Best Selling Books by Rachel Anderson

This is a moving story about Matthew, whose adored older brother Ben has Downs Syndrome. Matthew is horrified when Ben turns 16 and has to go off to a special school - he will miss him very much. Gradually Matthew comes to realise that it is best for Ben and that he will need to find his own friends. When Matthew''s teacher decides to focus on Ben for a class project on ''Interesting People in the Community'' the class comes to recognise what an amazing person Ben is. An entertaining and amusing story about an area rarely tackled.

Twelve-year-old Emily Hanover wants a dog of her own, but her parents keep saying "No dog!" She knows it''s because her brother is in the Vietnam War, and his dog, Queenie, was recently killed by a car. Mom and Dad are also concerned because they haven''t received any new letters from Greg. Add to that, the mean Trenton sisters who pick on Emily all the time and call her Freckled Shrimp, and Emily has some major worries.When she learns that a neighbor''s prize hunting dog had a litter of mutt pups, Emily fears the pups are in danger and impulsively decides to save them. When the rescue doesn''t go according to plan, self-doubt almost defeats Emily until she comes up with an idea that requires brains, not size, to pull off.Set in a small Michigan town in the mid-1960s, this is a story about a girl who learns to be true to her commitments, when to stand up for herself, and that genuine kindness may lead to a dream come true.

[Jessy''s family don''t really want to take her shopping. They have lots to do and Jessy needs looking after because she has Downs syndrome. But Jessy starts playing hide and seek in the shop, and before she knows it she is lost.].

Disaster strikes when Gabrielle arrives in France for her summer vacation. Instead of being delivered to the luxury, four-star hotel she''d been promised, she suddenly finds herself thrown at the mercies of the awful Potter family -- that''s Matt, Don (an inter-galactic triple speaker), Mrs. Potter, the baby, Benjy, and the twins... Gabrielle is a spoiled rich kid, who at first can''t stand the scruffy Potters. But after a series of hilarious adventures and misadventures -- involving her father''s new sportscar, a fancy French restaurant, and the nearby camping ground -- she grudgingly admits that she has had fun amidst the good-natured, chaotic Potter family. This fast-paced, humorous story should find many fans among younger readers.

When Joe''s grandma come to stay, Joe is delighted because she is as untidy as he is. But grandma is a bit scatty and Joe finds that keeping track of her can be a full-time job. This book is part of the Superchamps series - the sequel to Banana Books and designed for more fluent readers.

Tea & Empathy Notebook Contains: 50 blank pages, matt cover, space to write down your thoughts and clear your head

College completion rates among first-generation college students have not kept pace with matriculation rates. At Delaware Technical Community College (Delaware Tech), first-generation college students have lower achievement and academic success, and students of color have the lowest retention rate and the most significant achievement and success gaps at the College. As the only community college in Delaware, we serve 15,000 students annually, many who are first-generation college students. Although Delaware Tech provides pre-college programs that are intended to bridge these gaps, more needs to be done to specifically support first-generation students of color (FGSC). Aligned with synergistic efforts that are currently taking place at the college, this leadership initiative was designed to explore the question of how to best serve FGSC to improve both retention and completion rates. Data was collected using student and alumni focus groups, data analysis of FGSC completion rates, a gap analysis of student supports and research into best practices with FGSC. Findings suggest that programs directed at FGSC provide more than just academic tutoring. Expanded supports should include social, emotional, and mental health supports, as well as culturally relevant pedagogy, to prepare program staff to meet the diverse needs of FGSC. Practical programming recommendations that involve social skill development and suggestions for college process improvement that will address FGSC needs are thoroughly outlined.

The Community Connections preschool program (herein referred to as Community Connections) was developed to help prepare children in home-based child care for success in school and in life. It has three goals: (1) to make state prekindergarten classroom experiences available to children in home-based care, (2) to extend classroom learning experiences in the home-based care setting, and (3) to support infant and toddler development in participating providers'' homes. Illinois Action for Children (herein referred to as IAFC) created the Community Connections program model in 2005 as Illinois was rapidly expanding its state prekindergarten program, which would ultimately change from serving exclusively at-risk children to become "Preschool for All." The Illinois State Board of Education has requested evidence that the Community Connections mixed model works before making funding available for it statewide. Education agencies in other states are expected to ask the same question. In Phase 1 of a two phase evaluation, IAFC asked Child Trends and the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) to conduct a study to examine model clarity, fidelity, and the implementation of Community Connections. Phase 2, to take place after implementation issues are identified and addressed, will be an outcomes study. This report describes the methodology and presents the findings of Phase 1 of the evaluation of the Community Connections model, the implementation study. A key conclusion from this implementation evaluation is that many components of the Community Connections Model are being well implemented. They are reported on consistently and perceived favorably across groups of respondents. Yet there are a few areas in which it would be beneficial for further work to be undertaken to document elements of the program model. There are also specific elements that are proving challenging to implement and where work by program developers to provide additional training and supports would be beneficial. Appended are: (1) IAFC Coordinator Interview Protocol; (2) Center Director Interview Protocol; (3) Center Teacher/Assistant Teacher Interview Protocol; (4) Home-Based Provider Interview Protocol; (5) Parent Interview Protocol; (6) CCAT-R Results:Caregiver and Child Language and Engagement; (7) CCAT-R Results:Health and Safety; (8) CCAT-R Results:Materials; (9) Home-Based Provider Visit Record; and (10) Center Visit Form. (Contains 12 footnotes.).

