Here are the top 5 from mama smiles blog at www.mamasmiles.com
the link to the article is  http://www.mamasmiles.com/why-are-multicultural-books-so-important/

Why are Multicultural Books So Important? Here are the top 5 reasons I am filling my home with multicultural books.

#1 Multicultural Books Broaden Horizons. When we learn about people and cultures who are different from us, we discover new possibilities. So many of the things we love in our twenty-first century world – from food to music to fashion to architecture – have been created through a fusion of cultures and traditions. Reading multicultural books can open our minds to new ways of seeing, experiencing, and transforming our lives.

#2 Multicultural Books. Teach Us to Embrace Differences. We all have ways in which we are unique. Sometimes, it is easy to allow our personal differences to become handicaps. It is also easy to be afraid of people who are different and people we don’t understand. Multicultural books help us embrace differences by showing us the strengths of diversity.

#3 Multicultural Books Teach Us That We Are All Alike. There are so many ways in which we are all the same. We all need food and water. We each struggle with challenges. All of us long to connect with others who understand us. Reading multicultural books helps us see these connections with people who, at first glance, may appear to have little in common with us.

#4 Multicultural Books Help Us See the People Around Us. Books help us learn how different characters see and react to their worlds. As we read multicultural books we can see the people around us more clearly. We still make false assumptions, but books about people who are different from us teach us to question these assumptions.

#5 Multicultural Books Develop Empathy. Learning to see the people around us more clearly also helps us develop empathy. Through learning more about the experiences of diverse people and cultures, we begin to understand for the things that make their lives difficult. We need this kind of understanding to make the changes we need to make to leave the world a better place.
 
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Below is an excerpt from Dr. Marvin Marshall's website (www.marvinmarshall.com) about parenting. Dr. Marshall—educator, author, and speaker—is widely known for his approach to discipline, parenting, motivation, and learning from his landmark books,“Discipline Without Stress, Punishment or Rewards: How Teachers and Parents Promote Responsibility & Learning” and “Parenting Without Stress: How to Raise Responsible Kids While Keeping a Life of Your own.”
Selections from from the parenting book
Part I THE THREE PRACTICES & Part II THE RAISE RESPONSIBILITY SYSTEM

Part III ADDITIONAL ASSISTANCE, Part IV PARENTING PITFALLS,
and other parenting resources can be viewed at the store.

I   PROCEDURES Assume nothing. Assumptions are guesses. Show, practice, and reinforce the behavior you WANT, rather than telling what you don’t want.

II  THREE PRINCIPLES TO PRACTICE POSITIVITY
Practice changing negatives into positives. “No running” becomes “We walk in our home.” “Stop that!” becomes”Show me the right way,” or “What should you do?”

CHOICE
Choice-response thinking teaches impulse control & responsibility. Questions such as, “Do you want me to make the decision for you, or can you make it yourself?” promote maturity.

REFLECTION
Since a person can only control another person temporarily, and because no one can actually change another person, asking REFLECTIVE questions is the most effective approach for prompting change in others.

III  THE RAISE RESPONSIBILITY SYSTEM (The Discipline System)

TEACHING THE HIERARCHY (Teaching)
The hierarchy engenders a DESIRE to behave responsibly. Young people learn the difference between INTERNAL and EXTERNAL motivation. Young people learn to rise above inappropriate peer influence, bullying, and irresponsible behaviors.

CHECKING FOR UNDERSTANDING (Asking)
Young people reflect on their chosen LEVEL. This approach SEPARATES THE PERSON FROM THE BEHAVIOR, thereby eliminating the usual tendency to defend oneself. It is often this natural tendency to self-defend one’s behavior that leads to so many confrontations.

GUIDED CHOICES (Eliciting)
If disruptions continue, a CONSEQUENCE or PROCEDURE is ELICITED to redirect the inappropriate behavior. This approach is in contrast to the usual coercive approach of having a consequence IMPOSED that promotes victimhood feelings.

Great short video by Ted ed on the importance of Music education:

Below is an excerpt from Dr. Marvin Marshall's website (www.marvinmarshall.com) about parenting. Dr. Marshall—educator, author, and speaker—is widely known for his approach to discipline, parenting, motivation, and learning from his landmark books,“Discipline Without Stress, Punishment or Rewards: How Teachers and Parents Promote Responsibility & Learning” and “Parenting Without Stress: How to Raise Responsible Kids While Keeping a Life of Your own.”

Recess and Discipline
I recently read an article in The Atlantic about teaching in Finland. In the piece, an American teacher in Helsinki questioned the national practice of giving 15 minute breaks each hour—until he saw the difference it made in his classroom.

