Peace Education Foundation

http://www.peaceeducation.org/about.html

About Us: The Peace Education Foundation is a leader in the field of conflict resolution curricula and training. We write and publish materials that are currently in use in more than 20,000 schools around the world.

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog

"What happens when a young brain is traumatized? How does terror, abuse, or disaster affect a child's mind--and how can that mind recover? Child psychiatrist Bruce Perry has helped children faced with unimaginable horror: genocide survivors, murder witnesses, kidnapped teenagers, and victims of family violence. In The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, he tells their stories of trauma and transformation through the lens of science, revealing the brain's astonishing capacity for healing. Deftly combining unforgettable case histories with his own compassionate, insightful strategies for rehabilitation, Perry explains what exactly happens to the brain when a child is exposed to extreme stress-and reveals the unexpected measures that can be taken to ease a child's pain and help him grow into a healthy adult. Through the stories of children who recover-physically, mentally, and emotionally-from the most devastating circumstances, Perry shows how simple things like surroundings, affection, language, and touch can deeply impact the developing brain, for better or for worse. In this deeply informed and moving book, Bruce Perry dramatically demonstrates that only when we understand the science of the mind can we hope to heal the spirit of even the most wounded child."
via: http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=boy+raised+dog+summary&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=6426421004439734157&sa=X&ei=8DvjT6-uKIi-8ATV_NiGCA&ved=0CGoQ8wIwAg

Helping Traumatiozed Children Learn

Click here to download:
http://www.massadvocates.org/documents/HTCL_9-09.pdf

Preface:

"Helping Traumatized Children Learn is the result of an extraordinary collaboration among educators, parents, mental health professionals, community groups, and attorneys determined to help children experiencing the traumatic effects of exposure to family violence succeed in school. Years of case work, coalition building, and policy analysis lie behind this report, which stands in the proud tradition of other reports produced by Massachusetts Advocates for Children. These reports have led to significant improvements in the lives of children in the areas of special education, bilingual education, child nutrition, lead-poisoning prevention, and others."

Common Medications

Internet Safety Tips

Printable fact sheets relating to internet safety, available in English and Spanish.

http://www.netsmartz.org/TipSheets

"NetSmartz Workshop introduces you to these and other important Internet safety topics through tip sheets for children and their trusted adults. Use them to educate yourself and others in your community about the main online risks, to accompany NetSmartz Internet safety presentations, and to engage children in discussions about appropriate online behavior."

Nashville's Poverty Reduction Initiative

http://www.nashville.gov/sservices/planningcoordination/implemen_summ.asp

Nashville Poverty Reduction Initiative

Background Information

The Metropolitan Action Commission and the Nashville Chamber Public Benefit Foundation, working with many other organizations, began an initiative to reduce poverty in our community. Working with hundreds of Nashville’s city leaders, advocates, organizations and residents, seven Action Teams developed a Poverty Reduction Initiative Plan on the key issues Child Care, Economic Opportunity, Food, Health Care, Housing, Neighborhood Development and Workforce Development.

In 2010, Mayor Karl Dean asked Metropolitan Social Services to monitor and coordinate the initiative’s implementation, as well as to conduct community needs assessments, develop collaborations and enhance community coordination.

The "Common Core"

"Teachers cannot create such a “level playing field” because we cannot rob any of the students of the background knowledge they already possess. Nor can we force students who have background knowledge not to think about that while they read."

"The bottom line: The Common Core exemplar we worked with was intellectually limiting, shallow in scope, and uninteresting. I don’t want my lessons to be any of those things."

Link to Article: http://www.washingtonpost.com

Common Core In Tennessee:
http://tncore.org/

Take Steps to Increase Reading Comprehension

taken from:http://www.tennessean.com
My daughter, Darien, is finishing second grade. Her teacher wants her to work on reading comprehension this summer. We read together every night. Does that help?
All reading helps a child. But many need explicit instruction to boost their understanding, says Mary Rosenberg, a master teacher in the Fresno (Calif.) Unified School District. Parents can help a lot by doing just a little skill building every day.
In Read and Succeed: Comprehension (Shell Educational Publishing Inc.), a graded series she has contributed to, Rosenberg outlines comprehension-building strategies you can use with short texts that match Darien’s reading level. Ask her teacher or librarian for recommendations, or find appropriate texts in children’s magazines such as National Geographic Kids, Scholastic News, Ranger Rick and their websites. Although they are designed for classrooms, parents like Rosenberg’s lessons because they come with selected content, saving you from hunting down the reading material.
What are key comprehension skills?
• Previewing, predicting, making mental images and tapping prior knowledge orient a reader to what she already knows about the topic. Look at the title and pictures. Ask Darien what the topic is. Can she predict what will happen from the title or illustrations? If the story is about a starfish, can she relate something she already knows to it, such as a trip to the shore or a documentary on sea life? Good readers link new text to something they already know.
• Ask questions and make connections. Discuss “who, what, when, where, why and how” to help Darien focus on important details. For example, if she reads an article about world holidays, ask her how celebrations are alike and different. Ask her to talk about her favorite holiday.
• Setting, plot and characters are important comprehension tools to ask her about. Where does the story take place? What happens first? Next? What do the people say and do?
• Look for comprehension clues in titles, headings, typeface, captions and graphics. Pictures, drawings and charts help kids remember what they’ve read, says Rosenberg. Show her how publications give content hints in graphic design and typography. Captions and call-outs often summarize a story.
• Ask Darien to sum up the main idea and then give a couple of details after reading a short passage. Most texts have a time order: Can she relate the sequence of events? How-to texts such as recipes have a logical order. Have her point these out.
• Discuss cause and effect (why something happened) to explain the gist of a story. Have her compare and contrast story elements to remember what’s the same and different. Ask her to retell a story in her own words to reinforce understanding. Can she guess the author’s purpose? Is it to inform, entertain, persuade or make a reader feel a certain way? Don’t overlook a nonfiction book’s table of contents, index and glossary.
“If she masters some of these, she’ll have a set of comprehension tools to use her whole life,” says Rosenberg.
Tackle one or two at a time. Stop the minute it’s no longer fun! Never destroy the joy of reading together.