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This paper describes the visuals second grade students included in their own information book compositions during a science unit on weather during which multimodal science trade books on the topic of weather were read aloud. First, the multimodal nature of the information books used in the unit are described. Second, the teacher's talk about visual representations during read alouds of books on weather is presented. And third, the children's own information books about weather topics are examined for inclusion of labeled pictorial illustrations with accompanying captions and graphical representations. These analyses reveal that 1) information book authors vary in their use of visual information, 2) some graphics may be more salient for children, and 3) children's use of pictorial illustrations and graphical representations in their own compositions seems to be impacted by both teacher attention to particular types of visual representations and immersion in information book graphics. (Contains 7 figures and 1 table.)

Lists 105 books selected by children as the best of those published in l984. (FL)

Annotates 112 books selected by children as the best of those published in l986. (FL)

Lists 115 children's books for (1) all ages, (2) beginning independent reading, (3) younger readers, (4) middle grades, and (5) older readers. Titles were selected from a choice of 4,000 and voted on by children in five test areas. (JC)

Provides three responses from reading professionals concerning a question about students who cannot relate story ideas after reading. Suggests determining the students' reading interests to help them find books which they will find more enjoyable. (MG)

We present a sampling of recently published picturebook biographies with noteworthy endpapers. First, we highlight scholarship related to picturebook biographies and peritextual features. Second, we present examples of three ways endpapers function, using nine picturebook biographies while also incorporating pedagogical suggestions related to the endpapers. Last, we explain the importance of noticing peritextual features in picturebook biographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the visuals second grade students included in their own information book compositions during a science unit on weather during which multimodal science trade books on the topic of weather were read aloud. First, the multimodal nature of the information books used in the unit are described. Second, the teacher's talk about visual representations during read alouds of books on weather is presented. And third, the children's own information books about weather topics are examined for inclusion of labeled pictorial illustrations with accompanying captions and graphical representations. These analyses reveal that 1) information book authors vary in their use of visual information, 2) some graphics may be more salient for children, and 3) children's use of pictorial illustrations and graphical representations in their own compositions seems to be impacted by both teacher attention to particular types of visual representations and immersion in information book graphics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid the COVID‐19 pandemic, students, families, and educators have faced unprecedented challenges. These challenges have disproportionately impacted racially/ethnically diverse, low‐income communities because of long‐standing health system, socioeconomic, and educational inequities. With closures of schools, libraries, and childcare centers, many students were disconnected from their community and did not have access to books. Parents' and educators' concerns centered around students falling behind academically and socially. In this article, we explain the motivation and rationale for a social justice initiative to provide students of color from low‐poverty areas with access to high‐quality multicultural children's literature at home. We describe our literacy partnership with a local after‐school program serving participant students and families, research underpinning the initiative, and our process for selecting high‐quality multicultural literature book sets and offer suggestions about how to facilitate comprehension and motivational support for home‐based reading. We also offer a list of recommended literature and discuss outcomes and implications of this project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infographics are appearing in children's magazines, picture books, and informational texts. Understanding, and ultimately creating, these complex visual representations of information or data requires higher level thinking skills to analyze and understand how the text and graphics work together to convey meaning. The authors provide a framework for infographic exploration, investigation, creation, and integration into larger writing pieces. Each phase of the framework includes specific considerations to assist teachers in scaffolding their students' infographic learning. Providing students with support through exposure to many types of infographics and modeling infographic interpretation prepares students to critically examine and use infographics as they encounter them both in and out of school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author compared preschool teachers' and students' responses to informational texts (nonfiction) as they read together in small groups. Drawing from reader response theory, similarities and differences were found in teachers' and students' reading behaviors. Teachers took a predominantly efferent stance toward the texts because the teachers' primary purposes were to provide students with information on topics of interest and to expose students to academic vocabulary and content. Conversely, students moved fluidly along the efferent–aesthetic continuum as they sought information, engaged in perspective taking, and responded with strong emotions and through dramatic interpretation. Based on these findings, teachers might reflect on