How to Talk So Kids Can Learn: At Home and in School

"Adele Faber's "How to Talk So Kids Can Learn: At Home and in School" was something I picked it up for a casual browse and ended up reading it from cover to cover, because it's well written, illustrated with plenty of case histories and makes a lot of sense. It's also uproariously funny in places!

Note that I'm not speaking as a parent or teacher, but it sounded pretty good from a third party's point of view.
Interesting and eminently readable."
~ Written on 2006-08-09

"One of the best books around to help teachers communicate better with children. Even though I bought this to help my teaching, I don't know how I would have made it through the last few years with my three young children without this book. The skills presented in this very readable book are very useful for improving classroom management too and helping children that live with a lot of stress especially in the urban environment. The clear and compelling anecdotes bring Faber and Mazlich's ideas to life!"
~ Written on 1998-09-07

"After a frustrating first year of teaching at a junior high school, I was about ready to give up the teaching career all together. I picked up this book one evening because I liked the cartoon drawings in it (it looked like it would be fun to read). I couldn't put it down. I learned so many things that I cannot wait to use my second year of teaching. I especially appreciated the chapter on praising children. I never realized what a negative impact that too "straight-forward" praise (such as "You're so smart!") could have on a student. Now I look back when I was a kid, and I hated it when people would constantly say that to me, because I always felt like, "okay, i'm smart....so what?" I thought I wouldn't be allowed to make a mistake. Those types of teachers that would say things like, "oh, don't worry about that assignment/paper/project...you are smart..you can do it," well, that didn't make me feel any better. The best teachers I had were the ones that gave me specific examples of things that I was doing right in class."
~ Written on 1998-06-26