Improving the reading ability of young students could hardly be a more urgent priority for our elementary schools. Two thirds of American fourth and eighth graders are not able to read proficiently--and the outcomes are far worse for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2019 showed that only…

As a dance teacher in public elementary schools for the last 25 years, Janet Adams has always recognized the creative link between dance and writing, and offered her students structured opportunities to combine the two. She has also honed her management skills and kept a pretty tight ship. Creative expression, though, be it through dancing or…

Tour Across America is an interdisciplinary, project-based, multimodal (IPM) activity where students get the opportunity to apply what they learn to a real-life situation while illustrating the interdisciplinary nature of literacy. It provides students with a high-interest, creative platform to review, reinforce, and integrate learned literacy…

Teaching children in the primary grades the text structures and features used by authors of information text has been shown to improve comprehension of information texts and provide the scaffolding and support these children need in order to write their own information texts. As teachers implement the "English Language Arts Common Core State…

Literacy practices and sociocultural contexts have greatly defined and influenced each other. The role language plays in mobilizing both revolution and progress is well delineated in Congchao Hua's article comparing language learning curriculum in China over three decades, from the 1970s to the 2000s. The universality of the social and political…

In this article, I argue for the need to improve teacher preparation (TP) courses for elementary education student teachers to teach English-language arts (ELA). In particular, these TP programs need to support student teachers in delivering culturally responsive pedagogy within rural classrooms. Twenty-three student teachers participated in this…

This publication helps educators create differentiated reading instruction experiences for their students by showing the relationship between two distinct resources: Student Center Activities (SCAs) and the Common Core State Standards (CCSSs). Reading specialists, reading coaches, and teachers will find this document useful in lesson planning, as…

The rural elementary principal has the ultimate responsibility for bringing all stakeholders together to focus and improve student achievement. In doing so, they must be able to provide knowledge of national, state, and local policies that influence achievement. Response to Intervention is a tiered framework for school's to provide…

This article explores one context in which language arts instruction can be enhanced through digital technologies. It describes how preservice elementary education teachers first investigated aspects of visual literacy and then engaged in digital and traditional multimodal forms of response to historical nonfiction literature. They read,…

"Houghton Mifflin: Invitations to Literacy," developed by the Houghton Mifflin Company, is an integrated K-8 reading and language arts program. The philosophy behind the program is that literacy instruction should stimulate, teach, and extend the communication and thinking skills that will allow students to become effective readers,…

Discusses five guiding principles (from scholars' work in semiotics) for helping teachers explore the arts and literacy instruction, intended as a framework for understanding representation of meaning, in whatever sign system or art form. Discusses why understanding semiotic systems is important to language arts instruction that represents meaning…

Inquiry-based science instruction can provide a rich context in which to build literacy skills in the elementary grades. The authors discuss the benefits of incorporating reading, writing, and speaking into science instruction. They describe the results of research on two models for combining language arts and science--the Science IDEAS model and…

Explores some of the implications of developing a curriculum that strives for dramatic literacy. (PD)

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…

Addresses the questions of how literacy is defined, by whom, and for what purposes, using critical literacy as a lens of analysis. Considers the "normative assumptions" that are present within the language arts curriculum. Suggests that any methodological approach to what it means to be a "literate" person is based on an…