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For today's elementary teacher, comprehension instruction must include strategies that include viewing to make sense of information in multimodal texts. Using case study methodology, this research describes the extent of how struggling readers notice images in picture books in order to make meaning. Data sources include written transcriptions of 13 video-taped reading sessions, the participants' criterion-based fluency measures and word identification proficiencies per book, and the researcher's field notes. Results reveal the participants most often noticed visual information in interpreting and then used the visual memory of these "noticings" to decode and increase oral reading accuracy. The results further reveal the ways in which the second graders' processed nonverbal information by (1) transacting with images/text via socio-cultural references, (2) interpreting images via representational aspects of the world, interactions of social relations, and compositions of integrated texts, and (3) questioning images/text. While "noticings" of visual information exceed "noticings" of verbal/written information, the students' meaning-making transactions are apparent with both images and text. Frequently, the participants' processing of information includes noticing the composition of an image. Yet, interpretations reference representations from their experiential worlds, such that "gaps" between what is represented/noticed and what the students' knew from prior experiences generated questions.

This teaching tip manuscript demonstrates how picture book illustrations can be used as an inquiry tool that facilitates one's connecting of visual investigations in a picture to the process of generating self-questions. Techniques suggested to promote self-questioning are (1) introducing young readers to an interactive picture book read aloud with prompts, such as, “What do you notice?” and “What questions do you have?” instead of teacher-driven prompts that result in student statements, (2) using selected perplexing picture book illustrations as a medium for fostering and modeling the self-questioning process, (3) partnering readers together so that they investigate picture book illustrations, determine questions, and search for answers collaboratively, and (4) encouraging independent reading of self-selected picture books to apply self-questioning techniques.

Using a case study design, this investigation examined the effective teaching characteristics of nontraditional, culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) student teachers placed in rural, elementary schools with high populations of Latino/a students. Data collected reflected high percentages of effective teaching characteristics in multiple domains with specific indicators reflective of consistent teaching over time. A discussion of these findings considered aspects within the distance-delivery model that facilitated the CLD participants' development of effective teaching and noted (1) consistent leadership, (2) explicit teacher instruction within CLD school settings, and (3) the strong cohesive nature of the CLD participants' cohort as positively affecting the CLD participants' teaching effectiveness.

The purpose of this study was to describe how bilingual, Mexican American third graders engaged with culturally relevant picture books during whole-group book discussions and then to further examine how culture (specifically) was reflected in efferent and aesthetic responses. Engagement was defined as the nature in which the readers interpreted by connecting with a specific literature selection. Participants in the study demonstrated that engagement with all the picture book texts was high, with culture observed to be a key common denominator for which cues were selected and either extracted in terms of storybook interpretations or lived through in terms of personal experiences.

This article describes a collaborative, distance-delivered, teacher preparation program for rural, culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) teacher candidates. Multiple institutions partnered with one university in order to diversify the teaching force in the region and meet the needs of CLD students living there. In describing the program’s design and implementation phases, a focus on cultural responsiveness to the candidates’ needs, their rural settings, and high populations of Latino/a students in the rural areas in which they were trained is presented. Assessment of each implementation phase guided program practice for the participants’ training as effective teachers. Relevant discussion indicates that even with responses to the pre-service teachers’ academic, social, and financial needs, issues of communication and barriers imposed by distances emerged. Additionally, while collaborative bonds among the partner institutions facilitated the candidates’ training as effective teachers, the building of multi-institutional partnerships concurrently with the implementation phases caused participants and implementers stress.