Education Books

Used this book in the core MBA course - excellent summary of class lectures & very helpful supplement.

I am currently attending an MBA program and we are using this book in one of our operations classes. Highly recommend this book to schools and students who would like to learn how to solve the supply and demand problem!

First, this book is very easy to read. Throughout the book, the authors used different examples to illustrate the various challenges in realistic settings such as the patient waiting and serving time at the interventional radiology unit. The readers can easily extend and relate the examples in real life.

Second, this book is good for the classroom setting as well as the self study setting. The book is organized in a way that each chapter is focused on one operations management problem and shows the systematic ways to solve the problem. For self learner, one can easily select the topics and chapters of his/her interest.

Also, I found the summary at the end of each chapter especially useful for me. To prepare my exams, I use the summary of key notions and equations in each chapter to make up my "cheat sheet".

Again, "Matching Supply with Demand" is a great book and I highly recommend it.

A fantastic book for operations management!

The book cleverly combines real-life examples with relevant concepts to introduce core principles in operations managmenet.

It is well-organized, easy to understand,and highly relevant.

I found this text book to be extremely helpful in understand and applying operations management. It includes a comprehensive introduction into topics like process flow, estimating and reducing labor costs, batching, the impact of variability, projecting uncertain demand, reactive capacity, risk pooling and several others.

More importantly, the models and examples used are not only practical, but actually interesting. Class discussions were drastically improved due to an increased interest in the cases. I'm sure it took a monumental effort to develop models and cases that make Operations Management interesting to the common student.

I am an MBA student who has used this course book for our first year operations class. The book tackles difficult topics in a very easy to read way and is extremely well integrated with the associated case book and lecture notes. It provides the right level of detail, enabling students to pick up the tools or delve more deeply into the underlying mathematical constructs. The book does what it says on the label, teaching how to match supply with demand through analyzing process bottlenecks, queuing, lost customers, optimal inventory and yield management and supply chain management issues, such as the bull-whip effect and tackling double marginalization. This is a great introductory book to operations management.

The fifth graders had just come back from their tour of the middle school they will be attending next year when I asked for volunteers to read this book. The book was a hit with the girls, although the a few boys read it because of the format. The girls wanted to hear about middle school...the joys and the sorrows. The coverage of the different topics: dad killed by drunk driver, single parent mom, rebellious older brother, kind grampa, and mom getting remarried, interested the readers at different levels. The girls were particularly excited about the format....little text but a lot of information. Good book for light reading. Good book to use when talking about and experimenting with differing formats.

I purchased this book for my 5th grade sister who abhors reading. She fights any book any tries to place in front of her. I first heard about this book at a Young Adult Literature Conference for teachers and librarians. It sounded interesting, so I purchased it from Amazon and had it shipped to my sister. She loved the book! She shared it with her teacher and class, too. I highly recommend this book for middle school reluctant readers. It's full of pictures and graphics to help hold the attention of all readers.

This just in: Middle school is HARD. It's bad enough that you have to deal with changing classrooms, let alone changing for P.E. in the locker room in front of classmates. You have to navigate your way between classes and through the cafeteria without losing your cool or your lunch. You have more schoolwork and homework to do than you did in elementary school. Your moods may suddenly shift, and your friends, siblings, and parents might suddenly seem like foreign life forms.

Middle School is Worse Than Meatloaf: A Year Told Through Stuff by Jennifer L. Holm, with artwork and illustrations by Elicia Castaldi, is a unique look at one girl's seventh grade experience. It relays all of the fears and concerns of a typical middle school student, but in a very cool format. It really is told through Ginny's stuff: her to-do lists (she likes scratching out tasks as she completes them), her tests and essays, notes to and from her mom, her grandfather, and her teachers, her older brother's hand-drawn comics, even her report cards and bank statements (she makes money baby-sitting, then spends it and ends up with the same balance every month).

