Prufrock Press Inc.

101 school success tools for smart kids with learning difficulties.

Shevitz et al., instructional specialists and educational consultants, provide a resource to help educators and parents aid smart students with learning difficulties in becoming successful, confident, and independent learners. They present 101 tools and strategies for understanding the characteristics of smart students with learning difficulties, identifying and teaching them, and nurturing their potential in individual, small-group, and whole-class settings. Tools include charts, letters, teacher and student activities, interviews, projects, instructional strategies, learning style and differentiation checklists, team approaches, intervention plans, reading and writing activities, mentoring, teaching self-advocacy, life skills, and action plans. No index is provided. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Emotional intensity in gifted students; helping kids cope with explosive feelings.

Fonseca, a school psychologist and parenting coach, helps parents and teachers understand why gifted children have extreme emotions and how to teach them to deal with these emotions. She discusses the assumptions people make about giftedness, the characteristics of being gifted and problems created by these traits, the emotional development and intense nature of gifted children, problems they face and strategies to teach them to cope, issues faced by those who also have learning disabilities or mental illness, how to use coaching techniques, and how to collaborate with schools and mental health professionals. She uses case studies, dialogues, and role playing techniques to show how to deal with explosion, bullying, peer pressure, phobias, perfectionism, underperformance in school, and social anxiety. There is no index. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Jacob's ladder; reading comprehension program; grades 7-9, level 5.

The Jacob's Ladder Reading Comprehension Program targets reading comprehension skills in high-ability learners by moving students through an inquiry process from basic understanding to critical analysis of texts, using a field-tested method developed by the Center for Gifted Education at The College of William and Mary. This work contains readings in poetry, myth, and nonfiction, lessons, and reproducible worksheets and record keeping forms for level five of the program. The lessons cover skills such as sequencing, understanding cause and effect, classifying, making generalizations and inferences, and recognizing themes and concepts. An appendix includes sample questions and four levels of sample answers. There is no subject index. VanTassel-Baska is professor emerita of education at the The College of William and Mary. Stambaugh teaches special education at Vanderbilt University, (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Jacob's ladder; reading comprehension program; grades 7-9, level 4.

Stambaugh (special education, Vanderbilt U.) and VanTassel-Baska (education, College of William and Mary) outline a method developed by the Center for Gifted Education at The College of William and Mary that improves reading comprehension skills in high-ability learners in grades seven through nine by moving them through ladders of an inquiry process from basic understanding to critical analyses of texts. After a guide to using the method, they present short stories, poetry, and biographies accompanied by sets of questions aligned with skills like sequencing, theme/concept, inference, literary elements, summarizing, and reflecting. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)