Julia Britton Hooks
Julia Britton Hooks.
Julia Britton Hooks, an African American clubwoman known as the "Angel of Beale Street," was born free in 1852 in Frankfort, Kentucky. Her parents, Henry Britton, a carpenter, and Laura Marshall Britton, encouraged her training in classical music. In 1869 this musical prodigy enrolled in Berea College in an interracial program that allowed her to study music and instruct white students in piano. In 1872 Julia Britton moved to Greenville, Mississippi, to teach school. She married Sam Wertles; he died in the 1873 yellow fever epidemic. She participated in the successful campaign of Blanche K. Bruce, one of the first blacks to serve in the U.S. Senate. In 1876 Julia Britton Wertles moved to Memphis to teach and married Charles Hooks.
Julia Hooks became a leader in African American cultural and educational affairs. In 1883 she and Anna Church, the wife of Robert Church Sr., launched the Liszt-Mullard Club to promote classical music and raise money for scholarships for promising black musicians. She founded the Hooks School of Music, whose students included W. C. Handy, Sidney Woodward, and Nell Hunter. Dissatisfied with the poor quality of public education for Memphis black children, she opened the Hooks Cottage School (kindergarten and elementary education) in 1892.
Hooks worked to relieve the suffering of impoverished black Memphians. In 1891 she became a charter member of two institutions: the Colored Old Folks Home (later Hooks-Edwards Rest Home) and the Orphan Home Club. These institutions provided shelter for elderly black women and orphans. In 1902 Memphis established a juvenile court for African American offenders; Julia and Charles Hooks supervised the detention home, which was next door to their own home. In 1917 Charles Hooks was killed by an escaping juvenile, but Julia Hooks continued to provide counseling and guidance to the juvenile facility.
Hooks deplored the racial inequality and Jim Crow segregation of her day and championed personal character building as well as government protection for embattled black citizens. In March 1881 she was escorted from a Memphis theater, arrested, and fined five dollars for refusing to move from the white section to the "colored balcony." She was widely quoted on the subject of character building, and her essay "The Duty of the Hour" was published in the 1895 edition of the African American Encyclopedia. A charter member of the Memphis chapter of the NAACP, Hooks was the grandmother of the national director of the organization, Benjamin J. Hooks. She died in 1942, at age ninety.
"Hooks, Julia Britton," in Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, ed. Darlene Clark Hine, Elsa Barkley Brown, Rosalyn Terborg-Penn (1993); Selma Lewis and Marjean G. Kremer, The Angel of Beale Street: A Biography of Julia Ann Hooks (1986).
Published » December 25, 2009 | Last Updated » January 01, 2010


Word Wonderland will guide preschool through young elementary students through basic phonics skills using word sorting. Students can practice long and short vowels, blends, digraphs, r-controlled vowels, words ending with –le, dipthongs, word families and more with this engaging game.
- Three levels of difficulty
- Over 15 skills available
- Drill-down focus on specific sounds and letter groups
- Practice mode and application mode
- Wide variety of bonuses and surprises
- Play methods tutorial videos
- Voice over play directions
- Engaging animations and sound effects
- Option to control voice over, sound effects and music
- Enabled for multiple players
Word Wonderland Primary is an outstanding collection of word sorting exercises that will help young readers practice beginning phonics skills. Word sorts are a proven strategy for phonics instruction and practice, and help students learn to apply phonics skills with fluency. The games are engaging and skills included are vital to early reading success, including learning to distinguish long and short vowels, work with blends and digraphs, and more.
Word Wonderland Primary is an excellent way to help emergent readers practice important phonics skills. They will have fun helping the engaging frog character jump from lily pad to lily pad on his way to the end of each maze, and will be challenged by the ever-increasing array of bonuses and hidden challenges. The game starts off simply enough, but grows more challenging with greater playing time.
One of the nicest features of this app is that it is possible to zero in on practice with very specific letter groups or sounds. This makes it a perfect tool to help struggling readers!
