Books with three red blobs (• • •) are particularly recommended.

• • • Teaching Assistants: Practical Strategies for Effective Classroom Support - by Maggie Balshaw and Peter Farrell - This practical book is intended to support schools and LEAs in developing effective strategies in working with teaching assistants. It is related to the DfEE's Good Practice Guide (2000). Suggested approaches are supported with real examples from practice, showing the reality of how schools can review and develop practice and so become more effective in their management and support of teaching assistants. The aim is to enable managers in schools and LEAs to work effectively with teaching assistants; teachers to plan classroom approaches for working with teaching assistants; teaching assistants to improve their practice; and children to learn more effectively in inclusive settings. This book will be of use to headteachers, senior staff in schools, SENCOs, LEA support staff, class teachers and teaching assistants.
USA | UK

• • • Assisting Learning and Supporting Teaching: A Practical Guide for the Teaching Assistant in the Classroom by Anne Watkinson - The central aim of this book is to give Teaching Assistants (TAs) an insight into the theories of teaching and learning which they now need to fulfil their role, including looking at the TA as both learner and teacher. The book also takes a look at school policies, structures and systems in order to give basic context and to help promote partnership with teachers and managers in schools. It explains the current learning initiatives in schools such as inclusion, the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies, as well as concerns such as accountability and inspection within the context of the whole curriculum of a school. The author offers advice on personal development, explaining what training is available to TAs and how to ask for this. The book can be used by TAs, TA mentors and others in schools who work with TAs.
USA | UK

• • • Supporting Literacy: A Guide for Primary Classroom Assistants by Kate Grant - Classroom assistants are increasingly relied upon to support the most needy pupils, and they have had significantly less training than their colleagues with qualified teacher status. It is clear that these assistants need some very practical materials. The book provides a large section of photocopiable resources so that classroom assistants can get to work. The book will cover all they need to know about literacy; it will explain, in very simple terms, what is expected from them and: * How the National Literacy Strategy works * How to support reading, writing and spelling * How to select fiction and non-fiction * How to help children use computers It also covers issues such as: * How to help children for whom English is not their first language * How to help children with special needs * How to set targets and monitor progress.
USA | UK

• • • Supporting Language and Literacy 3 - 8: A Practical Guide for Assistants in Classrooms and Nurseries by Suzi Clipson-Boyles - written to help assistants in nursery and Key Stage One classrooms to focus on how children learn language and literacy skills in different contexts. It covers the language and literacy curriculum from the Early Learning Goals to the Key Stage One statutory assessments, and includes reference to the Foundation Stage guidelines, the National Curriculum, the National Literacy Strategy (NLS) and the Additional Literacy Support (ALS). Photocopiable sheets provide opportunities for the reader to engage in reflective and interactive activities throughout the book and optional extension tasks are provided for group training. This is an ideal handbook for trainers and trainees on Teaching Assistant, BTEC and NNEB courses.
USA | UK

• • • Supporting Literacy and Numeracy: A Guide for Learning Support Assistants by Glenys Fox and Marion Halliwell - A practical guide to the ways in which the Learning Support Assistant can effectively support the class teacher with regard to literacy and numeracy frameworks. The authors provide a description of the roles and responsibilities of the learning support assistant and its effect of raising standards in schools; illustrate how children learn through the literacy and numeracy frameworks; and describe how learning support assistants can support children in the literacy class and mathematics.
USA | UK

• • Supporting Children with Behavior Difficulties: a Guide for Assistants in Schools by Glenys Fox - This practical guide is written to help assistants in supporting children who have behavioral difficulties. The author provides: a description of the role of the assistant in working with the class teacher to enable children to learn good behavior in schools; a clear description of the range of behavior difficulties; and information on strategies that work in managing behavior. The book should be useful for any assistant working directly with children, as all assistants in the course of their work need to develop a repertoire of effective strategies for managing behavior. It should be particularly helpful for assistants who work routinely with children who present behavior problems as it guides understanding and provides a helpful framework for knowing where to start, what to do and how to do it. The books should also prove to be a valuable resource in the training of assistants. (Comment: This helpful book would have been improved by including some information about children's diet, which has been found to have a noticeable effect on their behavior - John Bradford).
USA | UK

