More Than 100 Brain-Friendly Tools and Strategies for Literacy Instruction, June/2008

Among the most powerful messages translated from brain research to educational practice are that learning occurs best when:

1. Prior knowledge is activated
2. Students are actively engaged
3. Connections are created and reinforced
4. Opportunities are incorporated for reflection and metacognition
5. Student-to-student interactive social learning is promoted

This book from an international trainer and consultant goes the next step and uses these findings to inform practical implementation for literacy. The author briefly targets the relevant research and moves quickly to providing tools and strategies for teachers to use for motivation and engagement, and specifically to improve teaching and learning in the literacy domains of vocabulary and comprehension. While additional research rationale is sprinkled throughout the book, the format is 10% research and theory and 90% practical tools and strategies for classrooms. This book is packed with use-today resources for teachers to get all students off the sidelines and fully engagd in literacy learning.

About The Author:

Katherine Perez, a professor of education at Saint Mary’s College of California, has over three decades of teaching experience from the preschool level through graduate school. A frequent presenter and enthusiastic “teacher cheerleader,” she offers guidance to both novice and experienced educators. Perez is an international educational consultant, author, and motivational speaker, specializing in instructional strategies and creative approaches to literacy and professional development. She integrates state-of-the-art methods and research with passion and practical insights from her own classroom experiences.

Perez has taught in many diverse environments, including in Richmond and Oakland, as a general educator, special educator, reading specialist, and curriculum and staff development coordinator. In order to “keep it real,” she balances her college courses and her work as a coordinator for the California Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment program by serving as a literacy coach in a San Francisco Bay Area middle school, engaging even the most reluctant learners with brain-friendly techniques.

Perez works with teachers, administrators and parents throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, the Caribbean, New Zealand, and Australia. For the past three years, she has conducted extensive training in Singapore and Hong Kong for the Ministry of Education.