Young students may need some adult guidance to set the game up to focus on skills they need to practice, or children could easily be given the opportunity for free play with all of the skills. The app offers numerous opportunities to sound out and read words that every student will need to become familiar with, such as short vowel constructions and words with silent final e.
Students enter their first name and last initial, and choose a “badge” to represent themselves on the opening screen. Multiple students can have active accounts. It would be nice if the program kept records of each student’s progress. This would make it much easier to use the system in classroom or special education settings.
Word Wonderland has hit the mark in terms of entertainment value. The animations, music and sound effects are pleasing but not overwhelming. The game begins very simply, and will be fun for the very young to explore, then gradually adds complexity to keep it engaging for older emergent readers.
Word Wonderland Primary is an outstanding value at $1.99 in the App Store. Children will get a lot of practice as they help the little frog hop around the lily pads in the practice mode and as they explore the three worlds provided. The game should keep the kids entertained for hours, and all the while they will be practicing and gaining fluency with common words and sounds.
The makers of this app also have a free version with limited content if you’d like to try it out before purchasing.
This app is very child-friendly. There are no in-app purchases available, no advertising and no links to the internet for a young child to click on inadvertently. In addition, the Options section includes some outstanding tutorials to help players learn basic game features and movements. Each offers a guided opportunity to practice the skills that will be needed to play the game.


It's great news that a Lucian Freud portrait has been given to the Tate. That adds another work by this extraordinary artist to Britain's public collections. But will we ever produce another artist like Lucian Freud?
Freud came to Britain in 1933, his 11th year. What makes a great artist – nature or nurture? Freud had some impressive genes, being Sigmund Freud's grandson. You could even argue that he and Sigmund shared the same profound preoccupation with the body and sex and our fleshy earthbound natures. Lucian Freud spent his early childhood in Berlin and there is a German cultural heritage visible in his work: his paintings can easily be exhibited next to those of an artist such as Otto Dix.
But it was in Britain that he trained. Freud's most important art education was at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing run by the artist Cedric Morris. He also spent time at London colleges but it seems to have been in East Anglia that this juvenile delinquent started to apply himself. Morris was a self-taught artist who had been involved with British modernist art but rejected abstraction and believed in the depiction of reality. He evidently had a true influence on Freud: you can see this immediately from Morris's portrait of a dog, Belle of Bloomsbury, in the Tate collection. The relationship with Freud's own dog paintings is vivid.
The British art world in which Freud was educated and became an artist was staggeringly different from today's. Art was a comparatively minor component of British culture then: today it is constantly in the news and a source of national pride. The middle class was hostile to modernism and still held to a passion for portraits and landscapes that had dominated British art since the 18th century. Freud took all this to heart and never deviated from his path as a staunchly "traditional" artist whose power rests in craft and skill.
Again, this is very different from today's Britain where there are so many other ways of making art.
So here is the problem. Freud's death and his posthumous retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery unleashed a universal admiration for his stupendous achievement. But was that just froth? Do the British love Freud from the heart, or just as this season's fashion? If it is from the heart – if we recognise that here was a truly great talent who put lesser celebrity artists of our time to shame – then many of us need to re-examine our attitudes to art.
Since the 1990s, all through my working life as a critic, the artistic culture of Britain has done all in its power to prevent another Freud ever again being nurtured. It is as if at some point, just as Freud was reaching his zenith, a meeting was held behind closed doors at the Tate to ensure that a genius like this must never, ever be allowed again to upset the cosy applecart of commercialised conceptualism.
Everyone now praises Freud but for there to be any more Freuds, young artists need to be encouraged to draw from life (not just as wacky doodling) and to take craft as well as concept seriously. The pressures against them doing that get more relentless all the time.
Freud does not have to be the last great British painter. It is up to us to value and nurture the art we want, the art we need.