The concept is executed wonderfully. Holm and Castaldi have given Ginny a definite life and personality, just through her stuff. Castaldi's artwork is beautiful. News clippings, greetings cards, and store receipts all look authentic. It brought to mind The Baby-Sitters Club Chain Letter book from many years ago. Though the BSC book actually had letters you could unfold, cards you could open, and other trinkets readers could keep, I liked that Middle School was all right here on the page, so nothing could get torn or out of place.

Every single thing written, drawn, or otherwise included on the page is a part of the story. When Ginny dyes her hair against her mom's wishes, we see the receipt from the store where she bought the dye and other items, then the receipt from the hair salon where Ginny's mother takes her to fix her hair. When her mother remarries, a newspaper clipping describes the affair. When Ginny's older brother gets in trouble, he draws her comic strips to show what he did and to express his remorse. The comics are rendered by Holm's real-life brother, Matthew, who also works with her on the fun graphic novel series Babymouse.

A complete story is told here, just through one girl's stuff. Not only is this contemporary and appealing to kids currently in middle school, but it won't feel dated in five years because it is based on fairly timeless themes. It's not about having stuff - meaning it's not about the desire to have material items - but rather it's what your stuff says about you.

If you haven't seen this book, please go find it. Get Holm's previous works while you're at it!

Jennifer L. Holm's MIDDLE SCHOOL IS WORSE THAN MEATLOAF is an exceptionally fun book for middle school readers and tells of Ginny, who has ten items on her to-do list for seventh grade. Unfortunately she keeps getting in trouble - none of which is on her list - and her fun story is told in a series of color facing pages of notes and experiences along with memos and easy eye-catching illustrations.

As I scrabbled through my purse to find the receipt the other day, the flotsam and jetsam of my life floated out too. There was a post-it note with a phone number I needed, a receipt for the dog's visit to the vet, a class schedule, a flash drive and various other artifacts and odd bits of life that really do tell the story of my daily existence.

As I picked up Jennifer Holm's book, Middle School Is Worse Than Meatloaf: A Year Told Through Stuff and began to read, my purse's contents flashed through my mind. Using notes, programs, hair salon receipts, report cards, post-it notes, greeting cards and newspaper clippings, Holm tells us the story of Ginny Davis.

As the school year begins, Ginny thinks the worst thing she is facing in seventh grade is the cafeteria meatloaf. By reading her instant messages to friends and teacher comments on school papers we begin learn about her family. We learn that she loves ballet and hopes her mother will remarry. We understand that her older brother is having problems and makes his family's life difficult. When her mom remarries, Ginny could not be happier but when her stepfather makes an unfortunate mistake, it puts her into an emotional and academic tail spin as her family life gets crazier.

I do not want to give away too much of this story because the humor and emotion build with each artifact on the page and it would not be fair to the story to spoil the surprises. I became deeply involved in this story and when I saw the image of Ginny's ballet recital program, I gasped.

Jennifer Holm has a gift for creating characters that readers care deeply about. May Amelia, Penny, Babymouse and now Ginny are girls that stay with me even after I finish their stories.

Elicia Castaldi has created the look and feel of real items in an actual scrapbook. She has designed and positioned each item so the story flows naturally. Matt Holm has an illustrator-cameo, contributing some cartoon panels dealing with Ginny's brother.

This novel is very very accessible for readers of all levels and strengths. I would start waving copies of this book ASAP at reading specialists and teachers. Since the story is told in short bursts of information, it would build reading confidence and help readers "see" the story in their imagination as it plays out.

This is a sweet story, cleverly told, that will find an eager audience. Get it on the shelf and stand back. This is going to be a hit.

If every parent follows the philosophy of Doctor Shinichi Suzuki, the world will be a very pleasant place to live

I love this book!!! It talks about success at music as well as success in life. Very uplifting and motivational.

