Young adults deserve our best as parents, educators and community members. The Michael L. Printz award winning books, instituted by the Young Adult Library Association, form a recent grouping of current literature. Novels worthy of the Printz Award explore physical, emotional, and social themes important in the lives of young adults. This library…

This article describes a 7th grade Language Arts teacher's investigation into whether she could use her district-prescribed literature selections to effectively increase her students' awareness of sociocultural issues. She used an instructional strategy called Think-Aloud to explicitly discuss social and cultural issues as they related to the…

The purpose of this study was to explore one South Korean mother's literacy practices after she had migrated to Canada for the purpose of overseeing her children's education. Using a case study method, we focused on language, media, domains, and purposes of literacy practices in Korea and Canada. Data were obtained through two semi-structured…

A large, suburban, Southeastern university conducted a multi-method study on the effectiveness of its common reader program in meeting multiple learning objectives. Data from approximately 700 respondents, all of whom were first-year students enrolled in 37 sections of the university's traditional first-year seminar course, revealed that the…

Three decades have passed since federal law mandated inclusion--ending, officially at least, a system that segregated students with disabilities from the rest of the student population. The publishing world has yet to catch up. In children's books, characters with disabilities often inhabit their own separate world, where disability is the only…

This article describes the Voices of American Teens project in which seventh grade reading students were engaged with multicultural short stories. The steps taken to select texts and prepare materials for the projects are explained, and the project's implementation is described. Examples from students' projects and written responses demonstrate…

The WWC practice guide "Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade" presents a set of evidence-based practices that teachers and other educators can use to successfully teach reading comprehension to young readers. The guide, developed by a panel of experts, presents a set of evidence-based practices that teachers…

Studies indicate thoughtfully planned chants integrated with shared book reading help young children remember concepts and vocabulary they hear in literature, capture children's imagination, develop their rhyming acuity, and background knowledge, and increase their sense of story structure, understanding of story sequence, phonological awareness,…

"Teaching Young Adult Literature Today" introduces the reader to what is current and relevant in the plethora of good books available for adolescents. More importantly, literary experts illustrate how teachers everywhere can help their students become lifelong readers by simply introducing them to great reads--smart, insightful, and engaging books…

The purpose of this action research project report was to increase engagement during independent reading for 32 fourth-grade students and 26 seventh-grade science students. At Site A, data was collected from August 27, 2012 through December 14, 2012. At Site B, data was collected from September 24, 2012 through December 14, 2012. Students'…

Despite the current focus on literacy in reading, mathematics, and science in public schools, throughout the history of education in the United States, educational purposes generally have included more than an emphasis of basic academic skills (Rothsetin, Wilder, & Jacobsen, 2007, p. 9). Existing accountability systems that hold educators…

In the author's early days of school librarianship, it did not take long for him to realize that this was not the time to first think of how to involve parents in support of his selections for the library. A lot of good advice exists that suggests ways for parents to be involved that will help support intellectual freedom, as well as lessons…

The controversy involving the challenge and possible banning of books has existed since the first person set pen to paper. These challenges have historically been based upon political and religious differences, but as time has passed, have become increasingly more to do with sex, race and culture. With these issues facing libraries, the role of…

This interview study is an exploration of the popular cultural and lifelong literacy practices of adult readers of comic books. Focusing on 4 participants from a pool of 12, the researcher used Kvale's (1996) method of meaning interpretation to analyze utterances and speak to the various uses reading held for these people. Aaron, Kyle, Peter, and…

Simple, lively, and easy-to-understand science books in Spanish for the very young are the new reality in the publishing world. In contrast to previous years where there has been a wider selection of books for beginning, middle, and advanced readers, today publishers in the United States (with a few exceptions) seem to be concentrating on books…