The SAT five-choice multiple-choice questions test areas including arithmetic, algebra, geometry, data interpretation, etc. None of the problems require the use of a calculator, but you may find it helpful in doing basic arithmetic computations, square roots, and percentages and in comparing and converting fractions. Remember to practice using the calculator you plan to take to the test if you can't handle it very fast.
Before answering each question, ask yourself: What does the question ask? and What do I know? Then make sure to:
Don't jump on the calculator for everything. You should know when to use the calculator. If you do not know how to solve a problem, neither does your calculator. The most important thing is to set up your work on paper first, and then plug the info into your calculator.
- Answer the question asked.
- Check if your answer makes sense.
- Check your answer again using a different method, if possible.
Substitute number for variables (indicated by letters such as x, y and z). It's always easier to work with numbers than with letters. For example:
If x - 4 is 2 greater than y, then x + 5 is how much greater than y?
Choose any value for x. Say x = 4. Then 4 - 4 = 0, and 0 is 2 greater than y. So y = -2. If x = x, then x + 5 = 4 + 5 = 9, and so x + 5 is 11 more than y. Therefore, the correct answer is choice (E).
Here are the rules:
Plug in the answer choices. Sometimes you can find the correct by working backwards. Try plugging in the answer choices to see which one works. When plugging in the answer choices, start with choice (C). If the choices are numbers, they are usually listed in order from the lowest to highest value, or the vice versa. If (C) turns out to be too high, you don't need to try out the larger numbers. If (C) is too low, you can forget the smaller numbers. For example:
- Use common sense when picking numbers to substitute.
- Substitute numbers that are easy to work with.
- Make sure you check the special cases: 0, 1, at least one number between 0 and 1, a number or numbers greater than 1, and a few negative numbers.
If a rectangle has sides of 2x and 3x and an area of 24, what is the value of x?
Get started by testing (C), and assume that x = 4. Then the sides would have lengths 2(4) = 8 and 3(4) = 12 and the rectangle would have an area of 8 X 12 = 96. Since 96 is larger than 24, start working with smaller answer choices. You can instantly forget about (D) and (E). You have saved time!
If you come across a question that asks for an irregular shape, don't worry! The question actually asks for the difference between the areas of two or more regular shapes. Take a look at the figure below.
The shaded area is the difference of areas between the rectangular and the two inside circles. Thinking so, you immediately find the problem so easy to solve.
Your eye is a good estimator. Figures are always drawn to scale unless you see a warning. So use your eye as an estimator if you need to.
Finally, and once again, don't forget using your guessing and eliminating skills if needed. Remember that the questions are arranged from easy to hard. Pace yourself and don't spend too much time on any one question. Don't worry if you are still slow at the math questions. Your math problem-solving skills can be considerably improved through practicing at this Web site. So can your problem-solving speed.
If you want to start practicing now, click here to login "SAT Practice" section. We suggest that you come back to this page and read the content again after you have spent 2 weeks of practicing. You will definitely have a better understanding about the strategies!


Art Teaching Ideas for Primary Teachers Lesson plans and resources for 5-11 year olds.
K-6 Arts Lesson Plans
Arts Education K-6 Visual Art Lessons
ArtsEdNet This section of ArtsEdNet includes a variety of teaching and learning materials, including many art images.
Sorted by Grade Level
Lesson Plan links Lesson Plans for the Arts
Lesson Ideas Lesson Plans for the Arts
ArtsEdge Lesson Plans The Kennedy Center ArtsEdge Marco Polo
Fine Arts Arts Lessons Plans
Elementary Educators Lesson Plans About.com Lesson Plans
Arts Ed Net Highlights lesson plans, curriculum ideas, and art exhibitions from the J. Paul
Getty Museum and Arts Education Web Site
Heartland Curriculum Resources Listed here are several curriculum companies linked to their web sites. They are arranged by subject within levels.
Lessons Plans Page Terrific resource of lesson plans in art as well as all fields.
Crayola This jam-packed art site has something of everyone. For teachers there are excellent lesson plans, techniques, product information, newsgroups, grants and more.