This book revolutionized my life. I visited a Suzuki flute instructor and fell in love with this method. I saw how excited the children were about learning and how much joy they had. When I read the book I understood why. Dr. Suzuki has a mastery over how children respond to love and encouragement. Reading the stories in here about patience, love and encouragement changed the way I taught flute and also the way I approach life in general. I now try to emulate Dr. Suzuki's teachings in all my interactions. I would recommend this book to every music instructor, whether Suzuki or traditional, every teacher, every parent, and any person who works with or has contact with children. I bought this copy to give to a former student, to help him remember his roots as he begins his music career. I hope he will choose to emulate Dr. Suzuki's love and wisdom in his teaching.

This book should be required reading for music teachers, and for parents who would like their young children to have music lessons. I teach piano and violin to young students, and I felt it was immensely helpful to me. It was a constant reminder that patience, persistance, and a deep love of music will yeild the most profound results with even my most difficult students. It is all to tempting to dismiss the abilities of a particular child, especially one who tends to be uncooperative, instead of recognizing that each child has enormous potential. The touching stories Mr. Suzuki shares of students who overcame terrible difficulties, from blindness to infantile paralysis, to play the violin as best they could, moved me more than words can say.

The book wonders between autobiography, philosophy, history of how Suzuki's philosophy developed, and technique but the message is clear. Most children's success is dependent on the culture parents create EVERYDAY at their home and for their children. The parents are the creators of culture and the culture is what is done, talked about, emphisized, supported, given time to, and encourage everyday with love. It is easier if society at large supports the culture that parents want but parents ultamately have to create their own culture for their children and the key is what is done everyday and it requires a serious investment of time.

We are what we do everyday (Suzuki is in line with Aristotle on this one). Patience, perserverance, determination shrouded in love 15 minutes a day, for a child, is better than an hour one day a week. Parents talking about it, encouraging it everyday, making it the family culture, are keys to success in music as most anything for most children. There are a lot of distractions that wish to throw our children into worshiping the vanities in this world, the best way to fight this is to create an inner dignity and harmony that comes from a serious but loving endevour everyday.

Old Mother West Wind was a gift for grandmother, who read her children stories from this series when we were young. Happy stories and illustrations for young elementary children. Good entertainment, useful for K-3 school. Loved it!

These stories were first told to his own children by Thornton Burgess. Then they were read to me by my mother over 60 years ago. They were long out of print when my own children were of the right age but they are back for my grandchildren. They are highly recommended.

This book was a gift to my 6 year-old grandson. He loves it; both the stories and the pictures. This is a book my mother read to me when I was little boy. My favorite character was Bobby Coon.

Thornton Burgess was a naturalist and the stories of animals in Old Mother West Wind are wonderful. The characters attitudes and behaviors are true to the animal portrayed. A wonderful way to get acquainted with nature. Perfect book for an adult to read to a younger child.

A book of short stories about animals who talk, _Old Mother West Wind_ is enjoyable for a child of about five years to about eight as a read aloud (or older, if your child isn't terribly worldly.) These short tales often attempt to explain "how", as in how the skunk got his stripe, and have, in addition to the animals, characters such as Mother Nature and the Merry Little Breezes.

Many of these stories attempt to teach a moral, though often it is not obvious due to the author's skill. These are old stories and they reflect the values of the time they were written in. My ADHD eleven year old read the book himself and enjoyed it and is looking forward to the sequel.

Here are the stories included:

1) Mrs. Redwing's Speckled Egg - Mrs. Redwing has just laid a beautiful new egg and the Merry Little Breezes must help keep it safe from Tommy Brown.

2) How Reddy Fox Was Surprised - When Johnny Chuck wanders too far from home, Reddy Fox decides to play a trick on him. But the joke's on Reddy Fox.

3) Why Grandfather Frog Has No Tail - Grandfather Frog tells the Merry Little Breezes why Mother Nature took away all frogs' tails.

4) Why Jimmy Skunk Wears Stripes - When Mrs. Ruffed Grouse's eggs are destroyed by "a pair of eyes," the whole forest seeks the culprit. When Jimmy Skunk is found out, his days of night camouflage are over. (This was my son's favorite.)

