This book goes into more extensive vocabulary, including blends, the schwa sound (a and the) and digraphs. Kids need decodable text. The animals are wonderfully drawn, story lines sweet and simple. The animals become friends to children.

Liteature is one of the best things you can give children to read, but kids need to be able to read decodable text at the same time. They need to feel the power of reading. They can with this book (and series). And, they can use their eyes, ears, mouth and body as they read, since Zoo-phonics is a kinesthetic way to learn to read. Great for kids!

This is yet another book in the series of the Zoo-phonics decodable reading series. This book becomes a little more challenging with each story. The animals tell the story, always positive story lines. The animals may have a little problem, but they resolve it with love and care. Great valueing lessons. A real advance in vocabulary.

I love this book. All the others are important because children can read them themselves. This one is more advanced. The kids really know they have learned to read by the time the get into this book. The stories are actually funny - and for teachers and parents - there are questions, other books to read on the subject and fun science activies to do. There's more to come, I hear!

In reading class, we were required to read a book about the Holocaust. I had read a few before, but I thought that they were boring and uninteresting. I thought that I would have to read another boring, uninteresting book.
This book totally surprised me. It was the first Holocaust book I had read that actually had me feeling the emotions of the main character. This book kept me turning pages until the very last word. This person's true emotions were brought to life throughout this book by colorful language and interesting similes and metaphors.
In My Hands is the story of Irene Gutowna, a Polish, Gentile girl, 17 years of age, who starts to work for a restaurant, which is run by Nazis. She never thought of becoming a resistance fighter. But she started small. The restaurant was located right next to the ghetto. Irene began to hide food under a hole in the fence.
Then she eventually did bigger things, leading up to hiding 10 Jews in the basement of a German sergeant's house. He finds out, but keeps quiet. In return, Irene must be his mistress.
This book was very good, and even made me cry. I think that everyone should read it.

In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer by Irene Gut Opdyke is a remarkable autobiography about the life of a Polish woman who risked her life in order to save her Jewish friends. When World War II began, Irene was only seventeen years old; she was a devoted nursing student and an innocent Catholic girl. As Germany took over her country Poland, Irene volunteered to accompany the Polish army as part of the Red Cross. Separated from her family, she was forced to endure harsh living conditions while aiding hundreds of wounded soldiers. A few weeks later, she was seized and raped by Russian soldiers who then left her for dead in the snow. Irene would have frozen to death if a kind woman named Dr. Miriam had not found her and nursed her back to health. When Irene had finally regained her strength, she was allowed to return to Poland, now a part of Germany, to be reunited with her family. It was a joyful reunion, but Irene was stunned by the changes in her hometown, Radom. The Jews had been forced to move into ghettos while the Poles had to live by strict rules. Only one week had passed since Irene had come to Poland when she and her sister were captured and transported to Germany to work for the Reich. She became a domestic worker in a Nazi hotel; there, she witnessed the cruel, monstrous acts that were being committed against the Jews in the nearby ghetto. Overwhelmed with horror, Irene began sneaking food and blankets to the ghetto, as well as transporting runaway Jews in a wagon to a nearby forest. She had also befriended the ten Jewish workers she supervised at the hotel. When she was released from her hotel duties to work in a German major's villa as a live-in housekeeper, she found a way to smuggle and hide her Jewish friends in the basement of the villa. When he discovered them, Irene became his mistress in cooperation for his silence; later, she and her friends managed to escape from him during the Germans' retreat. In 1949, through the acquaintance of an old rabbi, Irene was interviewed by a delegate from the United Nations, and she was accepted to be a citizen of the United States, which is where she lives to this day. Irene Gut Opdyke is the courageous hero of this amazing autobiography. She had started out as a seemingly ordinary nursing student, but she had been separated from her family at 17 and forced to work for her enemies. She was determined to do all that she could to help the Jews after she had witnessed the abominable suffering inflicted on the local Jews. Being sensitive to her Jewish friends' needs, she always put their safety ahead of her well being. She demonstrated extraordinary bravery and heroism throughout her life.

I read the book In My Hands by Irene Gut Opdyke with Jennifer Armstrong for a school project in reading class. At first I did not think I would like this book because the holocaust is such a horrible thing. As I read on though I could not set the book down. It kept me turning the pages. Irene Gutowna is a seventeen-year-old, gentile, Polish girl who gets dragged into the war and separated from her family. Irene could not even image what would go on over the next five years of her life. Everything would change.
One day she goes outside past curfew and is raped and beaten by Nazi officers. She devotes herself to doing anything she can to get back at the Nazis for this horrible act against her, and for taking over her beloved Poland. While in recovery she learns and teaches herself the German language. She ends up working for a German Nazi cafeteria that is located right next to a concentration camp.
She starts off small by putting food under a fence, in hope that someone in the horrible camp will get the food. This was just one small step in Irene's great journey. Eventually it leads up to hiding ten Jewish people in a German major's villa and feeding them food. When the major finds out Irene is hiding and feeding the Jews in his basement of his house, he is infuriated. Forces her to become his mistress. If she had denied, he would have had to turn her and the others in. This would mean the sentence of death for all. These are just a couple of things Irene does to corrupt the Nazi party. This book was very inspiring to me. To know that someone would be so willing to risk so much, even his or her own life and for fighting for what they believe in.

