Lack of representation of children from nondominant cultural and linguistic backgrounds continues to be problematic in children's literature, and especially within early literacy texts for beginning readers. One remedy is for children to tell their own stories through the language experience approach, which can then be printed into culturally…

This article highlights research exploring the benefits of small-group storytelling as a way to promote rich language in early childhood classrooms. Using the storytelling of children from a preschool classroom serving lower SES children, the author explores the collaborative affordances of story circles. Results show that small-group storytelling…

Second language learners face countless obstacles in the classroom, including communication and comprehension limitations and difficulty building relationships with peers. Many teachers struggle to build an inclusive classroom environment and ensure all students, especially those with linguistic and other learning disadvantages, are learning. This…

This article examines a collaborative study that two teacher educators conducted across two sites. Participants included teacher candidates implementing a digital language experience approach project with elementary learners. The teacher candidates collaborated across sites, building joint wikis to examine their processes and products. The wikis…

Kindergarten teacher typed children's stories as they were dictated to her because it offered the children an opportunity to articulate ideas, practice using language effectively, weave pleasing stories, and create bonds between children and adults. (DF)

Discusses the effectiveness of story telling as a means of teaching beginning reading. (RB)

Describes how to use word processing with first graders in lessons exploring oral and written language via the computer. Suggests ways to use the language experience approach in whole-class as well as small-group instruction. (SR)

This paper describes a specific form of qualitative research--narrative inquiry. In this form of research, peoples' stories become the data. The paper explores the power of narrative inquiry as a "heretical" research method and how it can be used to examine stakeholders' experiences and beliefs related to transforming a system; for example, the…

The whole-language learning approach is applied to the teaching of writing skills to children with disabilities. Oral storytelling is the basis for an eight-step procedure which progresses from hearing a storyteller through writing a class story and on to publishing and storytelling. (DB)

Techniques for using the whole language approach include read-aloud sessions, student story dictation, practice in using decoding skills, word banks, and exercises that stress the connection between reading and writing. The method considers individual needs and interests, offers relevance, and builds on adults' experiences. (SK)

The Story Maker is a teaching device that allows children to create stories by choosing options from a set of already-written story segments. This device (1) provides an active language experience that allows children to construct stories easily; (2) demonstrates the consequences of choosing different ways for a story to proceed; (3) avoids the…

Describes a version of language experience with adolescents that has students write about personal problems and dilemmas they have faced. (AEA)

Presents a series of teaching ideas that use language experience stories produced by children to foster their expressive language abilities. (FL)

Details educational procedures basic to Title VII Academic Excellence Project P.I.A.G.E.T. (Promoting Intellectual Adaptation Given Experimental Transforming), a model disseminated nationally to agencies serving young culturally and linguistically diverse children. Notes that the procedures critical to the program's success were…

The hypothesis of this study was that stories created by a dialectical subgroup of third grade Negro children might be more comprehensible to other members of that group than the usual instructional materials. A random sample of third graders was asked to tell stories in response to four pictures. The stories were tape recorded and then…