Today's teachers face a daunting challenge: how to ensure a positive school experience for their students, many of whom carry the burden of adverse childhood experiences, such as abuse, poverty, divorce, abandonment, and numerous other serious social issues. Spurred by her personal experience and extensive exploration of brain-based learning, author Marilee Sprenger explains how brain science--what we know about how the brain works--can be applied to social-emotional learning. Specifically, she addresses how to

- Build strong, caring relationships with students to give them a sense of belonging.
- Teach and model empathy, so students feel understood and can better understand others.
- Awaken students' self-awareness, including the ability to name their own emotions, have accurate self-perceptions, and display self-confidence and self-efficacy.
- Help students manage their behavior through impulse control, stress management, and other positive skills.
- Improve students' social awareness and interaction with others.
- Teach students how to handle relationships, including with people whose backgrounds differ from their own.
- Guide students in making responsible decisions.

Offering clear, easy-to-understand explanations of brain activity and dozens of specific strategies for all grade levels, Social-Emotional Learning and the Brain is an essential guide to creating supportive classroom environments and improving outcomes for all our students.

Bestselling author Marilee Sprenger covers the basic structure, vocabulary, and current research on the brain from an early childhood educator's point of view and provides an abundance of illustrations and descriptions. This user-friendly guide includes:

• Background information on brain development from birth through age two
• Scenarios and snapshots of each year from age three through eight
• Reproducible development checklists
• Over one hundred brain-based activities for classroom or child care settings
• And much more

Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize the text. Your students may recognize the words determine, explain, and summarize in this standard, but would they understand and be able to apply these concepts?

Students encounter these and other academic vocabulary words throughout their school years, but too often, they don't have a firm grasp of these words' meanings or what skills they require.

Enter vocabulary expert Marilee Sprenger, who has curated a list of 25 essential high-frequency words that students must know to be academically successful, especially on standardized tests, and be ready for college and career. In this indispensable guide for all educators, she provides

* Pre- and post-assessments to help you evaluate your students' understanding of the essential 25.
* A detailed entry for each word, including activities and strategies that will help students internalize the word's meaning and application.
* Retrieval games to help students practice the words in fun, engaging ways and reinforce the networks for those words in their brains.
* Downloadable blank templates for many of the strategies used throughout the book.

Every student needs to know and understand these words to perform at their best. If educators get behind this effort and make the essential 25 part of the fabric of their schools, students will be equipped to thrive in school and beyond.

What if you could help your students who are struggling academically simply by teaching them executive function skills?

If you're a teacher, chances are you're familiar with the student who never finishes homework, the one who always interrupts, the one who can't seem to pay attention during lessons. Too often, we assume these characteristics are innate or chalk them up to lack of discipline, when in fact they are executive function issues that teachers can easily address-- and even help to reverse-- with a little guidance.

In The Missing Link to Help Them Think, veteran educator and bestselling author Marilee Sprenger imparts that guidance with a wealth of practical, research-based classroom strategies teachers can use to develop six core areas of executive function skills (EFS): impulse inhibition; working memory; attention and focus; cognitive flexibility; self-monitoring; and planning, organization, prioritization, and time management. In addition, Sprenger

- Explains how executive function skills bridge the gap between social-emotional learning and academics and how to develop both skill sets at the same time.
- Discusses the research on and neurological origins of different executive functions.
- Provides practical, easily implemented self-assessment tools that teachers and students can use to evaluate their strengths and needs related to executive functioning.

All students can improve their executive function skills and succeed in the classroom. With strategies and examples across grade levels and relevant to all subject areas, this thought-provoking book gives you the resources necessary to support them in this journey.

This tool shows how classrooms can differentiate instruction, spend time on what really matters, and make sure that all children are making progress. I love the practical applications for each age level and what teachers can do to support optimal l