Close the Achievement Gap: Simple Strategies That Work

Discover basic strategies that promote student achievement in low-performing classrooms!

This invaluable research-based guidebook illustrates how quality teaching can overcome the impact of low socioeconomic conditions and improve student performance dramatically. The authors present instructional techniques that require students to speak with skill, write with clarity and purpose, read with a critical eye, and listen with active engagement. Using six practical strategies, educators can overcome the odds and guide learners to success by:

• Setting high expectations for all students
• Making differentiation part of everything they do
• Challenging students to think critically
• Insisting on results-oriented goals

The idea that the person doing the talking is the person doing the learning seems counter-intuitive. Yet, that is exactly the case. When students put their thoughts into words, they internalize the learning. As they dialogue with peers, articulate their ideas, and express themselves, their oral language skills translate directly into written language skills. Explore six strategies that address the challenges of the achievement gap:

1) Set High Expectations: Get Kids Emotionally Involved
2) Challenges Students to Think: Teach Higher Order Thinking
3) Require Rigor: Require Complete Sentences, Standard English, Formal Register
4) Leave Nothing to Chance: Revisit! Review! Re-teach! Revise!
5) Make No Excuses: Encourage At-Risk Participation
6) Insist on Results: Emphasize Reading

Robin Fogarty is president of Robin Fogarty and Associates, Ltd., a Chicago-based, minority-owned, educational publishing/consulting company. A leading proponent of the thoughtful classroom, Fogarty has trained educators throughout the world in curriculum, instruction, and assessment strategies. She has taught at all levels, from kindergarten to college, served as an administrator, and consulted with state departments and ministries of education in the United States, Puerto Rico, Russia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Great Britain, Singapore, Korea and the Netherlands. Fogarty has published articles in Educational Leadership, Phi Delta Kappan, and the Journal of Staff Development. She is the author of numerous books, including Ten Things New Teachers Need to Succeed, Second Edition (Corwin Press 2007), From Staff Room to Classroom (Corwin Press 2007), Literacy Matters, Second Edition (Corwin Press 2007), and the Nutshell Collection which includes How to Differentiate Learning, Twelve Brain Principles That Make the Difference, Nine Best Practices That Make the Difference, Close the Achievement Gap, A Look at Transfer, and The Adult Learner. Fogarty received her doctorate in curriculum and human resource development from Loyola University Chicago.

Brian Pete is president of The Education Associates, an international consulting firm, andcofounder of Robin Fogarty & Associates. He has a rich background in professional development and has worked in and videotaped classroom teachers and professional experts in schools throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Pete's work on educational videos include Best Practices: Classroom Management and Best Practices: Active Learning Classrooms. He is the coauthor of books which include From Staff Room to Classroom (Corwin Press 2007), and titles from the Nutshell Collection which include How to Differentiate Learning, Data!Dialogue! Decisions!, Twelve Principles That Make the Difference, Nine Best Practices That Make the Difference, Close the Achievement Gap, The Adult Learner, and A Look at Transfer.