Affective Jacob's Ladder Reading Comprehension Program: Grades 4-5

The Affective Jacob's Ladder Reading Comprehension Program uses a models approach to scaffold student learning and promote inquiry-based discussions of texts. This series of Jacob's Ladder:

• Focuses specifically on supporting advanced students' social-emotional needs.
  Includes high-interest reading selections in the following genres: short stories and media, poetry, and biographies.
  Moves students from lower to higher level skills of self-awareness, metacognition, and goal setting.
  Integrates reading comprehension and analysis skills with affective and social-emotional needs.
  Asks students to apply themes, character or real-life experiences, and lessons from texts to their own lives.

New ladders were specially designed for this series and derived from relevant theories about empathy, risk and resilience, achievement motivation, and mindsets and practices for cultivating talent. The Affective Jacob's Ladder guides provide teachers with an explanation of the nature and substance of the theoretical constructs for each ladder. Also included are an overview of the goals and objectives of each ladder and suggestions for how to implement the ladders in the classroom in a way that supports students' academic and social-emotional needs at the same time.

Optional Student Workbook Packs

In addition to this teacher's guide, companion student workbooks are available for Short Stories and Media, Poetry, and Biographies, Essays and Speeches. The student workbooks feature ample room for student responses and notes, make reviewing and providing feedback on student work easier than ever, provide students with an easy-to-use reference to use during discussions, and save time, as there is no need to reproduce student handouts.

Joyce VanTassel-Baska, Ed.D., is the Jody and Layton Smith Professor Emerita of Education and former Executive Director of the Center for Gifted Education at William & Mary in Virginia, where she developed a graduate program and a research and development center in gifted education. She also initiated and directed the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University.

Dr. Tamra Stambaugh is the Director of Programs for Talented Youth at Vanderbilt University. She is the coauthor (with Dr. Joyce VanTassel-Baska) of Comprehensive Curriculum for Gifted Learners, Overlooked Gems: A National Perspective on Low-Income Promising Students, and the Jacob's Ladder Reading Comprehension Program.