their past experiences and reactions to informational texts so they can widen their own repertoires of response and encourage students to respond in a wide variety of ways during read‐alouds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish–English cognates (words from ancestrally related languages similar in appearance and meaning) are plentiful in students' reading materials, but few researchers have documented elementary‐age bilingual (Spanish–English) students' actual use of cognates. The authors drew from two qualitative research studies to show how bilingual students can be taught to use cognates to improve their spelling, writing, and reading. The third‐grade teacher's instruction included a cognate definition and examples, identification of the written similarities and differences in Spanish–English cognates, and the completion of cognate lessons related to the students' English instruction on electricity. The fourth graders received cognate instruction to support their English reading comprehension. After instruction, most of the third graders used cognates for spelling and writing but not for reading, whereas most of the fourth graders used cognates to improve their English reading comprehension. Recommendations are made for how to teach cognates to bilingual students in bilingual, English‐only, and English as a second language classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on research‐informed principles for primary‐grade vocabulary instruction, the authors developed a series of engaging vocabulary units for a first‐grade class. The units, focused on the explicit teaching of target words and the efficient highlighting of larger sets of semantically related words, involved five complementary elements: reading aloud, explicit teaching of word meanings, rich discussion, independent extension activities, and informal assessment. These elements were implemented within whole‐class, small‐group, and independent center structures, worked synergistically to support students' word learning, and promoted active student engagement. The authors describe three of the vocabulary units, present data used to document student learning, and discuss implications from the project for teachers searching for feasible, flexible ways to implement rich vocabulary instruction within densely packed daily schedules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors detail word‐learning strategies from a small‐scale early reading intervention for first graders (N = 3) focused on Greek and Latin roots in science‐based informational texts. Educators can provide explicit instruction to support student awareness of word structures in content‐specific vocabulary, and this instruction can be adapted to meet the needs of students at different reading levels. The current intervention involved an exploration of morphology, including the study of Greek and Latin roots and of affixes, and its contribution to word relations and meanings. The intervention was designed to complement Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards. The instructional approaches included root identification tasks, problem‐solving techniques, and practice with word production by analyzing selected terms in authentic scientific texts. Analyses suggested that opportunities to personalize and practice with roots and affixes, specifically through interactive activities such as discussions and creating visual representations, supported the development of students' morphological awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many students have experienced author visits, but one K–4 elementary school aimed to meet its school improvement goal to motivate writers through a yearlong collaboration with a published children's book author/illustrator, Ryan Hipp. This article details the positive components of the yearlong collaboration that included three in‐person sessions and blog posts. Transcribed observations of the assemblies, readings of the blog, and transcribed pre‐ and poststudy interviews of nine teachers, 36 students, and Hipp revealed that collaboration with him triggered and maintained situational interest. Students were interested in writing and motivated to write because of Hipp's influence, and the constant connection with the author/illustrator helped ensure the success of the collaboration. Teaching implications of author visits are detailed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sourcing involves interrogating historical documents, asking questions about their attributes to determine their relation to the historical event or time period under study. In this article, a university researcher and a sixth‐grade teacher describe a set of heuristics that the teacher developed for supporting her students' sourcing of historical texts. The heuristics derive from findings of a longitudinal case study that the researcher conducted about the teacher's learning to shift to a disciplinary literacy approach in her social studies classroom, as well as the teacher's insights about her own process of learning to scaffold her students' sourcing. Considering the limited resources for addressing elementary teachers' sourcing instruction, these heuristics are offered so other teachers can adopt and adapt them to their own teaching contexts to meet the specific, diverse needs of their students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Many students plagiarize unintentionally. Students are told that plagiarizing is claiming someone else's ideas or information as their own, and they are told to cite sources because failure to do so is dishonest and plagiarism has serious consequences. So, students are told to paraphrase, not plagiarize, but are they taught explicitly how to paraphrase? Even when a writer summarizes a source, plagiarism can result if the writer stays too close to the wording or sentence structure of the original source. Plagiarism can be avoided through students’ use of the RRLC (read, reread, list, compose) strategy. When students use the RRLC strategy to compose a summary and to