Search

The NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction was established in 1989 to honor the contributions of authors and illustrators to children's nonfiction literature. This year's winner of the NCTE [...]

The NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction recognizes books, authors, and illustrators that make outstanding contributions to children's nonfiction literature. This award was established in 1989 by the elementary [...]

The set of books recognized by the 2021 committee of the Orbis Pictus Award for Excellence in Nonfiction reflects an array of perspectives, topics, and genres of nonfiction literature for [...]

This teacher research study took place in a bilingual second-grade classroom in the southwestern United States. The study investigates the "cuentos" told during "platicas literarias"/literature discussions and explores how five young Latinas used their cuentos to communicate meaning through intertextual connections. These intertextual connections revealed that young children from linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomically diverse backgrounds are indeed capable of drawing on their cultural traditions--in this case storytelling--to make meaning. Their "cuentos" were used as the building blocks for the "platicas literarias" and provided counternarratives to the prevailing deficit view used to measure the academic potential of Latinos. (Contains 3 tables.)

Teachers and preservice teachers offered initial assumptions about children and families from backgrounds different from their own, "Letting them speak Spanish in school will hinder their ability to learn English and also hold back the other children" and "His house will be messy and dirty." Through experiences in the children's homes and communities, however, teachers and preservice teachers began to recognize that assumptions such as these are inaccuracies that negatively define and label children and families and limit teachers' visions for what is educationally possible. They also began to recognize the power that teachers hold to either perpetuate single stories or interrupt them by providing counter narratives that make visible the rich resources that children and families bring to schools. (Contains 2 photos.)

Tim O'Keefe, Rise Reinier and Kevin Gallagher, Bruce Morgan, Julia Lopez-Robertson, Donna Santman, JoAnn Wong-Kam, Sharon Hill, and Linda Christensen provide short essays describing their personal visions of possibility about literacy and how they maintain that passion and vision. Across a range of contexts, they reflect on the ways in which their work with children and teachers connect to larger issues of literacy, language, inquiry, voice, and social justice.

The benefits of being a bilingual person and how it was perceived in a non-Spanish community such as Columbus, South Carolina are discussed. Children have seen the value of being bilingual and were proud of it since bilingualism was considered cool among their peers. Adults must learn to drop the issue with bilinguals and embrace the children's attitude toward the Spanish language.

All children, regardless of their first language, social language, social class, culture or beliefs have the right to a quality education. A teacher relates her experience of culminating a project based on teaching in a holistic manner while at the same time incorporating the children's home language and culture.

An introduction to a series of articles that review several books is presented including "Change Is Gonna Come: Transforming Literacy Education for African American Students," by Patricia A. Edwards, Gwendolyn, Thompson McMillon, and Jennifer D. Turner, "Writing: Teachers and Children at Work," by Donald H. Graves, and "A Fresh Look at Writing," by Donald H. Graves.