5) The Willful Little Breeze - When one of the Merry Little Breezes stays in the Green Meadow after Old Mother West Wind has gone home behind the Purple Hills, he foils Hooty the Owl and Reddy Fox's plans to eat Mr. Bob White and his family.

6) Reddy Fox Goes Fishing - While Reddy Fox sleeps, he dreams he can fish as well as Billy Mink, but Reddy Fox just ends up all wet.

7) Jimmy Skunk Looks for Beetles - As Jimmy Skunk looks for beetles, he doesn't make any friends, but is rather selfish and destructive. However, the adventure really starts when Peter Rabbit decides to help.

8) Billy Mink's Swimming Party - Billy Mink invites Jerry Muskrat and Little Joe Otter to a swimming party at the Smiling Pool.

9) Peter Rabbit Plays a Joke - When Peter Rabbit tries to play a joke on Johnny Chuck and Reddy Fox, the joke back-fires.

10) How Sammy Jay Was Found Out - When Happy Jack's store of nuts disappears, Old Mother West Wind forms a committee of the whole to solve the mystery.

11) Jerry Muskrat's Party - When Jerry Muskrat throws a swim party, many of his guests aren't having any fun. Then, Little Joe Otter comes up with an idea that saves the party.

12) Johnny Chuck Finds the Best Thing in the World - When Striped Chipmunk hears Old Mother West Wind tell the Slender Fir Tree that she's found the Best Thing in the World, everyone starts to search for it--and everyone imagines it as something different.

13) Bobby Coon and Reddy Fox Play Tricks - When Bobby Coon and Reddy Fox trap Johnny Chuck inside his home, Jimmy Skunk helps Johnny Chuck surprise the two of them.

14) The Tale of Tommy Trout, Who Didn't Mind - Though Tommy Trout's mother tried to warn him of the dangers outside of their little pool, Tommy Trout didn't listen.

15) Little Joe Otter's Slippery Slide - When Little Joe Otter, Billy Mink, and Jerry Muskrat build a mud slide on the bank of the Smiling Pool, Peter Rabbit's curiosity gets the best of him.

16) Spotty the Turtle Wins a Race - When Peter Rabbit, Reddy Fox, and Billy Mink decide to race to see who's fastest, Peter Rabbit teases Spotty the Turtle that he should join. Spotty the Turtle does, and uses his mind to win the race.

This is a very good book for reviewing for the EC-4 Generalist exam. I graduated with a B.S. in Elementary Ed. 15 years ago and am Lifetime certified 1-8. I have taught K in private and 1st in public and am seeking early childhood certification so that I can teach K again in public. I feel confident that this book will be all that I need in order to study for the EC-4 Generalist exam.

I bought this book to study for the EC-4 Texes exam. The test had some of the same study questions that were in this book! So glad I studied! And I passed! :)

THis has been very helpful in preparing me for the TExES test. I recommend it to all

Janice Nath's book is the first textbook I actually read cover to cover. I not only passed the test on my first attempt with a 284 but I learned things I hope to use in my future classroom. The book is set up in sections based on the content areas covered in the test and gives an excellent review of the overwhelming amount of information a grade school teacher needs to know to be an effective teacher. I was really at a loss to know where to start studying for this test as the subject matter was so diverse. This textbook gave me direction. I got it only two weeks prior to taking the test and read every page. If you choose to purchase the book I hope you enjoy it just as much and good luck on the test. In fact I liked it so much I just wrote my first review on Amazon so others nervous about taking the test will get the help they need. :)

This is an excellent, thorough guide to help you prepare for the EC-4 TExES. I looked at several books, but felt like this one had the best information. Though there is not a full practice test, there are practice questions throughout, which are just as (if not more)helpful. Each answer is explained fully (not only why answer A is correct, but why B, C, and D are incorrect).

Several professors contributed to the text, and I know that many others choose it as required reading for their courses.

