Engaging Young Children With Informational Books

Offering an approach to and examples of integrating language arts and science, each chapter in this book contains one or more Windows into Practice - brief descriptions or accounts by teachers of events in their classrooms; teachers' narratives provide specific illustrations of principles or activities presented.

Because nonfiction and young readers are a natural fit! Common Core or not, providing our youngest readers with a thorough grounding in nonfiction is just good teaching. There’s no better way to ensure our students acquire the background knowledge and vocabulary so essential to their understanding of subjects like science and social studies. Helen Patrick and Panayota Mantzicopoulos have written this book to assist you with this all-important effort. Inside you’ll find: Criteria for choosing books Strategies for shared reading and reading aloud Informational writing activities Ways to guide parent involvement Real-life classroom success stories

Because nonfiction and young readers are a natural fit! Common Core or not, providing our youngest readers with a thorough grounding in nonfiction is just good teaching. There’s no better way to ensure our students acquire the background knowledge and vocabulary so essential to their understanding of subjects like science and social studies. Helen Patrick and Panayota Mantzicopoulos have written this book to assist you with this all-important effort. What makes Engaging Young Children so unique? Above all else it’s realistic. It describes immediately useable strategies for using informational reading and writing to both enrich and expand the curriculum. Taking their lead from the Common Core, the authors provide: • Criteria for choosing books • Strategies for shared reading and reading aloud • Informational writing activities • Ways to guide parent involvement • Real-life classroom success stories Read the book, try out some of the strategies, and you’ll quickly see for yourself just how engaging, informative, and formative nonfiction can be. " I am very grateful to Patrick and Mantzicopoulos for reminding me how essential informational reading and writing are, not only to the development of language arts skills, but to the reintroduction of science and social studies to daily elementary education." —Nina Orellana, Title I Teacher Palm Bay Academy Charter School, Palm Bay, FL "This book is a must have for elementary educators, teachers, and professional faculty. It illustrates the power of reading while also introducing the whole idea of students and how others interpret success with them." —Robert E. Yager, Professor of Science Education University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA

"Children's Literature: Engaging Teachers and Children in good Books" is based on a two-part philosophy..." "a passion for children's books is contagious." To get students passionate about reading, teachers need to be passionate about children's literature. "text sets are the cornerstone for literature-based reading." Each chapter opens with a suggested text set and an authentic student response; alternative text sets appear within each chapter. "Children's Literature: Engaging Teachers and Children in good Books" has several key, unique features..." "Original interviews" with 21 children's book authors/illustrators "Integrated technology features" including Internet teaching strategies, an accompanying free CD database, and guidance for using the Companion Website "Teaching Tips" that share practical K-8 teaching strategies and

Many reading programs today overlook an essential component of literacy instruction—helping children develop an enduring love of reading. This authoritative and accessible guide provides a wealth of ideas for incorporating high-quality children's books of all kinds into K–6 classrooms. Numerous practical strategies are presented for engaging students with picturebooks, fiction, nonfiction, and nontraditional texts. Lively descriptions of recommended books and activities are interspersed with invaluable tips for fitting authentic reading experiences into the busy school day. Every chapter concludes with reflection questions and suggestions for further reading. The volume also features reproducible worksheets and forms.

This indispensable teacher resource and course text, now revised and updated, addresses the "whats," "whys," and "how-tos" of incorporating outstanding children's literature into the K–8 reading program. A strong emphasis on diverse literature is woven throughout the fifth edition, with chapters emphasizing the need for books that reflect their readers and presenting dozens of carefully reviewed books that teachers will be eager to use in the classroom. Leading authorities provide advice on selecting texts, building core literacy and literary skills, supporting struggling readers, and maximizing engagement. The volume offers proven strategies for teaching specific genres and formats, such as fiction, nonfiction, picturebooks, graphic novels, biographies, and poetry. This title is a copublication with the International Literacy Association. New to This Edition *Many new teaching ideas and book recommendations, with an increased focus on culturally diverse literature. *Scope expanded from K–5 to K–8. *Chapter on using read-alouds and silent reading. *Chapters on diverse literature about the arts and on transitional chapter books. *Chapter on engaging struggling readers with authentic reading experiences.

Parents and early childhood teachers know that reading aloud to children is important, but the specific things that adults do while reading with children that make reading a powerful way to improve children’s language, vocabulary, and early literacy skills can remain a mystery. Read with Me makes those behaviors clear and easy to implement for parents and teachers by outlining the ABCs of Active Reading (Ask Questions, Build Vocabulary, and Connect to the Child’s World). Active Reading is an approach to reading aloud with young children that is supported by decades of research. Read With Me provides parents and teachers with the knowledge and skills to engage young children (age 2 to 5) in Active Reading with examples, clear explanations, and ideas for making one-on-one or small group read aloud sessions a powerful way to build children’s early literacy and language skills, all while creating a lifelong love of reading.

Preschool teachers and early childhood professionals know that storybook reading is important, but they may not know how to maximize its benefits for later reading achievement. This indispensable guide presents research-based techniques for using reading aloud to intentionally and systematically build children's knowledge of print. Simple yet powerful strategies are provided for teaching preschoolers about book and print organization, print meaning, letters, and words, all while sharing engaging, commercially available books. Appendices include a detailed book list and 60 reproducibles that feature activities and prompts keyed to each text.

Learn how to work with and relate to the family of each child in an early childhood education program. Includes ideas about transforming the way schools and programs relate to families - each one according to their unique assets and needs with the goal of enriching and enlivening the school community and ensuring better outcomes for each child and the entire program. It will emphasize strategies for getting to know each family the way you get to know an individual person, and learn about their interests, their strengths, their style of interacting and their needs/challenges to encourage programs to move away from one-size-fits-all approaches to family engagement.

Increasingly, research supports the importance of teaching children to read and write informational text, but few resources show us how to do it well. This book fills that gap. The authors explain why it's important to weave informational text into the primary curriculum. From there, they provide a framework for organizing your time and space, and classroom-tested strategies for incorporating informational text into reading, writing, and the content areas. For use with Grades K-3.