There exist passionate debates about the best way to teach children to read. Since the Bush administration, school districts receiving federal funds have been required to have research evidence justifying their methods of teaching reading, and in recent years the need for evidence-based practices have intensified with the "Science of…

The goals of this formative experiment were threefold: (a) to teach the story/visual elements and characteristics of picturebooks to pre-service teachers (PSTs) from the classroom teacher education department and to help them use these elements with elementary school students, (b) to enable the PSTs to create original self-published picturebooks…

This author grew up thinking that Scholastic was the most trusted name in children's books--endorsed by the holy trinity of school, teacher, and parents. However, he now claims that, these days, among other enterprises, Scholastic produces propaganda for the coal industry and passes it off as curriculum. Scholastic has partnered with the American…

We examine earnings records for more than 130,000 classroom teachers employed by Florida public schools between the 2001-2 and 2006-7 school years, roughly 35,000 of whom left the classroom during that time. A majority of those leaving the classroom remained employed by public school districts. Among teachers in grades 4-8 leaving for other…

This study examined the impact of e-book text-tracking design on 4th graders' (10-year-old children's) learning of Chinese characters. The e-books used in this study were created with Adobe Flash CS 5.5 and Action Script 3.0. This study was guided by two main questions: (1) Is there any difference in learning achievement (Chinese character…

Thanks to a student teacher's efforts, a fourth-grade class in Montgomery County, Maryland, spent half a day touring Bell Atlantic's facilities. Each student's most treasured memory was lunching with a Bell Atlantic employee "buddy" and visiting his or her work station. Children's thank you letters expressed their gratitude for…