paraphrase content from a bulleted list, they write using their own unique syntax, thus avoiding plagiarism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Building a better public education system for our children begins with providing students with real‐world learning experiences from the very beginning. To this end, the authors explored how two kindergarten teachers scaffolded scientific literacy learning using an authentic multimodal text before, during, and after a zoo field trip in ways that fostered the identity of kinder “scientists” along with good literacy skills. From their experiences, public educators can help their students develop strong science knowledge and scientific literacy through rich literacy practices intertwined with learning science content, over a period of time, with multiple, varied, and scaffolded uses of an authentic, multimodal text and paired with authentic, out‐of‐school learning experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Literacy instruction does not just happen during the language arts block, as students can learn more about reading and writing during science, social studies, and mathematics. This department features examples of how teachers can teach literacy across various content areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This Teaching Tip describes the use of children's literature to help second‐grade students meet Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and for Mathematics. During a shared reading experience, students used manipulatives to represent plot and characters while demonstrating mathematical reasoning. The article offers instructional ideas, guiding questions, authentic student work samples, and a rationale for using children's literature and mathematics manipulatives to help students make connections across disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author questions the 'just right' leveling of student texts as having put limitations on students and teachers in promoting literacy. The historical background for the leveling of text and readers is described. The author identifies a number of unintended consequences associated with the use of leveling and guided reading. Alternatives to leveling and guided reading are presented, with a particular focus on work in informational texts in inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A process writing project in a third-grade classroom explored the idea of using nonfiction mentor texts to assist students in writing their own creative informational texts about animals. By looking at author craft and structure during close reading activities with nonfiction Twin Texts, students were taught how to emulate these techniques in their own writing. A process for implementation of the project is presented here. The project included mini-lessons on various aspects of writing improvement such as crafting strong leads, using specific revision strategies, and exploring narrative elements in some informational texts. The results suggest that students were able to replicate writing style strategies found in mentor texts. Final writing drafts displayed how students included important facts in their informational writing and presented these facts in an engaging and powerful way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Five teacher educators discuss children's literature addressing Earth's changing climate. They present tools for evaluating the quality of resources likely to help teachers and students stimulate conceptual and emotional development rather than anxiety or oversimplification. An annotated selection of current books along with a checklist to evaluate children's literature oriented toward issues of climate change is presented to help teachers choose appropriate literature for facilitating students' development of scientifically, socially, and ecologically responsible thinking and decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most elementary schools, students spend more time reading and writing narrative texts and less time with informational texts. Yet, the Common Core State Standards advocate that informational texts comprise nearly half of K-8 students' entire academic reading, including content areas like science and social studies. The authors propose remixing informational writing with literature, new literacies, and scientific content as a way to mitigate the divide between narrative and expository texts. This article describes an instructional approach for integrating informational reading and writing with scientific content knowledge by: (1) reading and analyzing mentor texts, (2) furthering scientific understanding through Internet Workshops and (3) teaching students how to interpret and transform scientific content by composing informational poetic riddles, or as students prefer to call them, ' What Am I?' riddles. This instructional approach can serve as a model and scaffold for teachers to use with other integrated units and Internet Workshops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students must be proficient readers of nonfiction texts to be successful in school and life. Since engaging students in this genre can be challenging, this article focuses on how students can respond digitally and socially to nonfiction through the use of free, secure social networks. Not only can students become more engaged in learning when using these networks, but their technology knowledge can increase as well. An overview of four social networks is included, along with helpful information that teachers need to know as they begin to use the networks. This article presents interesting application ideas for using social networks with nonfiction that teachers can immediately incorporate into their classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to recently published national standards, elementary students should engage in engineering design activities. This article outlines ways that teachers can use literacy instruction to support young students' engineering design activity, such as by selecting texts in which