Training Books

The school I began teaching out is a small, rural high school that has no mentoring program. In lieu of such a program, the principal gave each of us new teachers 101 "ANSWERS" FOR NEW TEACHERS AND THEIR MENTORS which we read through and discussed together during our first year on the job. The book is a combination self-help/encouragement book. The 101 "answers" in the book are basically just tips for teachers who are starting out in their careers. The sections in the book are divided up into six categories: classroom management, planning, instruction, professionalism, motivation and rapport, and a teacher's influence. Most of the "answers" are words of encouragement. Overall the book is directed more towards elementary teachers than secondary teachers. Some of the situations and advice given just aren't applicable with high school students. I did find a few of the tips in the classroom management and planning section to be useful, such as giving students productive bellwork to work on at the beginning of class. However, tips like these that I actually found helpful, are only a handful of the 101 "answers." Most of the "answers" have to do with things like reminding yourself why you went into education, treat everyone you meet with respect, you are making a difference, and Rah! Rah! Rah! Go Team! Go!, you can make it after all. Overall, this is just an average advice and encouragement book directed more towards elementary teachers than those at the middle school and secondary level.

We have purchased this book for the last three years for all of our new teachers. In addition we are purchasing it this year for every mentor in our district. It is an excellent resource for new teachers as they experience the range of situations presented to them in their teaching environment as rookies. It is a practial resource for mentors and a reminder of their importance. Many of the practial tips are used in our induction program and as conversation topics at monthly support meetings. In my opinion, this book is a must have for every teacher!

This is one of the best books I could have ever bought. I am a student teacher right now and I learned a variety of strategies just from reading this book. It makes you want to just go out and conquor the classroom. I would reccommend any teacher, or prospective teachers to buy this book! It is wonderful. Thank you Ms. Breaux!

Hands down, the best book for teachers on the market. Very practical and extremely user-friendly. I ordered a copy for all of my teachers - not just the new ones and mentors. The `Answers' in this book are for EVERYONE.

I like this book because I feel it is very important for all teachers, whether or not they are mentors or beginners, to remember what it is like to be a new teacher. I think that everyone can benefit from being reminded how to act appropriately with their students and their fellow teachers. The tips presented in the book are easily accessible and easily implemented.

I have also had the pleasure of hearing Ms. Breaux speak and was very impressed. She speaks like she writes!

I purchased a book for every teacher. Their responses have been very positive. It has renewed the spirit of the veteran teachers and has provided another learning tool for the new teachers. Thanks to Annette Breaux for this common sense book!

Highly recommended for anyone wanting to troubleshoot and take care of their Mac themselves. It covers in detail the set up, administration and daily care and feeding of OSX.

If you are studying for the ACHDS exam, this book is all you need. I just got back from taking my exam and received a 96% score. Everything from this book with prepare you for the exam. I would of gotten a perfect score but I think my nerves got in the way.

Get this book, you won't regret it.

The book is very well written with clear explanations, and detailed lessons. Because you read about it and then go through an excersize, you retain the information better. I would recommend this book because it really does almost feel like you are in a class when you are reading.

I needed this book to study for my Apple Certs, and found it to be very concise and all of the sections were explained well. It was more of a review for me, but once in a while, I found a tidbit of information that I did not know. I was kind of exciting finding little "secrets" about an OS that I have been working with and developing on for years.

I recommend this book if you are looking to study on your own or if you just need, or want, more insight into the way Mac OS X works. The information is fairly complete and when it is not exhaustive, I found that the authors had placed direct URLs to many of the great resource web sites.

If it is Apple certification you want, you can choose to use the web based Applecare technician training or this book. To do a great job on your cert tests, I recommend both. The book allows you to learn and study when you are not in front of a screen. Completely web-based programs require me to print out a lot, and I found I did not have to with the book in hand.

Easily the best software to learn the Internet.

Interactive and actually fun.

This software really is impressive. It teaches all aspects of the Internet. I am really impressed with this software. Keep it up!

Pleasantly surprised. It really gives you a full in depth understanding of all aspects of the Internet.

I wish you would make a Windows 98 CD. I would like to know how to use my computer as well as I can use the Internet now.

I have just received the product very recently and my son finds it very interesting and has been great fun as well as educational for him. Thank you for the great product.

I found out about this cd from my stock broker. I am 57 years old and have never operated a computer until I purchased one in August of this year.This cd has amazed me in how easy it is to learn about the internet. I certainly think that the cd and my gki stock were both good buys.

This quick read will give you great tips for your mental game. It focuses on relaxing, playing freely, not thinking about the outcome and staying in the moment.

