By adopting a child-centered approach, this book provides a knowledge base and ideas for prospective language arts or combined language arts and reading teachers to engage children in actively thinking and communicating in the classroom. New in the fifth edition of this book are: thematic units that provide models for constructing lessons using literature; a focus on teaching critical thinking with practical applications; coverage of an interactive-constructive model of reading and classroom implications; and increased coverage of both diversity and assessment. Chapters in the book are: (1) Teaching for Communication: A Natural Approach to the Language Arts; (2) Diversity in the Multicultural, Mainstreamed Classroom: Meeting the Social and Language Needs of All Children; (3) Language and Children's Language Development: Where Communication Is Action; (4) Literature in the Language Arts: Where Childhood Dreams Are Twined; (5) Listening for Meaning: Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn; (6) Creative Oral Communication: Expressing Stories and Poems; (7) Functional Oral Communication: Conversing and Reporting; (8) From Experiencing to Critical Thinking: Reflecting, Writing, and Reading Together; (9) Writing as Idea Making: Creative Thought in Action; (10) Writing Processes: The Child Writer as Author; (11) Language Patterns, Usage, and Grammar: Managing Ideas; (12) Spelling, Dictionary Use, and Handwriting: Tools of the Editor's Craft; and (13) Reading for Meaning: Learning to Read and Reading to Learn. A discussion of integrated language arts activities, a list of Caldecott and Newbery award-winning books from 1961 to 1993, a bibliography of subject indexes of children's books useful in building literature-based and content-area units, and a checklist to evaluate educational software are attached. (RS)