Describes a "synthesis display," a literature-related activity that helps students who are acquiring English join in the reading class while simultaneously serving the needs of proficient speakers. (MM)

Describes a dictionary game, adapted from the game "Balderdash," which builds skills in vocabulary and dictionary use, creative writing, and impromptu speaking, and simultaneously develops the ability to evaluate definitions critically. (MM)

Explains how storytelling can help preschoolers develop literacy skills and considers the instructional advantages over reading aloud of the give-and-take between audience and storyteller. Includes a description of a storytelling session. (DMM)

Profile of an "outstanding classroom professional," a grade three-four teacher who creates an atmosphere where students are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning. Examples of classroom activities are given, including "75 Ways to Share a Book." Respect for students' dignity and sensitivity to their concerns…

Describes a strategy that employs inverse tactics in teaching students to summarize stories using capsualization guides (brief, general summaries of stories with very few specifics). (MM)

Relates how student writers learn from one another when they share their writing with classmates in the "Author's Chair." (MM)

A special education teacher describes a successful class activity in songwriting for developmentally disabled students that has resulted in an album entitled "Special Music by Special Kids." (TE)

Describes how to motivate middle school readers by using story flow chart organizers. Provides a sample story flow chart for "The Long Way Around" by Jean McCord. (MM)

Provides questions that help students focus on the significant differences between words when studying synonyms. (MM)

Advocates the development of oral language along with emergent literacy. Notes that classroom environment is essential to oral language development, and suggests ways to support children's language development, such as providing firsthand experiences with their environment, and focusing on materials and events relevant to their lives. (MM)

Discusses connections between play and reading at the primary level. Notes that sociodramatic play has the clearest link to reading because it involves imagination and manipulation of time and reality. Argues that play facilitates reading when it involves both the manipulation of symbols and acts of reading and writing. (MM)

Describes a writing exercise in which the fictional world of a literary piece is transformed into a real world containing people, events, and places. Suggests that students choose their own writing topics and act out the results. Notes that sources of worlds include epic poems, Shakespeare, and Greek mythology. (RS)

Suggests ways to use riddles to teach reading, including riddle statements, clues to riddles, and riddle stories. (MM)

In this two-part article, the author contends that humane education occupies the position of "Ultima Thule," the far-away, unknown, region, within the constellation of "educations" which global education embraces. This article looks at its relationship to peace and development education and concludes with two classroom…

Describes a class project in collecting and performing oral history interviews. Argues that, by engaging students as field researchers to gather oral texts, and through the use of performance as a mode of historical, cultural, and interpersonal inquiry, students meet their interview subjects in a dialogic encounter designed to enhance their…