I made a very high score on the exam, and I owe that score in part to this guide.

Gods be feathered, how I love this book. The four-book Chanur series is one of the greatest SF epics of all time. (The fifth, Chanur's Legacy, is a fun afterthought but not as deep as the original chunk.) This first volume is a satisfying stand-alone read, but trust me, you'll want to read the rest. I always warn people not to start this series unless you have a large chunk of time set aside--even though I've reread it countless times, once I get started I still find its momentum impossible to put down.

Pride of Chanur starts with an unforgettable image--a mostly naked fugitive human writing numbers on a spaceship deck in his own blood to prove his sentience to the startled alien who has just slashed him with her claws in self-defense. From there it rolls along into an intelligent, funny, and utterly satisfying adventure. Cherryh achieves an amazing feat in telling the story entirely through alien eyes, yet still giving us completely satisfying, believable, and likable protagonists. She vividly depicts four entirely distinct and fully realized oxy-breathing species, each complete with distinct patterns of thought, traditions, and psychology, plus several other more mysterious methane-breathing species, in all their complex and troublesome interactions, plus humans (well, mostly just one) thrown precipitously into the mix. The human is the alien in this story, and we hear his perspective only through the often garbled and always incomplete computer translator, an approach which is unusually realistic (unlike so much SF where translation always works perfectly, instantly) and always leaves you curious to know more. The reversal of perspective is so convincing and complete that you'll find yourself looking at your own species' psychology as the strange one.

Plus there's the fascinating reverse-sexism of the hani, the main alien culture, which essentially follows the structure of a sentient lion pride: men are considered too volatile and unstable for everyday business, thus are kept secluded except during dynastic battles; the sensible, pragmatic females take care of commerce, law, alliances, and space-faring. (In the sequels, these beliefs get confronted and deconstructed in interesting ways.) The quintessentially feline temperament and mannerisms of the hani--vain, swaggering, hot-tempered, affectionate, physical, fierce, loyal--are convincing and irresistible, especially if you're a cat person anyway! And be warned, the pidgin and idiom the characters use for inter-species communication will completely infect your brain.

Dive right into this satisfying yarn, and know that in the next three books a far, far wilder, bigger, and more complex story will unfold...nail-biting action intertwined flawlessly with deep psychological and cultural insight, tangled intrigue, agonizing moral dilemmas, and extraordinary character transformations. Enjoy the ride!

Not many writers can do aliens as well as Cherryh -- bilateral, oxygen-breathing, most of them, but with minds and emotions and evolved biologies that are very, very different indeed from human. Pyanfar Chanur is the successful, wealthy captain of a Hani trading ship, a powerful figure in the powerful Chanur family, leading a crew composed all of family members, like all Hani ships. And then she's suddenly saddled with Tully, a refugee human escaped from the Kif, an opportunistically piratical race that evolved by blood feud. Humans are newly arrived on the edge of the space occupied by the member races of the Compact and trading rights with them will be worth a lot, but Pyanfar will have to risk everything. And the profoundly untrustworthy Kif aren't going to make things easier. Cherryh does a terrific job of gradually introducing the reader to the intricacies of the vaguely lion-like Hani society, in which females do the work and tend to the psychologically unstable, world-bound males, who are lords of the estates -- until they're challenged by younger males and finally lose. You'll come to know Pyanfar and her crew as individuals, too. The plot gallops, the characterizations are intriguing, and the dialogue is snappy. Yet the book is much denser than it appears. What more could you want -- except the three following volumes in this saga?

Yeah, this book was pretty cool. It's not quite as dense or sprawling as I've come to expect Cherryh books to be (not that that's a bad thing!), but that doesn't detract from it one bit. And this book moves, moves, moves. It's probably one of the most engrossing books I've ever read.

