Offers an interview with artist and author Javaka Steptoe, winner of the Coretta Scott King award for his book "In Daddy's Arms I Am Tall: African Americans Celebrating Fathers." Discusses his background in the arts, the variety of media he uses, how he begins thinking about his illustrations, his work with children's art, and aspects of his work.…

Presents brief annotations of 41 children's books that explore the concept of time from varied perspectives to elucidate some of its meanings for children. Groups books to focus on milestones in children's lives; how they enjoy spending their time; visiting the past in suspending time; recognizing different ways to mark time; celebrating special…

Argues that deep coding skills must and can be introduced, taught, practiced, and reinforced within contexts meaningful to students. Shows how teachers can provide these meaningful educational contexts within which decoding strategies make sense to emerging readers. (SR)

Describes how one fourth-grade teacher used television, videos, computers, classroom guests, and lots of reading and writing to engage his students in their language-arts unit, focusing on the book "Shiloh." Discusses how such "intermediality" (using multiple media) increases students' comprehension and understanding of text, capturing their…

Discusses five books that offer suggestions and strategies to help teachers balance their teaching, in a variety of ways: (1) "Balanced Literacy Instruction: A Teacher's Resource Book"; (2) "Educators Supporting Educators"; (3) "The Reading Connection: Bringing Parents, Teachers, and Librarians Together"; (4) "The Girl With the Brown Crayon"; and…

Describes a summer reading program for 26 remedial readers in which each student left voice-mail messages on the school district's voice-mail system, either reading to the teacher for three minutes or summarizing a book chapter. Describes the teacher's responses and parental feedback and involvement. Notes that all students maintained their…

Describes how two teachers developed an inquiry learning and teaching approach called KWLQ in which students recorded their prior knowledge, formulated questions, searched for answers, and finally noted more questions for further study. Describes how they used this approach in inquiry units in kindergarten, second-grade, and fifth-grade classes.…

Describes a project in which 16 classroom teachers from seven different schools collaborated with researchers in an extensive investigation of book access and rereading. Discusses enhancing book access in school and at home, and enhanced book access at home with books and audiotapes. Shows how these school/home programs helped young…

Reviews research on the question of how to best teach letter-sound correspondences in beginning reading instruction. Describes a new, child-friendly, research-based way of teaching letter-sound correspondences to English- and Spanish-speaking children, which is not only explicit, systematic, and extensive, but also context embedded and meaningful.…

Describes research conducted in New Jersey as part of a five-state research project investigating exemplary first-grade literacy instruction. Observes six teachers' exemplary practices. Discusses interview data, physical environment in the classrooms, types of reading and writing experiences, how skills were taught, taking advantage of teachable…

Describes components and strengths of six elementary school classroom reading programs for struggling readers in which instruction is delivered in the students' regular classrooms. Proposes 10 guiding principles for developing elementary school classroom reading programs that support the growth of struggling readers. Closes with three concluding…

Presents brief annotations of 25 outstanding books for children and young adults, published in 1997, that are culturally authentic, rich in cultural details, and that celebrate both diversity and the common bonds of humanity. (SR)

Presents brief descriptions of 45 books for children that can speak to the future for young readers through their concerns about growing up, ways to deal with changes, experiences that broaden their horizons, consideration of how the past can inform the future, and possibilities presented in fantasy. (SR)

Offers the response of a professor and former elementary and secondary teacher to the question posed by a seventh-grade teacher regarding what teachers can do to encourage students with negative attitudes toward reading to read both in and out of school. Discusses ways that both reading aloud and reading along are effective strategies to entice…

Describes what happened and what was learned when 13 urban elementary school teachers, their principal, and a researcher embarked on a year-long inquiry project that involved meeting as a monthly study group, reading articles, and keeping journals about their teaching. Discusses the contradictions and dilemmas of keeping journals, and rethinks…