• • • How to Reach and Teach Children and Teens with Dyslexia by Cynthia Stowe - comprehensive, practical resource giving educators at all levels essential information, techniques, and tools for understanding dyslexia and adapting teaching methods in all subject areas. Over 50 full-page activity sheets that can be photocopied for immediate use and interviews with students and adults who have had personal experience with dyslexia. Organized into twenty sections, information covers everything from ten principles of instruction to teaching reading, handwriting, spelling, writing, math, everyday skills, and even covers the adult with dyslexia.
USA | UK

• Spelling Smart! - ready–to–use activities program combining whole language concepts and phonics strategies to teach students with spelling difficulties how to spell by recognizing patterns and consistencies rather than memorizing hundreds of isolated words. Included are step–by–step instructions for utilizing the program followed by 40 sequential lessons covering Sounds, Syllables, Word Building, Rules and Generalizations accompanied by diagnostic tools, word lists, and 200 reproducible activity sheets.
For easy use, all program materials are printed in a big 8 ¼ x 11" lay–flat binding that folds flat for photocopying and all lessons follow the same familiar format.
USA | UK

• Making the Writing Process Work - Strategies for Composition and Self-Regulation - Describes an integrative approach to writing instruction for students with diverse abilities and backgrounds in the elementary and middle grades.
Presents cognitive strategies for writing: sequences of specific steps which make the writing process clearer and enable students to organize their thoughts about the writing task. The strategies help students know how to turn thoughts into writing products. This is especially important for students having difficulty producing acceptable writing products, but all students benefit from learning these procedures. Second, the authors focus on helping the student become a self-regulating writer—aware and in control of the writing processes. The combination of composition and self-regulation strategies adds critically important dimensions to a whole language program because the strategies help students think about and organize writing products at the same time, while they learn to manage their writing.
Actual samples of student writing—before, during and after instruction in individual strategies—chart the radical improvements in content and organization. Tips for teaching the strategies and supporting their use in the classroom are presented throughout the text.
USA

• • To Teach A Dyslexic - by Don McCabe - a compelling autobiography illustrating what it is like to grow up dyslexic. He was born in 1932 and this was well before "dyslexia" was a term, let alone a diagnosis. He was just treated as a boy who couldn't sit still. He credits his older sister and others who worked intensively with him to help him learn to read and eventually to become a respected scholar.
USA

• The Dyslexic Scholar: Helping your Child Succeed in the School System - by Kathleen Nosek. If you are looking for a book that explains dyslexia and how to cut through the red tape at school, this is the book. I finally found some answers to my questions about dyslexia and what I need to do to get my child help. Ms. Nosek's book is very parent friendly. She gives you wonderful advice in a step by step fashion. I found the most useful part of the book to be the section on the federal laws (she gives you the public law number) that the schools must obey. I finally know what my rights are! You should read this book if you are having any problems getting your child services. I think it would be useful to any parent of a child with a learning disability.(A reader from Newport Beach, California)
USA | UK

• Phonemic Awareness in Young Children - A Classroom Curriculum - Phonemic awareness - distinguishing the individual sounds that make up words and affect their meanings - is an essential preliteracy skill, and a hot topic in education today. This supplemental curriculum is brimming with engaging, adaptable language activities proven to increase phonemic awareness. Use them in any preschool, kindergarten, or first-grade classroom. Its developmental sequence builds on simple listening games and gradually moves on to more advanced sound manipulation exercises like rhyming, alliteration, and segmentation.
USA

• Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Program (LIPS) - stimulates phonemic awareness. Children become aware of the mouth actions which produce speech sounds. This awareness becomes the means of verifying sounds within words and enables children to become self-correcting in reading, spelling, and speech.
The program develops phonemic awareness by teaching students to utilize oral-motor movements to attach to sounds that phonemes make within words. Children are also required to manipulate sounds within words. This program is considered a multisensory reading program.

