Limited health literacy and access to engaging, relevant, understandable health promotion and disease prevention materials are barriers to achieving and maintaining health. The We-Engage-4-Health program co-created the graphic-style story "Foamy Soap Fun" with community members to reinforce the importance of the primary preventive…

Maternal reports from the UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys were determined whether preschool enrollment strengthened the associations between paternal, maternal, and allocaregivers' (e.g. grandparents, aunts, uncles) engagement in literacy-type and social activities and children's literacy and social skills. The sample consisted of 47,832…

This study contributes to the science of teaching reading by illustrating how a ubiquitous classroom practice -- read alouds -- can be enhanced by fostering teacher language practices that support students' ability to read for understanding. This experimental study examines whether and to what extent providing "structured teacher read…

Reading science has reached consensus that background knowledge is essential for reading comprehension. What remains an open question for the science of reading, however, is how and when this background knowledge ought to be developed. Teachers often include activities meant to activate background knowledge immediately prior to read-alouds.…

Purpose: Children learning to read in English must learn to read words with varying degrees of grapheme-phoneme correspondence regularity, but there is very little research comparing methods of instruction for words with less predictable or irregular spellings. Therefore, we compared three methods of instruction for beginning readers. Method:…

The study examines how a white elementary educator used discursive practices I refer to as "race talk moves" to support students' racial literacy during whole-class read-alouds. This case study found that the teacher used four moves that have been previously documented in literature discussions: listening, participating, synthesizing,…

Research on Theory of Mind (ToM) and reading comprehension is a lively and active field with numerous publications a year. ToM describes a child's ability to identify and reason about the mental states of others (e.g., think, believe, intend, want). The burgeoning findings from this research suggests ToM plays an important role in the reading…

This study examined active Swedish preschool teachers' thoughts and perceptions in terms of read-alouds as a tool to support children's language and literacy development. The research question was 'How and for what purpose do preschool teachers say that they organize read-alouds in preschool?' Three focus group interviews were conducted with five…

Teachers make decisions about which resources to use in their classrooms daily, including text selection for read-aloud. This impacts students in classrooms nationwide, as these decisions validate some voices and marginalize others. This study used the Q-methodology in a concurrent mixed-methods design to explore what beliefs influence…

This action research investigated the impact that culturally responsive read-aloud/text talk (a culturally responsive teaching (CRT) practice) has on student engagement, sense of belonging, and learning outcomes for elementary-age Black students at an inner-city elementary school. In Cycle 1 of this study, information pertaining to the topic of…

Picturebooks can broaden students' understanding of diverse experiences and perspectives, both within and beyond their own worlds; in addition, picturebooks can affirm students' identities (Botelho & Rudman, 2009) and create spaces for critical conversations. Using the theoretical framework for critical multicultural analysis, this qualitative…

Background: COVID-19 has resulted in some educators and allied health practitioners transitioning to online delivery of literacy instruction. As far as we are aware, no studies have investigated online delivery of comprehensive literacy instruction for children with Down syndrome. Aims: In this pilot study, we explore the efficacy of online…

The sense of efficaciousness for engaging diverse learners was examined with twenty-four pre-service teachers concurrently enrolled in a junior-level Creative Arts methods course and a field experience course with placements in K-2 general education classrooms. The pre-service teachers participated in music and literacy activities in their…

As diversity grows in schools, educators must consider how to create environments where students develop respect and empathy toward others. Integrating high quality multicultural literature provides meaningful experiences for students to investigate society and acknowledge and interrogate their own beliefs and biases. While many teachers…

Book-sharing with young children is an established vehicle for promoting early language development and pre-literacy skills. Although parents are widely encouraged to read to their child and existing interventions provide instruction on book-sharing strategies, there is a prominent lack of guidance for parents on how to choose the book itself.…