characters face problems that can be solved through engineering, providing students with opportunities to practice comprehension strategies while reading those texts, and modeling for them how to write a variety of texts that are relevant to engineers' practices. The authors describe how they integrated this type of literacy instruction into engineering units in third- and fifth-grade classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article includes discussion about a formative study in which inquiry was used as ESL instruction for second-grade emerging bilinguals. Drawing on the literature and research surrounding English learners, comprehension, informational text and inquiry, the teachers and researcher integrated comprehension strategy instruction with inquiry and research skills as an instructional approach to support the development of informational reading, writing, listening and speaking in English. The five most frequently used and instructionally essential strategies identified for facilitating the research projects during the study are reported. Each strategy and anchor lesson is explained along with the teachers' narrative account of how they continued facilitating inquiry throughout the week with teaching tips they developed throughout the unit of inquiry. The classroom teachers share challenges, successes and reasons for using inquiry with accompanying photos of student work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African American children's literature has a potentially powerful role to play in increasing reading engagement for African American boys. Unfortunately, this body of literature is not always used effectively in schools. Many teachers use African American books as an add-on to pre-exisiting curriculum rather than fully exploring the topics, themes, and images that characterize the literature and that speak in powerful ways to issues of relevance in the lives of African American boys. A close examination of nine picture book biographies and one historical fiction account of famous African American men reveals the rich potential of this literature for making a difference in children's lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early childhood instruction tends to focus heavily on literacy development, sometimes at the expense of rich concept development ( CEP, 2007; Neuman, 2006; NRC, 2012; NSTA, 2014). Because of the emphasis on literacy instruction, many early childhood teachers integrate content areas, such as science, in literacy instruction through read alouds of texts that involve science concepts. This article explores the challenges some teachers experience when trying to integrate science and literacy instruction in early childhood and explains ways in which teachers can effectively support science concept development in read alouds. We argue against the use of narrative texts to teach scientific concepts, explain how and why informational texts are much better suited to that task, and present four guiding principles and instructional challenges for teaching science concepts in read alouds of informational texts, illustrated using classroom examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development and institution of the Common Core Standards, teachers must be prepared to integrate content areas such as social studies within the language arts curriculum. Teachers following the suggestions of the Common Core Standards should develop practical and meaningful strategies within their classrooms that encourage and support writing and reading instruction along with content area skills and knowledge. Traveling books promote the integration of writing, reading, and the social studies while also fostering the home-school connection which is evidenced to stimulate students' early childhood development, both academically and socially. Suggestions are made for utilizing traveling books including an outline of the processes to follow to create class traveling books. Examples are given using this strategy for the integration of literacy, writing, Common Core standards, and the home-school connection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As teachers organize classroom schedules to meet curricular demands and time constraints, they strive to seek ways to motivate and sustain student engagement in quality vocabulary instruction, enjoyable learning experiences, and interesting informational books. This article addresses these concerns and describes a vocabulary acquisition strategy called the Generative Vocabulary Matrix (GVM). The GVM is an interactive concept organizer that scaffolds student engagement in meaning-making discourse to develop background knowledge. Teacher teams applied research on motivation and literacy to design a disciplinary science unit using a GVM as a tool for supporting conceptual understanding within a Learning Workshop context. Because learning activities resembled the language and practices that experts actually use in their field, including drawing from a richly structured schema, the GVM supports a disciplinary literacy approach for young learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Composing with different modes - image, sound, video and the written word - to respond to and analyze literary and informational text helps students develop as readers and digital communicators. This article showcases five multimodal strategies for engaging children in rich literature-based learning using digital tools and Internet resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A question being asked by teachers across the country is, How can I teach students to acquire both the skills and knowledge demanded by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) while simultaneously guiding them to read challenging texts such as those presented in Appendix B of the CCSS? Answering this invites the integration of ideas and the innovation of novel instructional plans. Illustrating close reading procedures in two classrooms- one 1st grade and one 5th grade- this article provides an answer by