A teacher study group explores issues of home and community literacies with a goal of utilizing out-of-school literacies to support in-school literacy learning. The result was the beginning of a new mindfulness that allowed them to begin to recognize the existence and legitimacy of home and community literacies. They explored how their own biases…

This column explores the research that investigates teaching children with informational texts, which is a growing concern and focus in Common Core State Standards (CCSS.) The authors highlight empirical data that study the use of informational texts with young learners. The article is foregrounded in four key findings: make the texts available…

This column responds to a recent push in education policy toward a curriculum that requires students to read and write more informational texts. Most evident in the now well-known Common Core State Standards, these policy moves echo, in some ways, a call by researchers for more informational texts, particularly in primary classrooms. In this…

This essay addresses issues central to educational discourse in the United States by calling on texts and forms of inquiry generally unfamiliar and often unrecognized in current conversations regarding schooling and education, the Jewish tradition of Talmudic studies. Although Rabbis in this tradition never doubted the necessity of standards,…

This article honors Karen Smith, who has been given NCTE's Outstanding Educator in the English Language Arts award for 2009. Through the voices of many colleagues and former students, the article celebrates Karen as a teacher, learner, mentor, collaborator, scholar, storyteller, and visionary thinker and doer.

This article is a discussion of the decades of research linking achievement to the arts: the Cognitive, the Motivational, the Cultural, the Practical, etc. in response to districts cutting the arts to make way for the "basics," or to save money for literacy consultants and math programs to prepare students for standardized tests. The article…

How can teacher educators continue to ensure that literacy is placed in the forefront of the public domain? This author explores this question by first examining the narrow assumptions about reading and literacy that shaped the NCLB law. The author then argues that studies of literacy incorporating a sociocultural stance provide a different lens…

South Carolina Reading Initiative (SCRI), a long-term professional development initiative designed to help teachers investigate research-based literacy practices and helps to build a knowledge base from which to inform instructional decisions. A model that shares stories about literacy coaches as learners and highlight engagements that believe to…

The various stages of the teacher research group to experience what professional development committed to social justice looks like and sounds like over a four-year period are explored. The complex relationships between professional development and social transformation are discussed.

This study examines claims regarding the benefits of systematic and explicit phonics programs by comparing literature-based programs with commercial phonics-based programs to determine which best supports second grades' reading strategies and comprehension. Students in literature-based programs performed comparably in their use of graphophonics…

According to researchers, the ability to engage teachers and students in the data analysis process helps them to understand the complexities involved in the task. The flexibility of the strategies used in the process are examined by analyzing the experience of student researchers and teacher researchers.

Considers if a spelling program that is based on explicitly teaching words from children's own writing makes a difference in their conventional use of these words in future writing. Concludes that the spelling list they generated from student writings were not much better at predicting the words students would need for their journal writing than…

Describes a portion of the authors' work with a group of elementary teachers during the first eight months of an ongoing study investigating critical literacy in classrooms. Examines the understandings and classroom practices of two groups of teachers: newcomers and novices. Provides insights into the concerns teachers have when they begin…

Notes that reflection can support both teachers and students in the aftermath of a disaster. Examines the visual and written works of North Dakota and Minnesota children who were victims of the flooding of the Red River in 1997 as a representational way to gain a broad perspective on children's thinking about their experiences surrounding the…

Conducts a critical review of empirical research focused directly on reflection activities with prospective teachers, and conducts a study in the authors' own literacy methods courses to learn what their students do when asked to reflect on course assignments. Concludes that engaging future teachers in multiple opportunities to critique their own…