching Writing, A Teacher's Guide to Standardized Reading Tests reflects the authors' belief that in order to be less victimized by tests, we need to be more knowledgeable about them. To that end, their book: 
<ul>
<li>provides a complete overview of tests, showing us how to use this information to be more powerful and more articulate participants in today's political conversations and in our interactions with colleagues, parents, and our students </li>
<li>demonstrates how the methods we've come to trust in the reading and writing workshop can be built upon and adapted as we do test-preparation work with our students </li>
<li>rethinks the reading workshop in light of standardized tests, describing predictable challenges children will face when taking tests and ways we can help children develop the capabilities to meet those challenges </li>
<li>provides guidelines for reading and interpreting test results, enabling us to minimize the damage caused by troubling scores. </li>
</ul> "If our students do well on tests," write the authors, "we are in a far stronger position to be critical of those same tests." With A Teacher's Guide to Standardized Reading Tests, educators can achieve these results, and advocate for and use forms of assessment that inform teaching and support student learning.

A Teacher's Guide to Standardized Reading Tests: Knowledge Is Power

Education & Teaching

CALKINS, LUCY

Montgomery, Katé

Santman, Donna

Falk, Beverly

Schools & Teaching

Heinemann

Interpreting texts can lead readers on journeys that change their lives forever. However, many middle school students - unused to looking between the lines, unused to building or amending their readings of a text - need your guidance as they learn to develop and discuss their own interpretations. In this smart and lively guide, veteran middle-school teacher Donna Santman shows you how to teach readers the skills and strategies of comprehension and interpretation within the framework of a reading workshop. Shades of Meaning takes you through Santman's own rigorous workshop, describing the teaching that allows students to stretch and empower their imaginations. Santman offers guidance in: <ul>
<li>creating curriculum and lessons that teach habits of mind that support interpretation, like naming the ideas hiding in texts and thinking about perspectives from which to analyze those ideas</li> <li>using reading workshop structures to teach students to practice articulating their thoughts, exploring others' ideas, and interpreting texts</li> <li>assessing students' interpretive skills and moving them toward deeper and more meaningful interpretations</li> <li>using standards-based rubrics and checklists to communicate expectations and track students' progress.</li> </ul>
With Donna Santman's assistance, you can teach readers the interpretive skills they need to help them find a foothold in their ever-changing world; with Shades of Meaning, you can teach readers ways to understand, interpret, and speak back to the texts in their lives.

Shades of Meaning: Comprehension and Interpretation in Middle School

Acclaimed by audiences and critics alike, Music From the Inside Out is a cinematic exploration of the magic and mystery of music through the stories, passion, and artistry of the 105 musicians of The Philadelphia Orchestra. Bring the excitement of the film into the classroom with these beautiful inspirational classroom posters.

Music from the Inside Out: Poster

Arts & Photography

Booth, Eric

ANKER, DANIEL

Ponder, Carol

Music

Alfred Music

Acclaimed by audiences and critics alike, Music from the Inside Out is a cinematic exploration of the magic and mystery of music through the stories, passion, and artistry of the 105 musicians of The Philadelphia Orchestra. Also available: classroom posters and a matching curriculum that engages students in reading, writing, listening and talking about all kinds of music and offers students the opportunity to compose their own works.

Music from the Inside Out: DVD

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Books by Santman, Donna