BOOKS FOR CHILDREN, EDUCATION, AND HOMESCHOOLING
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LANGUAGE ARTS TITLES

The books on this page have a mixture of language arts subjects instead of just focusing on grammar, vocabulary, literature, reading, or spelling. They may also be found on more specialized pages.

Bilingual Instruction and English as a Second Language

Dr. Edward Fry's Books on Reading, Phonics, Language and Spelling 

Grammar

Language Practice and Review

Literacy Centers

Studying literature

Penmanship and Handwriting

Public Speaking

Click on any blue title to put it in a shopping cart on our sister site, BarbsTeachingHelp.com, where you can use our secure server to make your purchases on line with a credit card.

Public Speaking for Kids  , by Charlotte Jaffe and Barbara Doherty. Published by Educational Impressions. If you've been looking for a practical way to teach public speaking skills to children in grades 4-8, this is it. The reproducible activities and lessons presented here teach the basic elements of good speaking, and how to put them into practice. Students will learn how to use their voices properly, and how to use eye contact, body language and facial expressions to enhance their presentations. There are tips for  preparing oral presentations, an evaluation checklist and a chance to practice impromptu speaking with the Pick a Prompt activity. Then students will move on to a greater variety of speaking experiences, formal and informal, and they will learn to write speeches and prepare for oral assignments correctly. As a culminating activity, students will research important sites within their community and develop talks about these places so they may act as "tour guides," taking their audience on a journey "all around the town." This is a great resource for speech classes and clubs. 64 pages.  BTH-36. $8.06-D

Speakers' Club: Public Speaking for Young People A complete developmental program from Dandy Lion which prepares young people to become confident speakers. It includes lessons, student information, and evaluation forms for making introductions, doing oral reports, writing a speech, mastering speaking techniques, and delivering a polished presentation. Reproducible. Cat.#BTH-585. $8.96-D

Reading Skills

Spelling

Vocabulary

Writing and Composition

Most of our books on grammar, writing composition, vocabulary, and spelling are described in the following articles:

How to Teach English, Part I / How to Teach English, Part II
Prices on books mentioned in these articles may have gone up, so check before ordering.

One of the cheapest and best ways to teach the fundamentals of parts of speech,
mechanics, diagramming, and sentence structure can be found in the Straight Forward Series.

Be sure and read my comments and recommendations in the  Swap Forum
Do You Need Help Teaching Your Children to Write?
I carry most of the books I mentioned recommended there

Ruth Beechick's Books

Language and Thinking for Young Children (with Jeannie Nelson) An oral language manual for parents and teachers of kindergarten and primary children. Is ideal for helping children who have not yet learned to read grow in their language skills to lay the foundation for writing later on. BTH-4476. $7.15-D

The Language Wars and Other Writings for Homeschoolers: A series of essays that are especially useful in helping one evaluate whether one needs to buy a curriculum or just use real books, whether one should teach phonics and /or grammar as separate subjects or use a whole language or "living books" approach. The book also gives you Dr. Beechick's thoughts on the other school subjects. Paper, $14.40-D (The copy linked is on sale for less)

The Three R's: All you really need to start teaching the basics, reading, language skills, and arithmetic to children in grades K-3. A packet of three booklets with an enclosed wall chart to help teach phonics and arithmetic. BTH-2337.$10.80-D

You Can Teach Your Child Successfully: Takes over where The Three R's left off. Shows you how to teach all major subjects to grades 4-8. Paper, 388 indexed pages. BTH-3177. $12.55-D

Beginning Writer's Manual: A reference book for students third grade and above. handy for checking spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Contains a 7000 list of the most commonly written words and their common variants and instruction in sentence construction, verb use, parts of speech, prewriting, revising, and proofreading. Students are offered title suggestions, sample opening sentences and story enders and they learn about dialogue, imagery, and metaphors. There is space for developing a personal spelling list and sample letters, a book report form, a daily journal and vocabulary improvement. By Edward Fry. Cat. # BTH-494., $13.49-D

Daily Language Review, an Evan-Moor series. Book in this series help students keep language skills sharp with focused practice presented in standardized test formats. Each book provides four or five items for every day of a 36-week school year.  Scope and sequence charts are provided for the teacher, along with the answer keys. Available for grades 1-6. Order by title and grade level. Each book is $17.99-D

Daily Language Review Grade 1    BTH-775
Daily Language Review Grade 2    BTH-776
Daily Language Review Grade 3    BTH-777
Daily Language Review Grade 4    BTH-778
Daily Language Review Grade 5    BTH-779
Daily Language Review Grade 6    BTH-780

The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E.B.White, third edition, with index. This is the classic for teens and adults who want to improve their writing style and usage. It presents the most important rules of usage and the basic principles of composition. It has a long section that explains misused words and expressions, and summarizes everything with a simple list of reminders to help with any piece of writing. This should be in every library. $5.35-D

Learning Language Arts Through Literature, by Common Sense Press, for all grade levels. This is an integrated Christian curriculum that gives form to the ideas of Dr. Ruth Beechick.