Jeff Greenwald delivers a work filled with some stunning insights from himself and other top players that can help you focus, relax, and bring out your best. As he points out, everyone is struggling with something on the court, and it turns out that most of us are struggling with the same things. I have found myself going back to this book again and again because it examines so many of the key mental obstacles that the game presents, and provides a practical, process-based approach to overcoming them.

It is a nice read to have in the tennis bag and read while waiting for a match. It did have some useful angles that I have used on the court.
Worth the money.

As a therapist and tennis player who has read numerous books and articles on the mental aspect of tennis, Jeff Greenwald's book and cd are by far the most helpful and the most relevant I've come across. While other mental tennis books are interesting and helpful, Greenwald has put together powerful and credible insights born from his own tennis career and solid mental health research and experience.

His insights ring true and they are clear, employable and even necessary for being a healthy happy human tennis playing person (and I would think especially necessary for the junior and pro level players to keep a healthy perspective). Often mental tennis advice makes sense (just think positive) but falls far short of being realistically helpful (positive thinking usually doesn't help muscles from getting tense in a close match). But Greenwald has done a superior job of organizing, articulating and delving into the heart of the issue/s that can leave every tennis player from playing their best tennis.

Jeff Greenwald's well-written, nicely-packaged little book on how to improve one's tennis is far more than a "how to" book. It offers keen insight into the most effective psychological way to approach this game and, indeed, life in general. Greenwald's expertise comes from real life experience as a former #1 world-ranked tennis player and nationally recognized sports psychology consultant. In my opinion, not even players like Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Andre Aggasi, or for that matter, Pancho Gonzales, Jack Kramer or Rod Laver could have gained the insight that Greenwald passes along to the reader. I give this volume five shining stars and recommend it to any sportsman or sportswoman who wants to not only improve their tennis game, but gain a valuable new perspective into how to get more out of life.
Woody Klein
Westport, CT

Breakaway is a refreshing, common sense book that provides fresh, new ideas about performance improvement, and the value of employees. This book describes how important a competitive edge is in today's market place, and provides the tools to help you succeed!

Breakaway lives up to its promise (and premise) of delivering value and expertise fast and clean. No-nonsense, practical, with suggestions of surgical precision to guide organizational transformations.

Don A. Johnson
Principal,
The Clarity Group, Inc.

Breakway was clearly written by an author who has been in the trenches, growing a company and working with people. From its elegant organization to its intuitive set of theories Breakaway reinforces what we all know to be true - that a principled approach to business will achieve the best results. This book should be on every business person's must-read list.

Breakaway is a must-read book for anyone in the corporate world who has responsibility for human resources, employee development, sales and marketing management, and for top corporate executives.

The main theme of the book is that in order to break away from the competition in today's ever-changing economy, an organization must effectively develop employees to deliver value to the customer faster than the competition does. After analyzing how organizations currently train employees and the deficiencies associated with this type of training, Fred goes on to define a new method for bringing employees to proficiency faster and more successfully than traditional training methods.

The first several chapters of the book document a new model for human performance and the three rules for accomplishing peak performance. The first rule - Establish a proficiency threshold - describes how to determine the point at which an employee is equipped to deliver the promised value to customers quickly. Fred clearly describes the questions that managers must ask in order to define the proficiency threshold and discusses the relationship of the proficiency threshold and the value chain.

The second rule - Accelerate the accumulation of experience - includes a discussion of how people really learn, describes the four phases of learning, discusses how traditional training methods leave the accumulation of experience to chance, and how to manage the accumulation of learning. Using an example of training copper splicers to become fiber optic cable splicers, Fred demonstrates how to successfully manage the accumulation of experience in relation to training.

The third rule - Measure the cycle time to threshold proficiency - describes the metrics used to measure the how fast an employee can be trained to arrive at the proficiency threshold. Fred goes into some detail on how to measure the overall proficiency of the organization, and redefines the learning curve as the proficiency curve.

In the last half of the book, Fred describes how to "put it all together". Recognizing that no two companies are the same, Fred compares and contrasts the styles of two very different companies. What emerges is that there is no set of rules for achieving organizational proficiency, rather there are a set of key concepts that managers must be aware of in designing fast, effective, successful development programs.

In summary, this book is very readable, indeed it is designed "...for the business leader, to be read in the time it takes to fly from Chicago to San Francisco or Denver to Miami." True to one of the key concepts, the book is clear, concise and to the point.

About the author:
Charles L. Fred is a thought leader in performance improvement and an expert in learning speed. He is the founder and CEO of The Breakaway Group, which provides seminars and workshops to teach the concepts described in Breakaway. Formerly the CEO of Avaltus, a leading provider of e-learning services, he has also directed major change efforts in both the manufacturing and service industries, has consulted to successful companies around the globe, and has been a frequent speaker to major business forums and groups of senior executives over the past twenty years. Once a nationally ranked NCAA track athlete, he continues to compete in corporate races across the country. He lives in Centennial, Colorado, with his wife, Julie, and their three teenage children.

