This popular standard is everything a methods text for grades 7-12 should be: practical, concise, research-based, user-friendly. The authors' beliefs about what teaching should be and what good teachers should do form the bedrock upon which a full complement of effective methods is built. Basic to the text is the idea that teaching skills can be learned: content is organized around four developmental components involved in becoming a competent teacher—the why, what, how, and how well of teaching. Whatever one teaches, children will always need to know how to learn, how to read, and how to think productively, work cooperatively, and communicate effectively. This text shows future teachers how to teach precisely that.