All students can drive their own learning when we show them how. Humanized, equitable classrooms start with a commitment to building student agency. Step Aside offers clear, streamlined guidance for launching secondary students into high-level work that hinges on their ideas and insights.
Sarah Zerwin writes from the complex and challenging space of daily life in a classroom. She knows student-driven learning does not mean students make all the decisions about what happens in the classroom. It occupies a more nuanced space where teachers carefully curate the classroom experience and teach students how to navigate it on their own.
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Whether you're a new teacher or a seasoned pro, Prepared Classroom: Ready to Teach, Ready to Learn is your ultimate guide to starting the school year with confidence and maintaining a productive, engaged classroom all year long.
Section 1 focuses on you, the teacher. It provides practical strategies to maximize student engagement, create a positive classroom environment, and establish smooth, effective routines. Section 2 is all about the students, with 52 actionable lessons that communicate expectations and help students thrive in their learning space.
This book isn't just for the start of the year—it's a resource you'll turn to again and again throughout the year. Filled with evidence-based practices for instruction, relationships, and classroom management, Prepared Classroom ensures you have a solid plan to keep students ready and excited to learn.
It’s time to wave goodbye to feeling overwhelmed and say hello to a classroom where both you and your students can experience joy and excel. Ready . . . Set . . . Go!
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**Ready-to-use lessons to support readers in grades 4–8**
A structured series of ready-to-use lessons that explore the “how” and the “why” of the English language with students. The engaging activities reflect the needs of all students, covering a wide range of abilities. Carefully curated word lists scaffold instruction for emergent to competent readers. The lessons are based on extensive classroom experience and include suggestions from teachers who have used the lessons in real classrooms. An ideal resource for using the spelling block to instruct, strengthen, and address gaps in phonics, morphology, and vocabulary knowledge for students in grades 4-8.
"This book will be very helpful to teachers who work with dyslexic and other struggling readers. There are many useful insights into the reading process and how to improve the reading skills of all students." — Dr. Linda Siegel
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**Hands-on activities that motivate children to learn**
This practical book shows teachers what Reggio-inspired experiences look like in primary classrooms. Based on extensive classroom experience, the real-life examples explore how teachers can observe children to better motivate, engage, and inspire them. Teachers will find simple ways to guide children to become effective problem solvers and build deeper learning in reading, writing, oral language, and listening. The hands-on activities revolve around topics children care about and are designed to foster skills in communication, collaboration, and finding meaning in the world around them. This mixture of theory and Reggio-inspired practices puts the child at the centre of their learning.
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Just in time for its 20th anniversary, this long awaited second edition of Mechanically Inclined continues to merge the best of writer's workshop elements with relevant theory about how and why skills should be taught. It connects theory about using grammar in context with practical instructional strategies, explains why kids often don't understand or apply grammar and mechanics correctly, focuses on attending to the “high payoff,” or most common errors in student writing, and shows how to carefully construct a workshop environment that can best support grammar and mechanics concepts. In this new edition, longtime colleague, Lisa Thibodeaux joins Jeff in emphasizing four key elements for grammar instruction:
Comprising an overview of the research-based context for grammar instruction, a series of over forty detailed lessons, updated research, compelling new mentor texts, and an appendix of helpful forms and instructional tools, Mechanically Inclined is a boon to teachers regardless of their level of grammar-phobia. It shifts the negative, rule-plagued emphasis of much grammar instruction into one which celebrates the power and beauty these tools have in shaping all forms of writing.
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Now in its second edition, Well Played, Grades 3–5 offers twenty-five engaging games and puzzles which have all been field tested in diverse classrooms. Additionally, the materials for each game and puzzle have been streamlined, making preparing for and managing game and puzzle play even easier.
Each game or puzzle contains:
New full-sized appendices of all game boards, puzzles, and other materials make preparing for play an easy task. A built-in study guide at the end of each chapter makes this book an ideal choice for book studies and collaborative teacher learning.
Well Played, Grades 3–5 will help you tap the power of games and puzzles to engage students in sustained and productive mathematical thinking.
Coming in July 2025 — Pre-order today!