• The Bangor Dyslexia Teaching System - Part One of this work on the Bangor Dyslexia Teaching System focuses on the teaching of primary school age children who are dyslexic or have specific learning difficulties; the aim is to bring them up to standards of literacy which they need if they are to function at their general ability level in secondary school.
Part two is for the secondary school pupil, who is under much pressure from classroom needs; priorities are therefore suggested and a plan of approach for helping the pupil is outlined. Advanced spelling materials, suggestions for developing study skills and hints on examination techniques are also included.
For this second edition the text has been partially rewritten, to enhance its clarity, and updated and expanded to take into account the introduction of the UK National Curriculum and the use of computer software in current teaching practice.
(Recommended by Juliet Freud - 'good examples of work with phonics.')
USA | UK

• Multisensory Reading, Spelling & Penmanship Program CD-ROM - This multisensory reading, spelling and penmanship CD-ROM program builds an association between symbols and sounds in the English language through self-paced repetition. It utilizes the close association of visual, auditory and kinesthetic elements to help students improve their language skills. The beginning of the program assumes the student does not know the letters of the alphabet. The program then proceeds to teach all the skills one needs to read on a sixth grade level. Orton-Gillingham approach.

• How to Teach your Dyslexic Child to Read - by Bernice H. Baumer. Readers can learn how to structure lessons in order to connect with a dyslexic child. This book uses accessible terms along with charts, graphics, and lesson plans. It is broken down into three functional sections: a discussion of learning disabilities; an explanation of how to teach the dyslexic to read, step by step from kindergarten through the first, second and third grades (giving detailed instructions for teaching phonics, spelling, and syllabication); and a section devoted to pictures, charts, and word lists that are an integral part of tutoring the child. ')
USA | UK

• Better Books - valuable series of multi-sensory phonics books which can be photocopied. One book - 'Mnemonics' - is especially helpful in dealing with spelling errors commonly made by dyslexic children and teens, e.g. because, said and enough.

• • Overcoming Dyslexia - Yale neuroscientist Sally Shaywitz demystifies the roots of dyslexia and offers parents and educators hope that children with reading problems can be helped. Shaywitz delves deeply into how dyslexia occurs, explaining that magnetic resonance imaging has helped scientists trace the disability to a weakness in the language system at the phonological level. According to Shaywitz, science now has clear evidence that the brain of the dyslexic reader is activated in a different area than that of the non-impaired reader. Interestingly, the dyslexic reader may be strong in reasoning, problem solving and critical thinking, but invariably lacks phonemic awareness-the ability to break words apart into distinct sounds-which is critical in order to crack the reading code. The good news, Shaywitz claims, is that with the use of effective training programs, the brain can be rewired and dyslexic children can learn to read. She walks parents through ways to help children develop phonemic awareness, become fluent readers, and exercise the area of the brain essential for reading success.
USA | UK

• Glue Ear by Lindsay Peer.
Glue Ear is a common condition among young children but until recently its long-term effects on learning and achievement weren't fully understood. Lindsay Peer's research has found significant links between the condition and dyslexia. As well as helping teachers to understand the potential consequences of temporary hearing loss, this book will be useful for health professionals who may be aware of the medical implications of Glue Ear but not the educational reverberations. Similarly, parents of children who have the condition will appreciate the accessible, jargon-free text and practical, credible ideas.
USA | UK

• Wilson Language Training (USA) - The Wilson Reading System is a research-based reading and writing program. It is a complete curriculum for teaching decoding and encoding (spelling) beginning with phoneme segmentation. WRS directly teaches the structure of words in the English language so that students master the coding system for reading and spelling. Unlike other programs that overwhelm the student with rules, the language system of English is presented in a systematic and cumulative manner so that it is manageable. It provides an organized, sequential system with extensive controlled text to help teachers implement a multisensory structured language program.
The basic purpose of the Wilson Reading System is to teach students fluent decoding and encoding skills to the level of mastery. From the beginning steps of the program, it also includes sight word instruction, fluency, vocabulary, oral expressive language development and comprehension. Throughout the program, a ten part lesson plan, designed to be very interactive between teacher and student, is followed. The lessons progress from easier to more challenging tasks for decoding and then spelling.