There's a lot to love about this newly expanded book in the Picture-Perfect Science series: You can combine STEM and reading through appealing lessons that are just right for your second-grade students. Also, reading comprehension strategies are embedded in all 12 of the ready-to-teach lessons, 11 of which are updated and one brand-new. The goal…

By implementing strategies described here, educators can be prepared to create an adoption-friendly environment for students and their families.

Fifth graders responded to a video of a picturebook,"The Red Tree" by Shaun Tan. They had not experienced explicit instruction in visual literacy and their responses served as a foundation for basic understanding of their analysis. We learned that they focused on four major areas: emotional aspects; visual qualities, summaries of the…

In 2013, the Center for Digital Scholarship at Miami University was established and coincided with the redesign of the Children's Picture Book Database, which had a successful web presence for nearly 20 years. We developed the Digital Literacy Partnership (DLP) website project in order to upgrade the project to Omeka as a new digital management…

The use of quality texts in elementary classrooms plays a major role in children's literacy development. Quality children's literature helps learners develop into skilled readers and writers with increased gains in vocabulary knowledge and comprehension. This paper demonstrates how pre-service teachers gained an understanding of the educational…

In this instructional article, we describe a non-traditional course assignment in which we ask students in our social problems courses to write, illustrate, and present a children's book about a social problem as part of the process of learning. Over the course of the semester, students utilize guided handouts to create a children's book exploring…

Standing tall in New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty is an enduring symbol of America. Layers of historical content and symbolism are uncovered in books that tell various parts of her story. By reading one or more of these books, students can begin to see that the experience of immigration is complex--it's not one narrative, but many that…

They are verbal. They make connections well and obviously. They ask many questions, some of which one had not considered nor probably would think of considering--especially not at their ages. They enjoy the pursuit of knowledge because they are inquisitive and desire to know more. Knowledge to them does not have to be attached to school…

This article seeks to inspire humanities and social science faculty to explore ways of utilizing existing scholarly online communities to engage students in the process of academic inquiry. The author discusses her own experience using a discipline-specific listserv, shares successful assignments, examples of student postings and a grading rubric.…

Stonier, a second grade inclusion teacher, wanted to instill a love of writing in all 25 of the children in his class while offering a challenging curriculum for everyone. He made the children's writing meaningful by setting up a writing exchange with high school students. The project, beginning with the second-graders offering critiques of the…

Using a framework grounded in critical literacy, the author describes her 1st-grade students' responses to works of literature that portray the impact of war. When given opportunities to read works of literature that address social justice issues, such as the consequences of war, her primary-age students' written, drawn, and spoken responses were…

Middle grades teachers should create meaningful learning activities involving stimulating literature and interesting composition prompts. This article describes a unit in which eighth graders read short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Using multiple learning and teaching approaches, they expanded their vocabularies, responded artistically to "The…

Reading, writing, and mathematics are best learned by children in meaningful, integrated experiences. In an engaging project combining math and literacy, primary children in Michelle Piwko's classroom followed the framework of verses from a classic children's book to structure their own writing about geometric forms. They brainstormed geometric…

The author of this article relates how she presents a lesson she termed as "Arthurian Information Quest" to her college-level children's literature class. To have an idea of how books on King Arthur affect her students, the author asks them to read one of the numerous books on the topic and asked them write their personal responses prior to…

This paper describes a graduate course using biographical materials for teachers to work through their understandings of reading and writing as personal, valuable processes. The course consists of three parts; each session begins with the reading of a children's picture book that deals with reading and writing; next, the class reads the…