The Lively Art of Writing, by Lucile Vaughn Payne.  This handy little pocket book is designed to teach adults in college or in the business world how to express their ideas, opinions, arguments, problems, explanations, or instructions successfully in writing. It teaches one how to choose a subject, work with words, write more powerful paragraphs, and improve one's style.  It also teaches one how to write an interesting and successful term paper. If you have any writing to do in your life, you should have this book. But it won't replace a good English handbook. $6.29.

Mystery and Suspense: Skill Oriented language Arts Activities by Judith Steffens and Judy Carr. Learning Works.112 pages, including answers. This reproducible book, with a special appeal for adolescents,  puts individual and group reading skill lessons in a framework of suspense, horror and creative imagination. It is divided into  five sections :   Detective Stories; The Mind of the Criminal; Horror and Imagination; Vocabulary; and Skill Stretchers. Activities are identified by both title and skill to teach in the Table of Contents. There are three book report forms especially designed to go with detective and mystery books. The attractive graphics add appeal. BTH-1251. $10.79-D

Note-Taking and Outlining by Steck-Vaughn. Part of the Middle School Collection series. Contains pretest followed by information on reference materials and using the library. This is followed by a unit on note-taking, including taking notes based on an interview. Students learn to take notes on what they read and on what they find on the Internet as they prepare to make written reports. Students also learn what to do with notes after they take them -- how to organize, summarize, paraphrase. Students are then given some passages to practice what they've learned about taking notes.

The second part of the book focuses on how to outline a topic, use supporting details in outline form, use footnotes and the appendix of a book, document sources, and write a bibliography. There is a posttest at the end of the book. 48 pages. For Junior High, or High School students in need of remediation. Cat. #BTH-1004. $7.16-D

Poetry á la Carte by Connie Homan Weaver. A Dandy Lion Publication for grades 5-8. This book uses the theme of a feast of poetry that students will sample. It's organized in the form of a menu. These are the offerings:

    Appetizers -- poetic devices
    Soups and Salads -- pre-writing activities
    Entrées -- ideas for unique poetry
    Desserts -- projects that combine poetry writing and art activities
    Special Seasonings -- poetry ideas for all seasons
    Side Orders -- time-tested pattern poems
    A la Carte -- ideas for sharing poetry orally

This book provides opportunities for creative young poets to write, publish, read, embellish, and perform their work before their peers. The lessons can be adapted for higher and lower grade levels, different ability levels, and varying classroom structures. 120 pages. Reproducible for classroom use only. BTH-169. $15.26-D

Pot Full of Tales: Using Folk Tales to Teach Creative Thinking and Writing, by Vowery D. Carilile. Educational Impressions.  For grades 1-4. This book presents ten popular folk tales for use in teaching creative thinking and writing. Each unit begins with a summary of the story and questions from Bloom's Taxonomy. The questions are followed by ideas for independent projects related to the folk tales. Folk tales used are 'The Golden Goose,' 'Such is the Way of the World,' 'The Bremen Town Musicians,' 'Snow White and Rose Red,' 'The Funny Little Woman,' 'Stone Soup,' 'Ming Lo Moves the Mountain,' 'The Three Little Pigs,' 'Caps for Sale,' and 'The Emperor's New Clothes.' Activities are reproducible for classroom use. 104 pages. BTH-3230. $12.56-D

Quick Flip Ideas for Writing Domains, developed by Concetta D. Ryan. This flip book will help people of any age improve their writing skills, develop a writing style, and gain exposure to writing in several different domains. (A domain is a category that defines the purpose of a particular kind of writing.) There are writing activities for Technological, Analytical/Expository, Sensory/Descriptive, Practical/Informative, and Imaginative/Narrative domains. Teachers will find this a great lesson planning tool that will help them develop a balanced writing program to promote success for all students. Cat. #BTH-170.  Only $3.59-D .Qualifies for Title 1 funds. Higher discounts available for schools who order multiple copies.

Research and Reference by Steck-Vaughn. Part of the Middle School Collection series. Paper, reproducible, 49 pages with answers. Contains pretest followed by information on choosing and using various reference materials and finding what one needs in the library adn on-line.  This section is followed by a posttest.  The next section begins with an Analysis Test and then teaches students how to write a research report. At the end they are asked write four brief reseach reports. For Junior High, or High School students in need of remediation. Cat. #BTH-1005. $7.16-D

Take Any Book: Hundreds of Activities to Develop Basic Learning Skills Using Any Book by Neil Stitt. Fearon Teacher Aids. This resource will enable a you to choose any book the class or student enjoys, turn to the chapter in Take Any Book that covers a particular skill you would like to practice, and then select the activity that best suits your students. Skills to teach include Beginning Word Skills; Parts of Speech; Listening to Words; Word Building; Reading Skills; and Writing Skills. Activity pages meant for students to use are reproducible. There are lots of games to play, worksheets to use, and instructions for using charts and graphs to record information found in books. There are activities in sequencing, classifying and sorting, punctuation, interviewing, book reviewing, making magazines,  theme-based writing, and much more. 144 pages. Patterns for games, etc, are included. FE-7961. $14.39-D

Take It to Your Seat Literacy Centers from Evan-Moor are available for grades 1-4 and address a number of different language arts skills. $17.99-D each. Follow link for more detailed information.