The behaviour of connections in fire has become of particular interest to the structural engineering community following the possible link of connection failure to the collapse of the World Trade Centre building 7 and the failures and huge distortion of some connections after the Cardington full scale tests. In order to widen the understanding of the complex behaviour of connections in fire this thesis discusses a number of specific issues relating to connections in fire and their influence on structural response. The first part of this work presents a finite element model for predicting connection temperature profiles. A parametric study is then carried out to investigate which factors have the greatest influence on temperature prediction. This method is compared to the currently available methods for connection temperature prediction presented in the Eurocodes: using a percentage of the beam mid-span lower flange temperature to estimate the temperature across the connection and a lumped capacitance method to calculate average joint temperature based on the mass of material and surface area. In each case, along with the predicted temperatures, the influence on connection material strength is also presented. The three methods have varying levels of accuracy. The finite element model provides detailed and accurate results due to the thorough consideration given to the input parameters. The percentages method gives reasonable estimates in the heating phase but is less accurate in cooling and the lumped capacitance method is only suitable for crude estimations. The remainder of the thesis is concerned with how a number of phenomena affect the overall structural behaviour of buildings: the inclusion of detailed connection models within larger, less complex, finite element models; the effects of connection rotational capacity and the composite beam-slab shear connection. A finite element model for isolated joints is presented in detail for a number of heating regimes and connection types. The influence of the bolt shear and tensile properties is considered in detail and the need for further testing on bolts at high temperatures is discussed. The model has the capacity to predict a number of failure modes and also shows a good comparison between experimental and theoretical deflected shapes. This connection model is then inserted into a large model. It is shown that whilst the inclusion of the shell connection has a small influence on the residual deflections of a structure after cooling when compare to a model where connections are simple and fixed, the difference between heating and not heating the connection does effect structural deflections. Following on from the previous full scale model, simple connections are then exclusively included where the connection rotational capacity is varied. Results show that there is not a large effect on the structural deflections or beam axial and shear forces when rotational behaviour is changed. However column bending moments are hugely increased during heating both in the fire compartment and away from it and fixed connections result in larger bending moment that pinned ones. Finally, the shear interaction between the slab and beams is investigated. The detailed development of both an ambient temperature and then an elevated temperature model of a beam-slab system including explicit shear studs are presented. A study is then carried out looking at the effects on deflections and beam forces when the strength and ductility of the studs are altered. It is found that more ductile studs with a high shear capacity are beneficial for reducing forces in beams and limiting their deflections. Finally the shear studs are included in the larger model used in previous chapters where results are similar to those seen in the beam-slab model, but are less pronounced.

Social validity is often defined as the degree to which an intervention has value to the community that it effects. Due to its impact on treatment effectiveness and acceptability, reporting social validity is critical to behaviour-analytic interventions. Authors use interviews and Likert scales to inform social validity. However, social validity is seldom reported in the literature. Most social validity questionnaires are created ad hoc based solely on face validity; whereas the standardised questionnaires available lack description of scale development procedures, particularly item generation. The purpose of this study was to evaluate methods for the development of a Likert scale to assess social validity, where item generation was not solely based on face validity. Parents and caregivers of children who took part in a study on behavioural treatments for children with feeding disorders were recruited to be part of an initial interview to inform scale development. Interviews were analysed using two different methods, (a) thematic analysis, and (b) textual analysis. The resulting themes were used to generate items for two social validity questionnaires. We examined the inter-rater reliability of the questionnaire development process and evaluated the content validity of each questionnaire. Of the two methods, the textual analysis had higher inter-rater reliability for producing themes that could be converted to items for a questionnaire. The textual analysis method also produced a questionnaire with content validity equal to that of the thematic analysis method. This demonstrates the successful use of a systematic, quantitative approach to the development of social validity questionnaires for behavioural interventions.

Young Gabrielle discovers the advantages of being an only child after spending the night with the boisterous Potter family.