This book shows prospective teachers how to use the language arts to connect diverse students to the world around them and help them develop their own literate voices. It considers the integrated nature of the primary language arts--reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and visually representing. The authors encourage preservice and inservice teachers to take a reflective, balanced approach in preparing to teach language arts. Prospective teachers are encouraged to view not only their students as language users and learners but to develop themselves as literate models. Through their incorporation of the NCTE/IRA Standards for the English Language Arts, the authors explore the integrated nature of the language arts using children's literature, critical thinking, and technology. Through vignettes, views into classrooms, connections to the field, student artifacts, and an ongoing reflection journal this book provides prospective teachers with a wide range of activities that will help them to make connections between theoretical constructs and their manifestation in classroom practice. An accompanying Student Resource CD bound in the text includes video clips, exercises, questions, and additional resources. The Web-based Student Study Site provides a comprehensive Study Guide, links to standards, children's literature, reflection exercises, journal articles, and PRAXIS test preparation material (http://www.sagepub.com/dvtlastudy). An Instructor's Resource CD offers lecture outlines, PowerPoint slides, sample syllabi, video clips with student exercises, test bank, web resources, reflection portfolio guidelines, and more (Instructor's Resource CD: 1-4129-5013-9). Following a preface providing information on the features and organization of the text; the Instructor's Resources CD; the Web-Based Student Study Guide; and the Student Resources CD, this book is divided into three parts. Part I, Understanding Language Arts, presents: (1) Becoming a Reflective Teacher; and (2) What Are the Language Arts? Part II, Frameworks and Approaches to Teaching, Learning, and Assessing in the Language Arts, continues with: (3) Reading and the Language Arts; (4) Writing and the Language Arts; (5) Language, Word Study, and the Tools of Writing; (6) Strategies for Listening, Speaking, Viewing, and Visually Representing; (7) Children's and Young Adult Literature as a Tool for the Language Arts; (8) Language Arts and the Content Areas; and (9) Workshops in the Language Arts Curriculum. Part III, Language Arts Teaching, Learning, and Assessing from Early Childhood to Early Adolescence, concludes with: (10) Early Childhood Language Arts: Kathi Glick's First-Grade Classroom; (11) Middle Childhood Language Arts: Sandy Cabernathy's Third- and Fourth-Grade Classroom; and (12) Early Adolescence Language Arts: Joelle Quimby's Eighth-Grade Language Arts Classroom. An epilogue entitled, Reflecting on Your Future Teaching of the Language Arts; a glossary; and an index are also included.