detailing the manner in which a student might approach a challenging science text using annotated reading, partner talk, text-based questioning and reflective writing to build competence and a capacity for reading, writing, listening, and speaking about informational texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A group of elementary school reading teachers used their time in a Professional Learning Community to develop a systematic intervention to address the needs of struggling readers in grades 3 to 5. Working as a team, they identified a collection of books that was culturally diverse, high interest, appealing to boys and girls, aligned with curriculum across the grades, and equally representative of fiction and non-fiction. Using the collection of books as a starting place, the group wrote lessons that addressed decoding, vocabulary development, comprehension strategies, and responding to standardized test question stems. The resulting intervention led to growth in reading level as well as accelerated progress on the state mandated end of grade test in reading. The PLC offered this group of experienced reading teachers a district-supported framework for working together to create a locally relevant solution for the students they teach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Common Core State Standards place unprecedented emphasis on visual text-appropriately so, as visual components are increasingly ubiquitous in many kinds of text. This shift in emphasis requires substantial changes in our teaching. Concepts of print need to be expanded to include concepts of graphics, and specific graphical devices, such as diagrams, timelines, and tables, need to become the focus of systematic instruction. This article shares research-based instructional practices that may support children's development in this increasingly important area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People who have impacted generations have left legacies we can explore today through biographies. The 5L instructional design introduced in this article includes five components: Listen, Learn, Locate, Link, and Legacy. In the 'Listen' section, teachers use storytelling and read-alouds to introduce individuals who shaped history. During the 'Learn' component, each student selects a historical figure and, using print and online sources, examines his or her life. In the 'Locate' portion of the design, students use graphic organizers to locate and record important events in the person's life alongside related world events or cultural opportunities of the period. In the 'Link' component, students connect with someone else to share their work and receive feedback and questions. The final section, 'Legacy,' encourages students to consider the financial, intellectual, social, or other kind of legacy left by the historical figure as well as the legacies they themselves want to leave the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tells the story of one second grade teacher and the ways she integrated informational texts into her classroom. Reported by the classroom teacher and a researcher who studied her practice for a year, the manuscripts details the ways Michelle (the classroom teacher) embedded informational texts in her classroom primarily within the context of inquiry. The two authors first report on the ways Michelle integrated informational texts across the school day and school year, and then present in more detail one inquiry unit on habitats. The authors conclude by arguing that that learning about informational texts is most productive when embedded within inquiry-focused classrooms engaged in learning from informational texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes how one teacher implemented a memoir genre study in her sixth grade classroom using a writing workshop approach. It begins by outlining the author's philosophy and rationale for teaching writing in this manner. This is followed by a discussion of how one could organize one's classroom for a memoir genre study. Several significant mini-lessons are then described which focus on brainstorming, planning, developing effective titles, leads and conclusions, structuring a memoir texts, the use of the senses in memoir writing and strategies for revision. The aim of this article is to equip practitioners with the practical knowledge they need if they are seeking to implement a memoir genre study in their elementary school classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the method of reading aloud in second-grade classrooms in order to model the structure of information books. The authors discuss a study of a second-grade classroom in which students were assigned the project of writing information books after studying informational texts about weather. They suggest that an understanding of the genre of information texts is especially useful in the 21st-century classroom due to the rise of mass media and communications in everyday life. Aspects of students' informational compositions are discussed including descriptive attributes, comparisons, and the use of timeless present tense. The authors emphasize the reading teacher's role in instructing students regarding genre elements and patterns of information books.

The article focuses on how the writing of feature articles can help students engage with their writing and identify what writing activities encourage their success. The author focuses on the use of feature articles as a nonfiction genre in the study of other subjects including social studies. Several lessons are discussed, along with student responses to challenges such as selecting topics. Other topics include structuring articles, working with facts and statistics, and creating article titles.

Presents a study which investigated the use of nonfiction trade books in primary education in the U.S. Rationale for using nonfiction trade books; Observations on inappropriateness of reading level materials in primary education; Factors which kept teachers from using more informational texts in their classrooms.