This column examines research studies that foster children to explore the relationship between text and images. The collaboration of an engaging picturebook and a good teacher unlocks rich discussion and interaction among the students. Through visual literacy, children are active participants while making meaning and strong connections. The cited…

This study investigated the ability of 23 kindergarten children to construct stories drawing upon genre conventions in order to differentiate simple narrative stories, a familiar and often-visited genre in the kindergarten literacy classroom, and humorous stories, familiar to the children's literacy experiences mostly outside official literacy…

An innovative DVD of classic nursery rhymes and stories empowered at-risk kindergarten children to control in the home when and how much they listen, promoting better listening, reading, and overall literacy comprehension skills. Coupled with modest teacher training, and limited use in the classroom, the DVD generated dramatic vocabulary growth in…

This article presents the results of a study comparing the originality, the length, the number of neologisms and the syntactic complexity of fairy tales created with "Storyline" and "Associations Pyramid." Both methods were developed to enhance children's language abilities and their creative thinking. One hundred twenty eight 5-year-old children…

The purpose of this narrative research is to examine cultural diversity among teacher candidates. A secondary purpose is to offer a pedagogical tool for teacher educators to use with their teacher candidates to help them develop a critical consciousness in their encounters with diverse students and their reflections on their own cultural…

This article is a collaborative bricolage of poetry, autobiographical fragments, essay pieces, and images assembled together as a portrait of the authors' ongoing existential, psychological and epistemological struggles as educators and learners, parents and children. The article captures a reflective exploration and collective sharing of their…

The author contends that reading some narratives of make-believe can become for many children the ultimate form of fantasy play, providing them with a sense of control absent in their real world. She employs terms from French structuralist critic Gérard Genette, from Austrian child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, and from English pediatrician D. W.…

In the world of children's literature, analyses of the distribution and representation of gender, biological sex, and gendered behavior in picturebooks often focused on Caldecott Award-winning literature. As the most prestigious award for American children's picturebooks, titles that receive this honor have a profound influence on the field of…

This article examines what we know about the experience of parents in the special education system--in particular, parents of children with learning disabilities since the passage of PL-94-142. Toward this end, I offer a review of special education literature about parent and professional collaboration, a rationale for relying upon a plurality of…

The authors describe a qualitative study that explored how the use of stories in supervision may contribute to self-reflection in master's-level counseling interns. Interns from 2 universities participated in facilitated discussions of 3 fairy tales throughout a semester. The analysis of storied discussions revealed 3 themes related to supervisee…

The author's second-grade students were completing a unit in their classroom on fairy tales. The author was asked to come up with a coinciding project to emphasize the imaginative and magical aura of fairy tales. A few years ago, the author attended the Philadelphia Flower Show where the theme was Ireland. Among the outstanding landscape exhibits…

Because teaching in the twenty-first century involves use of technology, our paper advocates for the integration of multimedia in a literature-based curriculum. One way teachers can accomplish this integration is through transmediation. In this paper, four pre-service teachers (Eliza Altenderfer, Amanda Doerfler, Erika Poblete, and Marissa…

Drawing from critical sociocultural perspectives that view play, literacy, and gender as social practices, boys' Disney Princess play is examined as a site of identity construction and contestation situated within overlapping communities of femininity and masculinity practice where children learn expected practices for "doing gender".…

Recalling and reframing a personal life story in the form of a fairy tale, then engaging in a practice on meditation and reflecting on it, is one way older adults can relieve their positive experience and thereby impact their mental and emotional health and well-being. Although prior research has established the benefits of narrative therapy (NT)…

Written as a trickster tale and co-narrated by the researcher and a trickster figure (Crow), this writing considers the challenges of bringing traditional ecological knowledge to environmental studies and science programs. The researcher describes a project to raise and release salmon, which was collaboratively developed and carried out by members…