Literacy educators are often unequipped to help young children contend with the world we inhabit, where linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism are not always valued or sustained. In fact, educators are routinely bombarded by programs that position literacy as a simple, one-size-fits-all practice. This resource will help pre-K-3 teachers…

Most of us recall with pain the unpleasant experiences associated with the teacher's announcement that we would once again initiate a unit of learning designed to both widen and deepen our knowledge of the words of our language. This was said to establish the foundation for all of our future academic pursuits. A strong vocabulary was said to be a…

Teaching vocabulary often began as a poorly organized, extensive list of new terms presented to students each week. Students recorded a selected list of words and sought their meanings. With time devoted to study and review of the new terms, students were considered prepared for a test on mastery by the final class session of the week. The…

Shakespeare, who worked actively with words through punning, playing, and inventing, serves as the model for students to experience a deepening knowledge of vocabulary and love of words. Through instructional activities aimed at increasing word play, word exposure, and word consciousness, students gain the verbal capacity needed to understand…

A study of 25 expert teachers and their shared reading lessons in grades 3-8 suggests that teachers focus their modeling during shared reading in four categories: comprehension, vocabulary, text structures, and text features. (Contains 1 figure.)

The author calls for incorporating into English classes what he calls museum-based pedagogy, arguing that it enables the teaching of multiple literacies: verbal, visual, technological, social, and critical. In part, this pedagogy consists of classroom instruction that enables students to understand the persuasive nature of museum displays--the…

We tested the effect of a Rotated Protocol Immersion package on the emergence of observing responses as prerequisites for more complex verbal developmental capabilities. Three elementary aged students between the ages of 6 and 7 participated. They were diagnosed with autism spectrum disabilities. The treatment condition consisted of total…