I am writing about the 2000 edition: This series and text is good overall but considering this is the 2nd or 3rd edition, I am disappointed that there are so many mistakes between the questions, correct answers and answer key. It's hard enough for people to learn English as it is without them beating their heads trying to find why an answer is such-and-such only to learn that the given answer is wrong or that the question itself doesn't give all needed information.

Well, what more can I say. I teach English in Mexico and bought this book here. It's a bit more expensive here, but it was well worth the wait. In addition to the book, I bought the workbook, the teacher's manual and the cassettes. The level of the book itself is about 4th to 7th grade. It is a very impressive book and intend on buying the newest series, when or if they become available. I would recommend this series to anyone who would be interested in teaching ESL or EFL.

This series provides well-designed grammar books in real Communicative-language-teaching approach. This course book has both clear and user-friendly grammar reference and a lot of interesting skill-building practices. It helps learners to practice grammar in controlled exercises and communicative tasks. The tasks are similar to what learners may encounters in real life, and some of them require oral negotiation during the problem-solving process. Thus, this material help learners to use English in carrying out tasks in real life. Unlike traditional structural-based and drill-focused grammar books, this material allows learners to practice and use grammar in a social context, so it is very suitable for EFL or ESL classrooms, but not for individual learning. The outstanding features of this grammar series are as follows: 1. The methodological emphasis on retrospective approach to grammar. For example, learners encounter the focused grammar structure (usually highlighted) in a reading passage or a dialogue in the first section. Then, they will read the explanation of that grammar usage in the second section. Examples are always included in the explanation, so it is easy to understand and remeber the grammar usage. 2. Instruction-friendly design: model dialogues or passage, explicit explanation of grammar, and ready-for-use tasks are provided 3.A good grammar companion to any other course book: units are arranged according to grammar categories, so learners can practice what they need. 4.Well-designed and interesting skill-building exercises. Some are task-based exercises and allow learners to practice grammar in real communication. 5. Focus on content. Wide-range of interesting subject matters in the presentation and practices. Usually, all ofthe exercises/tasks within one unit deal with the same grammar structure (e.g. passive voices)through the same content topic (e.g.naming) Sometimes, the topics of several units are related when these units deal with related grammar structures.

This is an easy to read book (grades 1 & 2) and a wonderful tool for introducing children to Helen Keller. It tells about her struggles after becoming deaf and blind, and of her eventual triumph of learning words with the help of her teacher, Anne Sullivan. It also gives a very brief summary of her accomplishments as an adult.

I think it's great for kids to learn about Helen Keller, and this book provides a nice way to first hear the story.

The last page of the book has a sign language alphabet chart which some children might enjoy trying to learn...

I like this book because it's a true story that happened 100 years ago. It's a sad story because Helen Keller was blind and deaf. It's a good story because after a while she understood what she was doing and she learned how to write on a typewriter.

Helen Keller is just like Laura Bridgman.They both had Scarlet Fever.But Laura Bridgman had it before Helen Keller.This book tells you about a real girl name Helen Keller.Helen Keller had Scarlet Fever when she was two years old.She was blind,mute and deaf after this sickness.Helen was crazy.She was jumping around braking things and she even hurted her little baby brother! Then Helen's parents called for help.This lady came.She was blind also.But she helped Helen to learn sign language and knowing what are the things she touched.It was really hard teaching Helen all the manners and everything.But at the end Helen was like another ordinary girl.

In today's day and age of multi-media Internet communication is it sad to discover that the publishers of ESL books are not incorporating this incredible learning tool into their texts. I would have hoped to find a home page with audio and video support for this text. I can't imagine a university without the tools to access this type of information if publishers would make it available. Anyone interested in sharing ideas on how to use this text can contact:

Harvey Schmidt englishb1968@hotmail.com Yonsei University.

Hi

I'm Samara and I am an EFL teacher in Brazil. Cris,True Colors 5 doesn't exist anywhere in the world.It hasn't been released yet. There are 5 levels Basic 1,2,3 and 4. This is a great serie which helps students speak more confidently the new language. I highly recommend this book!

Hi, I'm Cris from Brazil and I need some help. I want to buy a book called True Colors 5 that doesn't exists in Brazil yet. Please, answer if it is possible. Thank you. cristiana