What makes an outstanding book for a young reader? Although it would be hard to create a rubric for every book, experienced teachers recognize them quickly. They fascinate and captivate with both their content and style. Award-winning trade books inspire young readers to want more... more information, more books, more inquiry, more science. The…

Although scholars have long advocated the use of informational texts in the primary grades, gaps and inconsistencies in research have produced conflicting reports on how teachers used these texts in the primary curriculum, and how primary students dealt with them during instruction and on their own (e.g., Saul & Dieckman, 2005). Thus, to add…

In this article, the author states that as educators and politicians across the country continue to scratch their heads in dismay at how male secondary students seem to be lagging behind in reading, it is useful to look beyond all of the genetic, physiological, and even sociological theories so often proffered by breathless experts. Anyone who…

Character education has been part of the educational and societal landscape for millennia. Through consensus, school communities teach and model traits that influence the character and moral development of children. Children learn character traits from others--both good and bad--whether that is intended or not. To avoid leaving character education…

Today's classrooms have no real walls! Students explore the world on field trips, during virtual journeys on the world wide web, and through the books they read. These pathways help them fly to the ends of the universe to satisfy their scientific curiosity. Again this year, the professionals of the NSTA/CBC Review Panel for Outstanding Science…

Providing practical guidance and resources, this book helps teachers harness the power of children's literature for developing ELLs' literacy skills and language proficiency. The authors show how carefully selected fiction, nonfiction, and poetry can support students' learning across the curriculum. Criteria and guiding questions are presented for…

Three decades have passed since federal law mandated inclusion--ending, officially at least, a system that segregated students with disabilities from the rest of the student population. The publishing world has yet to catch up. In children's books, characters with disabilities often inhabit their own separate world, where disability is the only…

This article describes the Voices of American Teens project in which seventh grade reading students were engaged with multicultural short stories. The steps taken to select texts and prepare materials for the projects are explained, and the project's implementation is described. Examples from students' projects and written responses demonstrate…

A large, suburban, Southeastern university conducted a multi-method study on the effectiveness of its common reader program in meeting multiple learning objectives. Data from approximately 700 respondents, all of whom were first-year students enrolled in 37 sections of the university's traditional first-year seminar course, revealed that the…

The WWC practice guide "Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade" presents a set of evidence-based practices that teachers and other educators can use to successfully teach reading comprehension to young readers. The guide, developed by a panel of experts, presents a set of evidence-based practices that teachers…

Simply defined, the term browsing means: "to casually look over or through an aggregate of things, especially in search of something of interest." When students come up to a librarian and say, "I don't know what book to get!" the cause is either they are not sure how to look through the collection of materials, or they are not sure where their…

Young adults deserve our best as parents, educators and community members. The Michael L. Printz award winning books, instituted by the Young Adult Library Association, form a recent grouping of current literature. Novels worthy of the Printz Award explore physical, emotional, and social themes important in the lives of young adults. This library…

This article describes a 7th grade Language Arts teacher's investigation into whether she could use her district-prescribed literature selections to effectively increase her students' awareness of sociocultural issues. She used an instructional strategy called Think-Aloud to explicitly discuss social and cultural issues as they related to the…

The purpose of this study was to explore one South Korean mother's literacy practices after she had migrated to Canada for the purpose of overseeing her children's education. Using a case study method, we focused on language, media, domains, and purposes of literacy practices in Korea and Canada. Data were obtained through two semi-structured…

Despite the current focus on literacy in reading, mathematics, and science in public schools, throughout the history of education in the United States, educational purposes generally have included more than an emphasis of basic academic skills (Rothsetin, Wilder, & Jacobsen, 2007, p. 9). Existing accountability systems that hold educators…