Review by Richard D. Turnquist.

What has really changed in our world in the last two decades? Time has sped up and surpassed all the other busienss variables in importance. These days time is more important than money.

To win in business, you must break away from the pack and stay ahead by serving your customers extraordinarily well. "Speed-to-proficiency is more than a theoretical advantage; it is the most devastating competitive weapon in a world where the competitive forces of scale, automation, and capital are subordinate to the power of a proficient work force."

I enjoyed this book, right from the first sentence -- "This book is designed for the business reader, to be read in the time it takes to fly from Chicago to San Francisco or Denver to Miami." Breakaway is an easy read with a vital message. Read it.

My judge uses all kinds of crazy words, things that people don't usually hear in everyday courtroom proceedings...yet I have found most of them in this book! In my efforts to reduce my overall strokes and improve my realtime, this book has been my sidekick. Not a day goes by that I don't look for some help between its covers. It's awesome!

This is a great book for students to increase speed by using briefs and brief phrases, I love it!

This book will become a staple in my realtime library, love it!

If you are a court reporting student, you can benefit from this book. I found that this book contained a lot of briefs that was not incorporated in my theory book. This book will help you gain the speed to pass speed test.

This book is great!! I am a court reporting student. I wish I had bought this book when I first started school. It would have saved me much time. There are several options for the words, and even if they are not your theory, it can give you an idea of how to brief the word according to your own theory. I use this book almost daily in practice, and my speed has increased 40 WPM in two months. I credit it all to being able to find a brief and save strokes. BUY IT!!!

This book will be equally useful for an individual ambitious to improve, or for a chess trainer looking for stimulating course material. There is a tremendous depth to the program of instruction here, with sections on openings, middlegame concepts (closed center, open center, isolated pawns) and endgames (queen endings, pawn endings, knight endings). Computers and databases are covered (2 pages), with the emphasis in that section (as indeed with the whole book) being as much on HOW to study as on the study itself.
A beginner might enjoy this book, but the most benefit will be obtained by players who have some experience but feel they have reached a plateau - a quite common situation in my experience. Gambit is well known for only publishing quality chess books, so this is a self-improvement work you can rely on to improve your game and rating.

What I really like about this book is how it caters for the student who seriously wants to improve. There is a lot more to it than you might think from seeing the cover, and I learned a lot about strategy and endgames. There are four things I found especially helpful:
1. the book covers a big range of topics, like how to make a plan or the important of pawn structures.
2. the diagram examples feature many famous games and famous players.
3. endgames are covered in detail (I have found that other books of this type ignore them).
4. there is lots of advice on how to improve

If you are an intermediate player (say rated 800 to 1900 USCF) this book will greatly benefit you.

What I really like about this book is how it caters for the student who seriously wants to improve. There is a lot more to it than you might think from seeing the cover, and I learned a lot about strategy and endgames. There are four things I found especially helpful:
1. the book covers a big range of topics, like how to make a plan or the important of pawn structures.
2. the diagram examples feature many famous games and famous players.
3. endgames are covered in detail (I have found that other books of this type ignore them).
4. there is lots of advice on how to improve

If you are an intermediate player (say rated 800 to 1900 USCF) this book will greatly benefit you.

why has no-one told me about this fantastic book before? There are sections on the endgame, analyzing your own games, how to study position-types and so on. Hall clearly writes from personal experience, and the method worked for him: he is a strong international master. The title is a little misleading in that it might imply the book is aimed at novice players, when the book could be useful for even club players. My chess library consists of around 300 books. This is one of the best self-improvement works in it.

You will find this book outlines a wonderful program on how to study, and gives a deep insight into openings, middlegame strategy and endgames. As well as teaching chess I play in local tournaments, and I can say with confidence that this well-rounded approach is exactly what will benefit the intermediate level player most. The chapters on the middlegame will help every junior solve some of the most common problems, and there is a lot of great study material on strategic themes. The section on the endgame alone is worth five stars, as it extensively covers topics you rarely see mentioned in other books.
There is no doubt that after reading this book your general strength will improve, and there is so much material packed in, that it is like having the contents of several books put together. That is my one complaint - there is almost too much material, and it could take several months to do it justice.
The author is an experienced chess teacher, and he shares his methods with a passionate enthusiasm. I found his methods to be valid, and quite insightful in some cases. I would highly recommend this book for both kids and adults to study and enjoy.

