This qualitative study examined kindergarten children's responses to their favorite books and their perspectives on reading at home and school. Data included observations, interviews with teachers, parents, and children, and "My Favorite Book" response sheets completed by children. Children's favorite books reflected various genres,…

Providing challenging curriculum in a literacy classroom of students whose reading abilities range widely can be a challenge. Integrating interdisciplinary book selections into a self-selected reading program, however, provides students with challenge by engaging them with big ideas. This article describes methods of integrating advanced…

Teachers in the US are increasingly required to use scripted curricula. Such instructional materials often reflect the overwhelming whiteness of the publishing industry through a lack of representation of authors and protagonists outside of white, middle-class normative characters. Implementation of such curricula stands in direct contrast to…

The study aimed to identify the beliefs of female student-teachers regarding children's literature and its importance in developing language skills of first primary classes at Petra University of Jordan in light of specialization and academic year variables. The study sample comprised (64) female student-teachers of B. A level at the faculty of…

Teachers of the d/Deaf (TODs) struggle to select appropriate storybooks for elementary-aged Deaf pre-readers who use American Sign Language (Hayes & Shaw, 1994). Hayes and Shaw (1994) created a book selection system for TODs, but their methodology was difficult to evaluate. The purpose of the present research was to create an empirically…

Recent study on gender representation in children's literature has focused on the representations themselves, while there is less research regarding how children talk about these depictions in texts. Our work, a qualitative study of how kindergarten-aged children discuss gender during picture book read-alouds, examined how children drew on the…

Teachers are the people performing the most important role in the educational process. In particular, in preschool education, teacher qualifications have become more crucial since the preschool period is a critical year in terms of all aspects of the child's development. It is the most important period in which children's attitudes towards book…

This article is an analysis of picture books and chapter books involving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender characters. Over 30 picture and chapter books were reviewed, each of which would be appropriate for use in elementary classrooms. For grades K-2, several picture books highlight different types of families, including families that…

Decision-making is essential for the work of teaching. Preservice teachers must learn to leverage knowledge about young readers' strengths, needs, and interests in order to plan and teach guided reading lessons skillfully. However, limited research examines preservice teachers' decision-making based on what they know about individual children. In…

This research aims at analysing technical specifications in a sample of Egyptian and French electronic storybooks (e-storybooks), to identify similarities and differences in technical specifications of children's e-storybooks and create a verified analysis list to be used for evaluation of e-storybooks. For this purpose, 32 e-storybooks in CD…

Teachers know that establishing a robust independent reading program takes more than giving kids a little quiet time after lunch. But how do they set up a program that will maximize their students' gains? Teachers have to know their students' reading levels inside and out, help them find just-right books, and continue to guide them during…

In this article, the authors discuss and share a collection of books, for teachers and children to read together, that focus on themes of peace and social justice. This article is written as a kind of textual professional development session in which teachers and pre-service teachers might participate from their own place and context. The first…

Informational texts include books as well as text in other formats such as magazines, newspapers, and online articles. The primary purpose of informational text is to provide information about the natural and social world. Literacy research cites many reasons why nonfiction/informational texts should be included in primary classrooms. The…

Early childhood and special educators are under growing demands to develop children's language and literacy skills through evidence-based practices. One promising research-based strategy for vocabulary and language development is dialogic reading (DR), which is an interactive picture book reading technique developed in the late 1980's by…

The early years are a time of joy and a period of great learning for young children. They are beginning to interact with print and experience the delights of being read to. This article presents the experiences of a kindergarten teacher during her class' independent reading time. Aside from just plain fun, children can acquire a wide range of…