In a time when some nonfiction historical books for children and young adults have drawn concern and critique for sharing difficult histories, teachers may be looking for ways to contextualize those narratives and provide more support for students as they engage in these histories. Going beyond the book with primary sources can help provide that…

This article underscores the intimate connection between reading and writing as communication skills that share a common linguistic and orthographic foundation, and which combine in complex ways to support practical literacy tasks. Developing higher order literacy skills requires teachers to develop metacognitive skills and self-regulation, both…

This article shares a variety of picturebooks that invite teachers to think critically about curriculum, teaching, learning, and technology (CTLT). It posits that teaching and learning are not perfectible absolutes but continuous processes that invite teachers to develop beyond what they already know. Reading professional literature, conducting…

We suggest that a healthy literacy diet for beginning readers consists of literacy experiences along a number of dimensions, including experiences with decodable text. As such, this article explores the role of decodable texts in a comprehensive early literacy curriculum that recognizes literacy as a complex, culturally mediated, and multifaceted…

Children in a grade two/three classroom co-designed photographs of each other's important family objects to develop critical empathy and better understand their peers' home cultures. They engaged in visual critical literacy practices. The paper provides a narrative of what happened and a framework for creative collaborative pedagogy.

Empathy, an unsung, yet critical element of learning, can be strategically interlaced with literacy instruction and engineering design to create a rich and authentic learning experience for students. Integrated STEM education rests on the promise of engaging students and providing deep understandings through the intentional practice of delivering…