In Finland, teachers send kids outside—rain or shine—for a 15-minute break after every 45 minutes of teaching. And the children get to decide how they spend their break times. There are no teacher-led activities or expected things to do during recess. Usually, teachers take turns—two at a time—supervising the playground during these 15-minute stints.

To Americans, this approach sounds too soft—too lazy. But as this teacher in Helsinki noted, “My students in the States had always seemed to drag their feet after about 45 minutes in the classroom … Once I incorporated these short recesses into our timetable, I no longer saw feet-dragging, zombie-like kids in my classroom. Throughout the school year, my Finnish students would—without fail—enter the classroom with a bounce in their steps after a 15-minute break. And most importantly, they were more focused during lessons.”

A little under two years ago, I had the opportunity to visit schools in Finland. Their schools are very different from those in the U.S., as are their results. Discipline issues are low, personal responsibility is high, and school districts and teachers are empowered to teach the curriculum as they see fit. In fact, according to numerous studies, Finland is one of the best educational performing countries in the world, even though they have no standardized testing and do not believe that achievement gains improve the lives of children.

You can find my entire 10-part blog series on Learning and Discipline in Finland on this site that details many more differences between the U.S. and Finnish learning systems.

"The thing that lies at the foundation of positive change is service to a fellow human being."

 Lee Iacocca

Below is an excerpt from Dr. Marvin Marshall's website (www.marvinmarshall.com) about parenting. Dr. Marshall—educator, author, and speaker—is widely known for his approach to discipline, parenting, motivation, and learning from his landmark books,“Discipline Without Stress, Punishment or Rewards: How Teachers and Parents Promote Responsibility & Learning” and “Parenting Without Stress: How to Raise Responsible Kids While Keeping a Life of Your own.”

No one is good at everything. We all have our strengths, and we all have our weaknesses. Children are no different. Why, then, do so many teachers and parents expect perfection from their children in all areas—straight A’s in school, a star athlete, cast as the lead in the school play, volunteers in the community, plays the piano, etc? Some even go so far as to discipline a child for a weakness, by imposing a punishment if something isn’t up to spar or offering a reward if the child “tries harder.”

Of course, we should have high standards for youth. As Henry David Thoreau said, “Men are born to succeed, not fail.” Renowned psychologist Abraham Maslow agreed with this concept when he declared that it is a basic human need to strive toward success and self-actualization.

Unfortunately, when a child brings home a bad grade or a displayed weakness in some other way, many adults focus on the negative rather than on the positive. However, studies show that people make greater improvement when they build on their strengths rather than continually work on their weaknesses. Now, this does not mean we should ignore a child’s weakness. It simply means the emphasis should be on what the child can do rather than what he or she cannot do.

For example, suppose a child is having difficulty with spelling. By all means encourage the child to practice spelling. But instead of only pointing out the misspelled words and telling the child to rewrite them, acknowledge the child for any correctly spelled words, for his or her improved handwriting, or something else that will be the spark that ignites action. Remember, when a child is first learning a skill, it is the successes—not the failures—that encourage perseverance and lead to building character, positive self-talk, and self-esteem.

Naji and the mystery of the dig is Lexile® measures 690L. The Lexile® Framework®  for Reading was developed by MetaMetrics©, an educational assessment and research team. The idea behind The Lexile Framework for Reading is simple: if we know how well a student can read and how hard a specific book is to comprehend, we can predict how well that student will likely understand the book.

Below is an excerpt from Lexile's website describing the method in more detail:

Lexile Measures Help Readers Grow, and Help Parents and Teachers Know

Teachers and parents can best serve a student's literacy needs when they treat him or her as a unique individual, rather than as a test score or a grade-level norm or average. The reading abilities of young people in the same grade at school can vary just as much as their shoe sizes. However, grade-leveling methods commonly are used to match students with books.

When a Lexile text measure matches a Lexile reader measure, this is called a "targeted" reading experience. The reader will likely encounter some level of difficulty with the text, but not enough to get frustrated. This is the best way to grow as a reader—with text that's not too hard but not too easy.

When you receive a Lexile measure, try not to focus on the exact number. Instead, consider a reading range around the number. A person's Lexile range, or reading comprehension "sweet spot," is from 100L below to 50L above his or her reported Lexile measure.

If a student tackles reading material above his or her Lexile range, consider what additional instruction or lower-level reading resources might help. Ask him or her to keep track of unknown words, and look them up together. Or take turns reading aloud to each other to chop up the reading experience into smaller portions. Likewise, you can reward students with books that fall below his or her Lexile range for an easier reading experience.

For more information visit www.lexile.com