This is another one of Cherryh's first-contact type novels, and I think it's the thing she does best, really. It involves a lone human somehow lost in alien space who manages to sneak abord a Hani merchant ship, and how his presence upsets the delicate balance of power there. It's serious without being too oppressive, and it is without question the best of the series. I've read the other three, and really you can take those or leave them--the book is complete enough in itself. (With the others, I kind of feel myself playing the Star Trek 5/Aliens 3 game--if I didn't like it, it didn't happen. Trek 5? Nope. Went from 4 straight to 6....)

I highly reccommend this book. It's typical Cherryh, in that you'll have to wait for your gratification until the very very end--but then, it's always worth it.

After reading and enjoying Ms. Cherryh's "Cyteen" I started searching for more of her novels and decided to begin reading Chanur's Saga. "The Pride of Chanur" is its first volume.

Ms. Cherryh creates, once more, an astounding backdrop Cosmos full of intricacies, depicting the other end of the universe shown in "Cyteen".
Here she elaborates The Compact's Media where many alien races compete, trade and fight. There are oxygen breathers and methane breathers; big cat-like people and gray somber entities; aggressive races and peaceful ones; some species are deceitful and others are straight forward.
Just to make things more complex a Human show up demanding asylum from the Hani (Chanur's kind) and giving way to a feud between Hani & Kif (the bad guys of the story).

One astounding feature of the book is that the main character is Captain Pyanfar Chanur and her ethnocentric point of view is THE point of perception. All other races (including human) are strange and requires all her imagination to figure up what kind of entities they are. Are they friendly? Stable? Trustworthy? All these and many more questions she has to answer in order to survive.

The other bewildering aspect is that Hani kind is conducted by their females. Ladies are in charge of commerce, space travel, politics and any other significant activity (even war). Males are the Lords, pampered by females, sporting and hunting. Only one by Clan, he may be defied by other males (his own exiled sons are suitable) to singular combat and the winner takes all.

The novel has the typical Space Opera structure, enriched by new elements as character's depth and culture's coherence.
It is a very good sci-fi novel that will be enjoyed by fans & general public!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.

I'm currently re-reading this in it's incarnation as the first part of "The Chanur Saga" "Omnibus edition." I wanted to put a separate review here since I intend to rate that "omnibus" low simply because it's not complete. "The Pride of Chanur" is an excellent book. Written in the standard Cherryh "from the gut" manner, it grabs on to your emotions and yanks them hither and yon from the first couple of pages all the way to the end. It's one of those books where you try to read faster and faster so that you can find out what's going to happen (even after having read it several times before). The best part of the book is the fact that it's stand-alone: it finishes what it starts. The remainder of the series requires this book. But, this book doesn't require the remainder of the series (though you'll definitely want to read that). Excellent book.

This book is great! I love the plays the kids can act out and also the way the lessons are laid out makes it easy to teach and for the kids to understand. The activities are fun and my class doesn't moan and groan when I do activities from this book!

This is a great book for any teacher. It gives great ideas for teaching writing in an exciting way! I recommend Melissa's other books as well.

I am using this as my guide for writing instruction in my classroom. This book is full of fun activities that involve the students, while delivering the message.

After borrowing this book from a colleague, I decided I had to have my own copy. It's a resource I keep going back to each year. My sixth graders love the activities, which are fun and easy to follow. Melissa Forney knows how to motivate students to improve their writing.

Great ideas for beginning writers in terms of organization. Breaks down the steps simply. Explains what makes interesting writing.

Finally, an author who validates my own tried and true method for developing strong readers. Reading an interesting book can teach our students more about reading that we ever will. It's time we again dedicated a part of our reading time for reading, not just reading instruction, but we need to help them by offering the best books to select from. "Build it and they will come." A class library full of rich literature that interests middle school students is a huge challenge, and Ms. Atwell provides tons of titles to get you started. She also offers plenty of ideas for record keeping, and student conferences. The book is very inspiring and full of good ideas and advice.You rock Nanci Atwell!