Wonderful tips and insights in this book! A great resource for both beginners and professionals alike. It's fun, engaging, and informative. The best part of the book is that it centers around real-life stories and examples, so you not only pick up some "theory", but see how it works in practice. Describes many simple techniques that work! I think it can be helpful not only for coaches, but for managers, as well. Highly recommended!

You will not be disappointed with this book. Whether you are a consultant/trainer, supervisor or simply would like to better manage your personal relations, this is the book for you. Great exercises - excellent definitions and insights. This is a super buy!

The book conveys the author's approach and techniques for effective coaching, starting with a model to help an observer see the big picture, followed by eleven stories to examine coaching in action, and twelve coaching tools used with success in the field. A highly useful and insightful book that brings the reader, to the extent words permit, into contact with the coaching process. Very highly recommended.

The practical and innovative tools contained in this very original book are described in an authentic and engaging manner. I recognized many of my own clients in the deft descriptions and stories provided by Thier. I often felt like I was in the midst of a lively coaching tutorial. Creative applications to my own coaching practice were sparked for me as is evidenced by the numerous folded-down page corners on my copy! I know that I will return to Coaching CLUES to refresh my thinking and practice. Thier is an artist.

There has been a lot written on coaching. What sets this book apart are the compelling stories and practical tools for getting results. Thier's wisdom and experience come through on every page. Anyone engaged in coaching (as a coach or client), or anyone who's just interested in self-improvement, will benefit.

There is no better study guide for passing the postal exam than Mr. Parnell's. All info is up to date right with postal guidelines. No other study guide is as easy to understand and follow. As we all know it is practice that makes perfect.I had searched for a study guide like this and purchased three others before this from the list here.
I had a hard time understanding and putting the formulas together from other manuals.That was all cleared up after the first listen to the first cd. There are lots of secrets that no one else has.If you need any proof, I got a 100% on my exam.So do yourself a favor and purchase this guide.you need no others.

Using this book as a study guide to prepare I recently took the exam for the Raleigh area. Test results = 100% carrier, 96.8% mark-up clerk. Without a doubt, this book was the reason for my success---it prepares you for the exam in every possible facet, right down to the completely realistic answer sheets (they are set up the same on the actual exam). Don't take this test without preparing for it (as many people unfortunately do). This book will get you prepped.

I scored a 99.3 on the exam after preparing with this guide. I did this on my own with NO veteren or disabled extra points. It can be done and you can get to the top of the list. Very easy!!!!

this prep book WILL get your scores to the top 95% exam mark. the higher the score the sooner you get called in by the post office. simple as that. took the test and within 6 months, i am with the post office (long island, NY). scored a 97.84%. my friend went from a 95% to a 100% and was called in as soon as the list was available (3-4 weeks). a simple 2.16% made the difference of 5-6 months wait before getting called.

I am retired USAF, and purchased this book and CD set to prepare for the postal exam. I was one of the 5 hired out of hundreds who tested in Oct 2003. I now have 11 months as a Mail Carrier.

The best parts of this book are the detailed photographs of all the exercises, included in both a large format (one per page) and a small format (so that you can see many exercises per page). The only thing that would make the book even better would be if the small photographs were offered separately on water-resistant material, so that you could bring 'em into the pool. I'll probably photocopy those pages, and laminate them, so that I can do that.

The book has a helpful appendix of commercial resources with products such as an in-pool exercise station, and Aqua Tunes. Some of the companies appear to have gone out of business in the 11 years since the book was first published--to be expected.

By the way, the average rating here would be 5, but one reviewer apparently forgot to add the star rating, while still offering the book a glowing review.

I recently had a knee replacement. My doctor suggested water therapy.

This book yeilded several specific therapies to improve the flex in my knee.

I had a devastating knee injury about five and one half months ago (the doctor stated that I may never be able to obtain my pre-injury range of motion)The traditional rehab was going very slowly and very painfully. I asked my physician if I could exercise in the water, and after his approval, I started with the workouts in this book along with my prescribed rehab. I have gained 80% of my pre-injury range of motion and on a good start with my strength and balance with VERY little pain!! My physical therapist said I started improving much more rapidly after starting the water workouts and I have already exceeded the expected post-operative range of motion. I could not have done it without the water workouts!!

This guide is helpful for persons with physical limitations and provide safe non-impact exercises. It would be helpful if the guide would inform the purchaser that assistive devices would aid with the routines.

I was in a bed for 9 weeks with a herniated disc. My wife found this book in the library. I happen to live in Florida and was able to use this book to keep myself somewhat active and not become a cripple because of the pain I was in on land. 15 years later I am in great shape at 50 love the water and this book, and still read in now and then to remind me of the form to use and the benifits.I need a new one becaus eits been so used.