It is difficult to overstate the power of visual images, particularly historical primary source photos, to provide a window into the past. Here, the authors outline how educators can utilize historic photos to provide students with a deeper understanding of the past. When students do not see their heritage and culture represented in images, the…

Previous research has indicated professional training and support, personal literacy preferences, and professional literacy attitudes have an influence on classroom literacy practices. Limited literacy related research has been conducted in agricultural education. This study sought to examine the influence of professional training and support,…

Middle school is a place where many students are first introduced to more complex novels. Novel instruction in middle school English language arts classrooms is potentially influenced by the elementary focus on reading strategies and/or the secondary focus on literary analysis. Using a qualitative methodological approach, six middle school…

Research shows that family involvement in learning activities at school improves students' academic performance and social cohesion. This study analyses the impact of involving families through interactive groups, dialogic literary gatherings and tutored library in a Mexican primary school in a highly underprivileged urban area, within the…

"College readiness" has become a national buzzword in light of efforts to improve high school students' ability to successfully transition into postsecondary settings. One component of this transition that has long been an area of concern is students' readiness for college writing. Numerous stakeholders have weighed in on the question of…

Before second language writing (SLW) teachers' digital practices can be supported, their needs must first be understood. To accomplish effective technology-enhanced instruction, SLW teachers must blend their knowledge of composition theory, second language acquisition, and multimodal composition technologies. However, many teachers struggle to do…

This study explored American and Portuguese elementary teachers' preferences in planning for literacy instruction using the Language Arts Activity Grid (LAAG; Cunningham, Zibulsky, Stanovich, & Stanovich, 2009), on which teachers described their preferred instructional activities for a hypothetical 2-h language arts block. Portuguese teachers…

Deals with S. Kagan's (1990) structural approach to cooperative learning and its application to language arts. Offers detailed descriptions of several cooperative learning structures, including Numbered Heads Together, Roundtable, Think-Pair-Share, Corners, and others. Provides examples from actual classroom settings, along with various teacher…

This book is a day-by-day record of how and why four- and five-year olds learn, described by a teacher who uses many of the Montessori materials, and emphasizes the discipline and attraction to learning that come from within. The first chapter relates the teacher's theories on education, while the remaining five chapters consist of diary entries…

Four presentations were given at a workshop conducted to consider ways in which outdoor education activities could be utilized in the teaching of language skills to migrant children. Dr. William B. Stapp, University of Michigan, discusses the need for and major objectives of environmental education, and suggests points to consider in relation to…

Intended for parents, teachers, speech-language pathologists, and others within the child's "communication environment," this booklet contains suggestions and illustrations for improving children's listening and speech skills. In addition, it presents basic information related to normal communication development, as well as information about…

The first segment of a long-term educational assessment plan, for which this three-part report was compiled, called for a study that would survey the status of English language arts programs in the province of British Columbia and serve as a pilot for future assessment programs. This portion of the study presents the results of the second phase of…

This publication describes the development, implementation, and success of the Ganado Language Arts Development (GLAD) Project on the Navajo reservation in northeastern Arizona which develops the foundation for literacy in each student, expands and enriches pedogogical competencies of staff in teaching language arts, and develops/strenghtens…

Six experienced teachers of fourth and fifth grades read and made judgments about the appropriateness, attractiveness, usefulness, and effectiveness of each of 32 short descriptions of language-arts activities. The activity descriptions had been edited to vary systematically on five features: amount of student involvement; difficulty for students;…

This practicum was designed to improve the congruency of resources, activities, and assessment strategies in intermediate-level language arts programs with a holistic process-oriented perspective on literacy development. Taking place in a large public elementary school in Vancouver, Canada, the practicum's goals were: (1) to implement…