Southwestern Advantage Blog

As an alumna of their sales & leadership program , I obviously loved the Southwestern Advantage products and believed in their effectiveness in reaching students.  Now, as an educator, I am even more convicted in the Southwestern Advantage products. I currently teach third and fourth grade students in a small school in the Sand Hills of Nebraska.   Most of my students have never been past a two hour radius of their home.   I try to incorporate as many “real-world” experiences to my students as possible while still reaching all the standards that are required.   I have found in my years of teaching that kids LOVE non-fiction books.   As a teacher, so do I.   Books about animals, space, and our Earth are so interesting to kids who love learning.   My students choose to use their free-time in the classroom reading the Explore and Learn and Ask Me books from Southwestern Advantage.   They are always quick to tell me the new facts they...

I grew up in a community where if you didn’t get along with someone, the advice we heard from our elders was, "Learn how to." If we had trouble working with someone, the teacher purposely assigned us to a group so that we would have to work together. My parents insisted that I learn to work my problems out. They didn’t call other parents to complain about our problems and how they could fix them. I was disciplined by my parents whenever I lacked self-discipline -- when I was disrespectful to others, when I didn't do my share of the chores, or when I got poor grades. Did I like it at the time? Nope; but now as an adult, I'm grateful for it. And now, as and educator, I increasingly see the opposite approach growing into a dangerous parenting trend. Every parent wants to see their children happy, safe, and successful. Teachers want the same for their students. However, the growing hurdle is the mindset that if a child gets upset, the parent(s) should step in and fix...

Ernest Schiller Iowa Teacher of the Year "I believe that this Biology section could be used as a resource for advanced middle school kids, especially if the 8 th grade students were taking a Life Science class. In terms of the adaptability to high school, it would fit in quite well as a General Biology course or even in an Advanced Biology class. [It] is interesting enough for most students to even want to read as a science book. And that is probably this book’s strength: having an interesting point of view in the reading, articles, diagrams, side pieces, and even the tables with pictures. I have never seen a book take on the view that it does. Highly interesting and stimulating and hopefully the students that will use this book will feel the same as I do. Very good use of FYI ’ s for the reader. I do like the streamlined approach to this book. I think it is clean and neat and a great organized approach from the student’s point of view. Of particular interest to me was the ...

4th Grade Teacher Megan Baker shares her review on using Southwestern Advantage products in her Nebraska classroom.

SW Advantage Science Review Coverage of topics/suggestions:   Very good coverage Layout/presentation: I have to say that I love the look of this book. It is near “eye  candy” rating for me, visually very pleasing. For the most part, it does not appear too busy.  I think that Biology and Ecology look the busiest of all the areas but it is the nature of the  topics. Biology and Ecology have way more “stuff”—Chemistry and Physics look the best  with the least terminology. How does that work , Got to know , and FYI really help students  zero in on the important things; too often they can go off on a tangent and miss what they  really need to know. Colored subheadings also help in finding what they need. Additional Comments: In my opinion, there are no big issues with this resource. I just  looked through three new high school resources, and they have way too much “stuff” per  page. I have found over the last number of years that kids...