Evolving digital technologies provide opportunities to engage students in activities that go beyond print-based reading and writing and help them develop skills for reading, writing, and communicating with digital technology. Virtual reality apps are a rapidly emerging form of digital technology that provides immersive experiences in real or…

Early elementary teachers are under great pressure to teach all children to read and write at highly proficient levels while simultaneously emphasizing STEM instruction to prepare students for the 21st century. Traditionally, literacy skills are taught in isolation from science instruction. However, reading and writing are the perfect tools to use…

The purpose of this article is to describe how an elementary art specialist scaffolded learning of specific academic vocabulary during a unit on how to create hollow clay ceramic sculptures. Although much has been written recently on how elementary teachers might better teach academic vocabulary in reading and language arts contexts as well as in…

According to recently published national standards, elementary students should engage in engineering design activities. This article outlines ways that teachers can use literacy instruction to support young students' engineering design activity, such as by selecting texts in which characters face problems that can be solved through engineering,…

This article documents a collaboration between a second-grade teacher and a university-based literacy coach to implement dialogic instruction as part of a 14-week cross-disciplinary curriculum unit. The coach-teacher dyad used digital technologies to enhance a problem-solving approach to coaching. The authors describe the coaching interactions,…

Discussing and exploring concepts is an important element of literacy and mathematics instruction in elementary classrooms. Read-alouds provide an opportunity for teachers to engage students in meaningful discussion. This article describes a quick three-step process for mathematizing books, that is, weaving together read-alouds, discussion, and…

This article reports on one instructional lesson that integrates literacy and mathematics. Specifically, it describes a lesson conducted in a fourth-grade classroom that integrates reading, writing, drawing, and literature to teach linear measurement to the inch and fractional measurement. The article begins with a rationale for integrating…

As teachers struggle to balance the needs of their students with the requirements of commercial reading materials, educators need to consider how teachers will create space for children's literature in today's classrooms. In this article, 10 practical recommendations for incorporating children's literature in the reading instructional framework…

Developing and implementing relevant, challenging, integrative, and exploratory curriculum is critical at all levels of schooling. This article describes one attempt to develop and implement an instance of interdisciplinary curriculum by using copy change with trade books to teach earth science. Specifically, it introduces trade books as a way to…

Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in interdisciplinary teaching and learning in the elementary grades. Teachers are increasingly looking for ways to help their students integrate literacy instruction with content area learning. This article highlights some of the similarities between reading comprehension and mathematical…

This article uses "fibbin" (Fibonacci poems) as an instructional strategy to teaching reading and writing across the curriculum. It describes fibbin from a historical and mathematical perspective and discusses it as an adaptation of the famous Fibonacci sequence to teaching content area material (e.g. science, math, and social studies). This…

With daily classroom schedules jammed with many concepts and skills to cover, integrating subjects whenever possible offers some relief. Primary classrooms can use their daily calendar time to integrate language arts and math. This teaching approach includes the use of word walls, interactive writing, journaling, and other effective teaching…

Poetry should be an integral part of children's learning in elementary school. This article explains the classroom structures and routines through which third-grade students in an inner-city school became familiar with poetic language and learned to appreciate the artistry of poetry. Most of the students were struggling readers. Reading poetry…

Suggests using themes of interest to integrate the curriculum and provide literacy activities instead of studying separate lessons on particular skills. (MG)

A historical artifact has stories to tell. Using artifacts, from primary documents to objects that can be held in the hand, is a motivational strategy that brings a period of history to life. Motivated learners think critically, write, collaborate, develop research skills, and deepen knowledge about another time and place. In addition, they apply…