Preparing teachers to teach nature of science (NOS) is difficult, although it is a central goal of science education. Educative curriculum materials, which address teachers' understandings of NOS and pedagogical decisions for teaching, may be one way in which NOS teaching can be improved. However, to effectively design these materials, it is…

Previous research suggests that activating background knowledge immediately prior to read-alouds in Kindergarten is an important strategy for improving children's learning (e.g. Cervetti & Hiebert, 2015). But, because children's background knowledge varies considerably at the individual level, teachers are also often providing relevant…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between prosodic oral reading and overall reading comprehension of second grade students. The sample consisted of ten students who were randomly selected from a second grade classroom. The students read aloud from the book "Bedtime for Frances" by Lillian and Russell Hoban for a…

Stories contain the wisdom of the world, teaching cultural values. Story builds community, celebrates cultural diversity, and preserves cultural identity. Where truth has been suppressed, story is an instrument of epiphany. Storytelling builds literacy skills, and develops metaphorical understanding. A storytelling center in Canada had been a…

Using an experimental research design, this project investigated the effects of teacher read-alouds when students did, and did not, have access to companion texts. Based on Connectionist theory, the researchers hypothesized that students in the Companion Text group would outperform students in the Listen Only group on the three examined variables:…