As a teacher of students who are struggling readers at the high school level, I was somewhat disappointed by Nancie Atwell's latest book. Her approach assumes many things that simply not always possible in the public school class room, especially at the high school level. I applaud her devotion to providing students with time and space to read, but she doesn't understand the time and MONEY constraints that most of us have. For example, I have to spend my own money to provide my students with a classroom library and my department can only afford to provide us with $25 per teacher for classroom supplies like chalk and staples. The $250 that the IRS allows for is usually what I spend just to have art supplies, extra pens and pencils available for my students. I have to reach deep into my own pocket to purchase books.

Over all this book left me disappointed, because Nancie Atwell needs to see what it's like for people like me who are just as devoted, but left with little money to supply my students. How are we supposed to do all the great things she reccommends if we can't have the same resources that she is lucky enough to have?

This is an excellent book that shows how students can become great readers when they are given the chance to have independent reading time and be in control of their reading choices. This is a must read for all teachers!

How does a kid learn to read...by reading. Get your students into the Reading Zone. I was sucked into the guided reading, small groups, centers, rotations, strategies method of teaching too. However, my students just were not progressing or developing that "love of reading" that I wanted for them. Within a month of reading this book and changing my approach, almost all my students have jumped into the ZONE. This book will change how you teach. It's the next step in your evolution as a reading teacher. Happy reading!

Another great work by Nancie Atwell. So inspiring and logical. Filled with practical suggestions. I wish my teachers had read this when I was in school. Will challenge all teachers of reading and literature.

I found the book Scam-Proof Your Life to be very thorough in covering all catagories noted in the Table of Contents.I especially liked the "go-to" sources for filing complaints. I found, however, that the inserted information in each catagory interrupted the flow of the commentary and disturbed my "train of thought". Overall, there is a wealth of useful information in this book.

What a find -- everyone needs this book! It's filled with pages and pages of great information that can save you money and aggravation. Many thanks to this author.

So informative. I was unaware of all the ways I could be scamed. I hightly recommend this book, very educational for young and old.

Scam-Proof Your Life is a really good book with lots of information that will teach you ways to protect yourself against the scams and frauds we face everyday. It seems like we are constantly faced with people trying to cheat us out of our money. This book is both fun to read, and very informative, and will make you aware of some of the scams used by these criminals to steal your money!

This book should be required reading for the entire country. A crisp and invigorating read, 'Scam Proof,' by Sid Kirchheimer, is packed with information on topics ranging from Telephone Service to Identity Theft; chapters 3, 7, and 8 are especially informative. The length to which the credit card companies will go to fleece Americans borders on the criminal. Furthermore, the similarities that exist between the unfair but legal practices of some of America's most powerful institutions and the ambitious professional conmen of the day are unsettling. Get ready to feel paranoid and disappointed, because this book is an eye opener.

After trying hooked on Phonics (which is completely backward) my son is thriving on this program...He has turned from a reading hater to loving it. I could not be more impressed. I love all the materials and when you open the box for the first time the joy of seeing everything inside is exciting. A++++++++++++

Love this curriculum can't say it enought!!! However the readers that correspond with On Track are not correct. There are many difference from the reader and the questions asked on the comprehension page in the book which is frustrating.

I highly recommend this program to anyone wanting to find "the" reading program that WILL ensure success the first time around with only fun and NO tears!

My son, 5yrs. old and a home schooled kindergartener, devoured the information and came to "school" every day ready to see what his Sing, Spell, Read and Write lesson would be.

STARTS AT THE VERY BEGINNING My son had only been to preschool and wasn't even able to recognize and give the sounds for the letters when he began Sing, Spell Read and Write this year. He began Sing, Spell, Read and Write in September and finished in mid-January. He now reads books and confidently sounds out words he hasn't come across before. He moved on to Level 1 and his excitement about the program is just as fresh as when we started.

RESULTS WHILE HAVING FUN!! I look forward to our Sing, Spell, Read and Write daily lesson just as much as my son! Learning is enjoyable when it is fun. My favorite part of the program as a "teacher" is that the author makes it literally impossible for a student to get through the programs without the basics solidified if the program is followed as prescribed.

