2 Books Published by Prufrock Press on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

Nominated for a 2014 NAACP Image Award! One pervasive educational issue is the national underrepresentation of Black and Hispanic students in gifted education. Virtually every school district is grappling with having too few students from these groups identified as gifted and served in gifted classes and programs. Recruiting and Retaining Culturally Different Students in Gifted Education addresses this long-standing national problem through the dual lens of recruitment and retention. The focus is on how to equitably recruit (screen, refer, and/or assess) culturally different students and, just as importantly, to retain them. Recruitment and retention require providing academic, cultural, and social supports to culturally different students and ensuring that educators are willing and able to address issues and barriers. No time is better than now to address and correct the underachievement albatross, and the focus on recruitment and retention holds the greatest promise.

The Jacob’s Ladder Reading Comprehension Program targets reading comprehension skills in high-ability learners by moving students through an inquiry process from basic understanding to critical analyses of texts, using a field-tested method developed by the Center for Gifted Education at the College of William and Mary. Students in grades 2–6 will learn to comprehend and analyze any reading passage after completing the activities in these books.

In the form of three skill ladders connected to individual readings in poetry, myths/fables, and nonfiction, students move from lower order, concrete thinking skills to higher order, critical thinking skills. Each book, geared to increasing grade levels, includes high-interest readings, ladders to increase reading skill development, and easy-to-implement instruction. The ladders include multiple skills necessary for academic success, covering language arts standards, such as sequencing, cause and effect, classification, making generalizations, inference, and recognizing themes and concepts.

Jacob’s Ladder, Level 1 is geared to students in grades 2–3, Level 2 is aimed at learners in grades 4–5, and Level 3 is based on skill development standards for students in grades 6–8. However, each book may be used across grade levels to provide increasing levels of difficulty in mastering reading comprehension.

The Jacob’s Ladder guides provide teachers with an explanation of the nature and substance of supplementary tasks in reading comprehension that will help prepare students for their state assessment tests. At the same time, these tasks will move them from basic reading comprehension to more critical reading behaviors. Also included are an overview of the goals and objectives of Jacob’s Ladder tasks and suggestions for implementation, giving every teacher of gifted readers the tools needed to create a successful reading classroom.

Grades 5–6