This book focuses on how parents and other caregivers can have richer and more fruitful conversations with their children. Parents will be able to use the ideas in this book to improve conversations with their children in ways that help them (a) more effectively learn in school, (b) develop stronger and more lasting relationships in and out of school, and (c) increase their critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. Some children are more prepared for school than others. Much of this preparation comes from the types of conversations that children have and listen to at home. Many children need more practice in developing and using key conversation skills that are expected in school and life. They need more practice co-constructing ideas with other people, face to face, and they need more practice engaging in respectful collaboration and argumentation. This book helps parents to provide such practice.

Conversation was not invented to help people choose right answers on tests. It evolved to solve problems, build ideas, build relationships, and understand others and the world. Yet despite its power to grow minds and hearts, effective conversations are still too scarce in our schools. Jeff Zwiers, an educational researcher at Stanford University, has spent the last 15 years analyzing classroom conversations to see how they can be better used and improved in classroom settings. Teachers who have worked with him report significant growth in students' engagement, content learning, language, creativity, and sense of agency. Jeff shared his initial vision for classroom conversations in his 2011 book, Academic Conversations. In this follow-up book, Next Steps with Academic Conversations, he builds on those original ideas by offering an updated synthesis of conversation work across disciplines and grade levels, highlights of the most recent classroom-based research and theory on classroom conversation, answers to questions that have emerged during this work with teachers and administrators, and new classroom strategies and practices for fostering and assessing classroom conversations. This resource is the product of his extensive research, co-teaching, and collaborating with a wide range of educators. It was written for busy teachers who want a practical guide for strengthening the quality and quantity of productive conversations in their lessons.

"For thousands of years people have been using the skills we describe in this book to engage in conversations with others. What isn't as prevalent, however, is instruction--especially in primary grades-in which we engage students in productive conversations about academic ideas. This book fills that very big need." --Jeff Zwiers & Sara Hamerla Talk about content mastery . . . Primary teachers, you won't want to miss this: if you're looking for a single resource to foster purposeful content discussions and high-quality interpersonal engagement, then put Jeff Zwiers and Sara Hamerla's K-3 Guide to Academic Conversations at the top of your reading list. Whether your students love to talk or not, all must be equipped with key conversation skills such as active listening, taking turns, posing, clarifying, supporting with examples, and arguing ideas. This ready resource comes packed with every imaginable tool you could need to make academic conversations part of your everyday teaching: Sample lesson plans and anchor charts Guidelines for creating effective prompts Applications across content areas, with corresponding assessments Rubrics and protocols for listening to student speech Transcripts of conversations and questions for reflection Companion website with video and downloadable resources Tens of thousands of students in the upper grades have reaped the benefits of academic conversations: high-quality face-to-face interactions, increased motivation, stronger collaborative argumentation skills, and better understanding and retention of content. The K-3 Guide to Academic Conversations is that resource for providing your primary students with the same powerful learning opportunities.

The "communication effect" is what happens when we saturate our classrooms with authentic communication, which occurs when students use language to build up ideas and do meaningful things. For starters, authentic communication deepens and increases language development, learning of content concepts and skills, rigor and engagement, empathy and understanding of others' perspectives, agency and ownership of core ideas across disciplines, and social and emotional skills for building strong relationships. And these are just the starters. With The Communication Effect, Dr. Jeff Zwiers challenges teachers in Grades 3 and up to focus less on breadth and more on depth by grounding instruction and assessment in authentic (rather than pseudo-) communication. This book provides: Ideas for cultivating classroom cultures in which authentic communication thrives Clear descriptions and examples of the three features of authentic communication: 1. building up key ideas (claims and concepts); 2. clarifying terms and supporting ideas; and 3. creating and filling information gaps Over 175 suggestions for using the three features of authentic communication to enhance twenty commonly used instructional activities across disciplines Additional examples of not-so-commonly-used activities that embody the three features Suggestions for improving four different types of teacher creativity needed to design effective lessons, activities, and assessments that maximize authentic communication Our students deserve to get the most out of each minute of each lesson. Authentic communication can help. As you read The Communication Effect and apply its ideas, you will see how much better equipped and inspired your students are to grow into the amazing and gifted people that they were meant to become.