A COMPLETE PROGRAM Sing, Spell, Read and Write does not hit-and-miss. The author takes a very logical, systematic approach and makes it fun and memorable for parent and student. Although thorough, the program is anything but redundant or boring. All of the author's thoughtful, thorough planning sets the student up to succeed, keeping them encouraged about their abilities and engaging them so they desire more "fun" (learning).

ORGANIZATION AND PREPARATION TIME The instructions are straightforward and simple. A parent/teacher instruction video, color-coordinated manuals and workbooks, and a train track the student moves along to physically "see" how far he's come makes this program pleasantly easy and fun to implement. The program takes very little daily preparation, so the bulk of the time gets to be focused on doing the fun daily activities!

I feel my son and I got more than our money's worth out of Sing, Spell, Read and Write.

A quick note about the other levels. My first grade gdaughter is in Level 1 Raceway and my 3-year-old is using the pre-k Sing, Spell, Read and Write Program. Both levels are just as fantastic as the Kindergarten program, in my opinion. We all play the phonics games and sing the songs together before moving on to each child's separate activities each day, and even the younger ones are soaking in some of what my oldest is doing in Level 1.

I had been wanting "Sing, Spell, Read & Write" curriculum for over a year when finally I decided to bite the bullet and try it out. My six year old has a very short attention span and needs to be in motion constantly, it seems. She loves music and games, so this curriculum seemed right for her. After doing the learning in this new way for just a few days, she was so excited to "play" more that she wanted to do it on the weekends also. She has learned all her letters now and the sounds they make. We have only been doing it for a couple weeks or so and she had been working on those things all last year and didn't master them. So even kids with a more negative attitude about school or kids with learning disabilities can benefit much from this curriculum. I highly recommend it for kids that cannot seem to learn the basics in the normal workbook/chalkboard way.

After spending months with "How to teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons" and HOP "Hooked on Phonics" and various computer reading games I tried SSRW (sing, spell, read, and write) with my daughter. I can't emphasize how much better my daughter liked this program. I admit I thought it was expensive; but I can't emphasize how much stuff you get and how well rounded this program is. Did I mention we homeschool? That is definately important. I really want to do a great job teaching my daughter to read. To me, this is the most important thing I can do- teach her to read and most importantly to ENJOY reading. She got so frustrated with all the exceptionally boring material I mentioned above. The other reviewers mentioned all the stuff included, so I won't go to all that detail. I will say that we loved the cd music/songs. We know the songs so well we don't even need the music on the sing them loud and proud! I will also admit I learned phonics tricks that I had never heard before. Sue Dickson (creator) includes all the tricks we need to know to learn to read...and she did it rhyming to music in song form. "When two vowels get together they play a little game; the first one speaks and says it's letter name"...from my memory of course. There are so many great things about this program.

For criticism---It didn't spell out which book to start with; so I made my best guess and we did First Grade first. Which we did easily. Then when I was on the second book for First Grade it was getting hard for my daughter to get through all the material in the amount of days they said we could get it done in. So, I started reviewing everything again and then realized that I had completely skipped Kindergarten. So, then when I switched to those books I had to regress a bit.

Also, my daughter has a few letters that she struggles writing; for example the lower case "a". I wish there was some more options for reviewing the letters. Once you move on to the next letter in the alphabet, you don't review until you get to the next book in the series.

Well, those are really minor issues. There is a great video that walks you through the system. But, it went over the First Grade curriculum; which is why I thought I was suppose to start there. The video was good, but it should have said which books were which and marked them more clearly for people like me with a Masters Degree and sometimes a embarrassing lack of common sense!! Maybe this doesn't happen to most people; but it should be idiot proof! (for me!)

I highly, highly recommend. My daughter was 5 y.o. for this program. She will probably finish up after turning 6. Most importantly is that she likes this program. She loves the variety and music and cutting and glueing, and , and.....you get the idea!