Drawing on the work and experience of more than a dozen educators and activists, this timely book explores a range of ways to engender and nurture belonging. Full of practical strategies and activities to add to educators’ and leaders’ toolboxes, it deals with many aspects of inclusion, including dismantling racism and using strength-based approaches to practice culturally relevant and responsive education. Promoting belonging as positive and joyful, real-life examples and stories support the idea that educators can learn, unlearn, and relearn their approach to making classrooms a place of learning for all.
Coming in September 2025 — Pre-order today!
When Writing Workshop Isn't Working: Answers to Ten Tough Questions, Grades 2–5 provides practical advice to overcome common problems and get your writing workshop back on track. Acknowledging the process-based nature of the writing workshop, this book does not offer formulaic, program-based, one-size-fits-all answers, but presents multiple suggestions based on what works in real classrooms. This second edition includes updated ideas for common issues in the workshop and features new chapters on technology and resistant writers.
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In this lively, student-centered work, Dr. Mary Ehrenworth presents a complete curriculum for vocabulary acquisition, one that can be embedded as a separate component or taught inside of any reading curriculum in grades 3–6.
Your students will learn to collect and apply literary vocabulary. They will learn a repertoire of writing about reading strategies for deepening literary vocabulary, close reading, and literary conversations. They will dive into a study of etymology, cognates, and compound words, as well as a deep study of morphology. These word conscious learners—budding linguists—will become flexible word solvers and creators as they learn to collect and apply domain vocabulary and develop expertise in attending to varied and subtle context clues not only to acquire domain vocabulary, but to comprehend more complex nonfiction texts.
Teachers will appreciate the student-centered, affirming, and inclusive pedagogy, the attention to multilingualism, the focus on transfer and independence, the solid core of undergirding research, the room for immersion and inquiry, and the tremendous impact on reading comprehension and criticality as well as vocabulary.
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**An essential guide for helping students explain, question, and refine their thinking and learning**
This essential resource shows teachers how to observe students at work and use those observations to inform classroom instruction. It explores effective ways to collect evidence of student learning and guide them towards becoming active participants in the learning process. Helping students understand and clarify what they know and how to use success criteria to guide their work is a key focus. This practical book on assessment and feedback offers hands-on tools to help students track, document, and articulate their learning. These tools are designed to inform reflection and encourage conversation, so students can better explain, question, and refine their thinking.
Both editions available now — Order today!
**Making time for every learner, every lesson, every day**
Teaching literacy often feels like a balancing act between best practices and instructional time. This book offers a practical solution for creating a research-based literacy program that is responsive, manageable, and meets the needs of diverse students.. It provides a clear structure for whole-class lessons, small groups, and independent practice in reading, writing, and word work, allowing teachers to maximize instructional time while incorporating existing practices. With concrete strategies, “low-floor high-ceiling” activities, and real-life examples, this book helps teachers reach every learner, build a literacy-rich environment, and feel confident that they are making time for it all.
All formats available now! — Order your copy today!
Feature of the Month!
Making Time for It All is our July feature! Just click on "Preview Book" beneath the cover image on the left, and you'll be able to read the first three chapters of this practical, hands-on resource online, completely FREE!
**What literacy instruction looks like in today’s classrooms**
This engaging book provides an overview of language arts instruction, the background information teachers need, and countless strategies to ensure effective instruction. Grounded in practicality, Karen supports teachers with setting up the classroom for literacy instruction and planning the year, and provides many specifics for effective reading and writing instruction. Topics include orthographic mapping, the teaching of morphology, the Three Tiers of Vocabulary, and the importance of writing to learn. Karen also provides many ways to leverage oral language across the curriculum. At the heart of the book is Karen’s passion for literacy and desire to empower teachers.
**90 activities that support key math concepts**
I Can Do Math is a simple tool teachers can use to help kids have fun and build foundational math skills. The 90 single-page, reproducible lessons involve children in developing fine motor skills as they explore key math concepts. Children use color to demonstrate what they know and solve engaging puzzles and exercises as they measure, cut, and fold their own library of unique minibooks. Based on curriculum essentials for K–2 students, the activities investigate counting and numbers, addition and subtraction, problem solving, and geometry. Ideal for active learning, meaningful review, and assessment throughout the year.
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Follow along with Cain & Faith as they fold their own minibooks!