Think and Write! Sentence Organization, Parts of Speech, and Literary Devices by Linda Milliken. An Edupress publication for grades 5-6. Challenges students to think critically and write creatively. Students learn about language art topics from alliteration to spoonerisms and practice writing descriptive paragraphs and short stories. Reproducible for classroom use. 48 pages. EDP-199. $7.19-D

Word, Words, Words: A Reference Book for Beginning Writers with Rhyming Dictionary, by Babs Hajdusiewicz. A Good Year Book, paper, 8.5" x 11." For ages 5-8. This book provides a single source for beginning writers who need to look up words of all kinds. Thousands of words have been carefully selected and organized into comprehensive lists of synonyms and antonyms; metaphors and similes; homophones and homographs; compound words and contractions; fun words, and over two-hundred families of rhyming words. As if this weren't enough, children can also find proofreader's marks, library classifications, and specialized indexes   to the synonyms and rhyming word families. A glossary and regular index are also included. 232 pages of comfortable size print for little eyes. $11.65-D

Wordsmith Apprentice, by Janie Cheaney. This book for grades 4-6 uses the newspaper as the basis for learning to write. $14.40-D

Wordsmith: A Creative Writing Course for Young People, Revised, by Janie Cheaney. I like this book for teaching grammar and composition to middle school students because whenever a point of grammar is taught, it is integrated into a writing assignment. Grammar is taught in its natural context -- writing. BTH-1662. $14.40-D

Wordsmith Craftsman, Revised, by Janie Cheaney. A self-directed program, building, integrating, and polishing practical writing skills to prepare young adults for a lifetime of excellence in communication. BTH-1683. $14.40-D 

Write Source 2000: Same content as Write Source with more modern format. Writing information is in the front with grammar and usage information in a "yellow pages" section at the back. The book itself is more up-to-date in its maps and calendar pages, since it was published later. Cat. #BTH-1664, $18.50*

Writers Inc: The BEST English handbook for grades 8-13. Same format as Write Source 2000. Cat. #1511, 19.95, softcover. *

Writing Through the Year: Building Confident Writers One Month at a Time, by Sandy Woolley.  Dandy Lion Publications. For every month there are sentences for each day that are related to history or culture. They are rather like trivia facts. The sentences are written correctly. The teacher is supposed to rewrite them with mistakes that the student should be able to correct. The mistakes can be geared to review what has been taught before and what has just been taught. The sentence of the day section for each month is in two parts: one for primaries, and one for upper grades. The rest of each month's lessons are adjustable to any grade from 2-6.

One specific writing skill is taught each month. Topics through the year include poetry writing, organized paragraphs, research reports, fiction writing, point of view, fairy tales, borrowing a plot, autobiographical incidents, personal interviews, and using newspapers. Students are also encouraged to write journals. For each month there are enough journal topics for two or more journal entries per week.

Each month's material has two other components. Since vocabulary is an important part of writing, there are lessons on dictionary use and/or root words each month. The author also believes it is valuable to memorize poetry, partly because of the foundation in literature it provides. Memorizing poems helps familiarize students with the work of different poets and the various styles of poetry. The author also believes that reciting a poem in front of a group can give a student important practice in speaking publicly. A poem is easier to remember when one is nervous than an original speech. It is hoped this familiarity will help students write their own poems, and there are suggestions each month to encourage young poets to get started.

One of the most valuable features of this book for the one who is teaching writing is a section on grade level expectations in the introduction. For each grade there is a list of what usage skills a student should have mastered by the end of the grade. This gives the teacher a good idea of what to stress at each level if there is no other textbook or curriculum guidance.

I like this curriculum because it gives a child a chance to sample the various types of writing in a consistent way. Your child might discover that he enjoys writing a story or poem, and you may discover that she has a flair for it. But certain elements, such as journal writing and the language exposure in the poetry selections, are present every week or month. The book is directed toward the teacher, but pages are reproducible so that you can copy anything you wish to give to your children. The price for this curriculum, which can be used for several children at different grade levels together, is just BTH-1705. 15.26-D.

* This symbol means this is a short discount book and we cannot give you an additional 10% discount on this item.

Articles: How Do I Teach English, Part I / How Do I Teach English, Part II
Vocabulary / Spelling / Grammar and Usage

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