Children's play experiences have a profound impact on all areas of their growth, learning, and development. Play Today: A Guide for Families describes ideas and examples of quality play experiences that can be offered to preschool and school-age children by their families and caregivers. This guide puts a focus on play-based learning for children…

The experiences of children's play have a profound impact on all areas of their growth and development. Memories of play can be vivid and detailed. These memories often have a treasured place in our hearts and minds. Educators and parents have a special opportunity to ask themselves, "What kind of memories of play do I hope for the children…

Parent involvement in children's language and literacy development is a continuum. Parents enhance their newborn baby's language and vocabulary growth, whereas with older children parents are involved in school and provide support by engaging in learning activities such as assisting with homework. Parent involvement is an important part of…

Interactive Literacy Activities, or ILAs, broadly refer to activities that facilitate interaction between adults and children for the purpose of promoting literacy and language development. It is essential to make ILAs developmentally and culturally appropriate for children and to use an approach that integrates various activities in order to…

Librarians and teachers can tap a powerful source for motivating children to read by involving parents and creating a partnership between home and school. This guide shows educators how to encourage literacy and reading by establishing a book club for parents, teachers, librarians, and students. Chapter 1 discusses directions for starting a book…

Strategies for encouraging positive interaction among adults are suggested. The objective is to help teachers and other adults who work with children to interact in more meaningful ways with other adults including teachers, parents, school volunteers, classroom visitors, and community members. Strategies are presented in five topical areas: 1)…

As parents adapt to meet today's changing definition of literacy, they are often left with many questions about what is happening in their child's classroom. To help address parents' concerns, this guide uses clear, everyday language and classroom examples to explain and illustrate some of the key concepts and terms in literacy acquisition and…

Explains how to implement cooperative learning in the classroom and reasons for doing so. The process involves students working in pairs or small groups to achieve a common goal with the teacher monitoring group activity. Concludes that cooperative learning promotes the academic, social, and emotional growth of students. (DMM)

This article describes a learning activity in which preschool children learn cooperative skills and metacognitive strategies as they master sharing strategies guided by leaves on a "sharing tree." Leaf colors (red, yellow, green) cue the child to stop, slow down and think about sharing and playing with others, and go ahead with a sharing activity.…

The manual is designed to provide special education preschool teachers with a guide for parent involvement activities. The guide presents 32 activities divided into three topical areas: (1) communicating with parents (orientation packet, newsletter, school-home notebook, bulletin board for parents); (2) resource activities (field trips, home…

Offers Home Literacy Ideas--practical suggestions that involve children in home literacy. Discusses classroom activities and ideas for supporting literacy at home. (SR)

This book presents summaries and activities associated with 15 books to read with kindergarten through second graders that explore social issues central to their lives. Thematic topics include the give and take of friendship; bullies, pests, and teasing; isolation and reaching out across generations; families; and working together. It features…

This handbook was originally intended for parents whose children attend programs which use "The Creative Curriculum for Early Childhood" (CCEC), but the informaton is also useful to parents whose children attend early childhood programs using other curriculum models based on child development theories. The purpose of the handbook is to…

Eight teachers contribute their ideas for successfully working with parents. Included are: a parent information/resource center; guidelines for parent teacher conferences; ideas for using parents as classroom volunteers; and skill development activities that parents can use at home with their children. (SJL)

This guide outlines the characteristics of dyslexia and its educational implications. Parental understanding of the problem and support for intervention efforts are stressed. Various learning activities are suggested, along with guidelines to help the child cope with the disability, become better organized, study for tests, etc. (JDD)