From the author of the award-winning Which One Doesn’t Belong? and How Many? comes How Did You Count?, the latest title in Christopher Danielson’s collection that is sure to spark conversation, questioning, and wondering amongst both younger and older students alike.
In this innovative Teacher’s Guide, Danielson gives you the tools you need to both begin and dig deeper into the How Did You Count? routine. In clear, accessible language, Danielson discusses the mathematical ideas likely to emerge on each page of the How Did You Count? picture book and helps you anticipate and understand your students’ likely answers. Through classroom stories, he models listening to, talking about, and delighting in students’ ideas around counting, numbers, and operations.
Reading this Teacher’s Guide alongside your copy of the How Did You Count? children’s picture book will help you and your students discover together how the beauty of counting and numerical relationships and structure extends far beyond 1, 2, 3.
This listing includes both the Teacher's Guide and a hardcover copy of the How Did You Count? picture book.
Also available to order:
Student hardcover
Student paperback (set of 5)
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In this long-awaited second edition of Phonological Awareness, author Yvette Zgonc, along with Kim Zgonc, present a wealth of phonological awareness activities directly tied to a three-tiered model, which fits in with Response to Intervention (RTI) or any multilevel approach you use.
Informed by research on how the brain learns best, these activities include songs, poems, and games that will keep students engaged, involved, and having fun, because that’s when learning is sustained. So, whether they’re pretending to be superheroes, surgical assistants, baseball pitchers, or just lowly worms, get ready to see your students actually enjoy strengthening their phonological awareness skills.
In addition to the original and updated ninety-six phonological awareness activities for whole-group, small-group, and individual instruction, along with assessments in both English and Spanish, this second edition now includes:
If you’re looking for maximum learning that makes phonological awareness skills fun and impactful, this revised volume will help you effectively engage your students and monitor their progress, while bringing you one step closer to the ultimate goal—success for all children.
Coming in August 2025 — Pre-order today!
A comprehensive exploration of the skills, strategies, and elements of the literacy curriculum that today’s teachers need. This timely book offers techniques for whole-class and small-group instruction and assessment, including targeted interventions for specific student needs. It explores digital and media literacy skills that will help students become critical consumers and constructors. The book shows teachers that a literacy block can offer students choice and voice, capitalize on their strengths, identify areas for growth, and set meaningful personal goals. It provides the framework teachers need to address the alphabetic code and language comprehension skills students need to become critically literate.
Coming in October 2025 — Pre-order today!
In this timely book, Valerie Bolling breathes new life into the work of goal setting with students. Bolling guides teachers, step by step, through helping students set goals, monitor progress, revise (and sometimes even abandon!) goals, and celebrate their achievements along the way. Moreover, she illustrates how teachers, themselves, can set their own goals so that they are learning alongside their students and serving as models for them.
Goal Setting in the Writing Classroom draws on Valerie Bolling’s experiences as a teacher, instructional coach, and children's book author to offer relevant and engaging stories, lessons, strategies, and graphic organizers to help all students become successful and independent goal setters and writers.
Coming in July 2025 — Pre-order today!
Come along as we follow classroom teacher Tammy Mulligan’s journey to plan and facilitate small but powerful moments of practice that help students grow as readers, writers, and community members. Chapter by chapter, Mulligan explores how to bring different categories of quick and frequent practice to life in the classroom including:
Written with the practical lens of a teacher, The Power of Quick and Frequent Practice outlines how to make these practice moves a part of daily and weekly instructional routines, utilize simple tools you already have in your classroom, and weave moments of student leadership throughout the practice times to help children celebrate their growth. Mulligan shares strategies, routines, and tips for planning, managing, and implementing the kind of engaging and meaningful literacy practice that learners need.
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**Use student-directed learning to promote engagement and empower students**
This transformational book shows you how to put your students in the driver’s seat of their learning. It gives you step-by-step protocols and tools to empower student voice and choice: choosing mode, topics, outcomes, and ideas to make learning matter. Based on extensive classroom experience, the book celebrates joyful learning that also supports soft skills including personal organization, time management, collaboration, communication, and more. It promotes an approach to classroom management, teaching, and assessment to drive learning forward and personalize learning to the needs of individual students. An ideal resource for empowering your students to take charge of their learning!
Coming in August 2025 — Pre-order today!