The Family Backpack Project provided 249 low-income, prekindergarten children and their families with opportunities to read and listen to audio recordings of 3 sets of books in their homes. Families received English or dual-language texts (English plus Spanish, Arabic, Kurdish, or Somali) matched to their home languages. Children and their…

This article deals with a child's impression of literacy. The author interviews Sophia Kazee, a kindergartner, who was asked her about her favorite books. She asked her where she reads at home and in the classroom and asked her to draw these places. The first drawing shows children reading books and Sophia reading to her teacher, Ms. Cresse. The…

Describes an interactive inservice program designed to show teachers that children are capable of writing long pieces of discourse with appropriate conventions if motivated through instruction or internal interest. Suggests that writing should be filled with multiple opportunities for discovery and play. (RS)

Third grade students were asked to create symbolic representations of themselves as readers and writers using the engagement of sketch to stretch.

This paper presents two nine-year-old children who used different oral, written, visual, and digital modes as resources to create meaning and to position themselves socially through multimodal stories. Their diverging experiences with technology as a resource for storytelling draw attention to the importance of studying "the ways that old and new…

Provides words and pictures to help understand how the concept of the artists' workshop can enhance writers' workshops in the elementary or middle school classroom. (RS)

This photo essay includes children's reflections on the opportunities offered by Artists/Writers Workshop for meaning-making in two languages--the language of pictures and the language of words. As students move back and forth between pictures and words, they experience transmediation. They create new meanings, find new and stronger voices, and…

An eight-year-old boy, Adrian, draws subject matter and formats for his writing from a new, digital medium: the video game. (Contains 2 tables and 5 figures.)

The article examines third graders who use reading, speaking, writing, gestures, and visual representation strategically in their inquiry research and to share what they learn. Examples of their speaking, writing and drawing shows their developing skill in choosing semiotic meaning-making systems appropriately for the purpose of developing their…