Crayola Lesson Plans
Favorite Art Lessons Art Teachers Lesson Plans
Art Lesson Plans Links
The Art of Teaching Art CSG Publications - downloadable lessons
Art Studio Chalkboard lessons on drawing, painting
Art Takes Time This site contains lessons that meet the following National Standards for Visual Arts Education.
Art Teacher on the Net
ArtsEdge Instructional Resources for teaching the Visual Arts. Curriculum units.
Art Dictionary! ArtLex
AskERIC Lesson Plans ARTS
Awesome Library links to tons of Art lessons K-12
CanTeach Visual Arts - Lesson Plans for Elementary
Collaborative Lesson Archive K-12
Computer Art Lessons
Crayons and Computers
Daily Lesson Plan from The New York Times’ Teacher Connections, art lessons for grades 6
Digital Photography online lessons
Drawing in One Point Perspective - an online lesson
Education World - lesson planning center, archives: the arts
Eyes on Art
Fractals- A Fractals Unit for Elementary and Middle School Students
Free Art Lessons online - this is oil painting from1art.
Free Lessons - Bright Ring Publishing - Sample lessons from MaryAnn Kohl's art books you can buy.
The Gateway to Educational Materials PreK – 12
Imagination Factory - recycled art ideas Lessons - by category
Incredible Art Department Favorite Lessons - early childhood through undergraduate lessons, plus tests
Investigating the Renaissance Web Site Shows how computer technology can be used to examine
K-12 Lesson Plans
Kaleidocycles lesson by Woody Duncan - Great visuals!!
Kaleidoscope for Kids KODAK; grades K-6
KidsArt Art Education
KinderArt Welcome to the largest collection of free art lessons and art education information on the Internet.
Lesson Plans for Art from Going to a Museum - Teacher's Guide
The Lesson Plans Page all subjects
Origami Web Resources for Students
Sanford and a Lifetime of Color's Art Education Resources and ArtEdventures
Woody Duncans' Taospaint - Middle school lessons and links for printmaking
Teacher.Net Lesson Exchange - art lessons for pre-school, elementary, middle, and high.
Teacher.Net - Lesson Ideas – Art
Teachers helping Teachers - The Arts -Brief lesson plans
Virtual Curriculum - Elementary Art Education This site is designed to aid teachers in the art education of elementary aged children. Many lessons have been written and gathered on various topics, historical time periods, and cultures throughout the world. Each section will display lessons and links devoted to a particular concept. The lesson plan will include the concept, objectives, vocabulary, materials, procedures and evaluation.
Artlex Art Dictionary
Arts Education Links
Art Education- Curriculum Lesson Plans Perspective/Drawing
Art Criticism Fine Art Images Art History Timelines Color Theory
Art Links Art/Technology Art Careers Education Resources
Mary Cassatt Portfolio and bio. Find out more about Mary Cassatt
Women’s History Month Lesson Plans
Women Artists on the net includes some lesson plans
Lessons Plans Georgia O’Keefe
Columbus Museum of Art Lesson Plans
Frida Kahlo: Mi interpretación Lesson Plan


The objective of this grand plan is to align the public school system to the need to produce and sell cheap, skilled labor locally and internationally. Will the K+12 program solve the problems confronting Philippine education? What will be its impact on the education system in the country?
By BENJIE OLIVEROS
Everybody agrees that Philippine education is in a state of crisis. And the quality of Philippine education, the shortages in teachers, classrooms, facilities, books and learning materials have worsened year after year, even as the 1987 Constitution mandates that education should be the priority in the national budget. Also worsening is the dropout rate.
In 2008, out of 100 pupils entering grade one, only 66 finish elementary education. Only 58 of the 66 who finish grade school enroll in first year high school, and only 43 of the 58 complete their secondary education. Of the 43 students, only 23 enroll in college and out of this only 14 students finish a degree.
Among those who are able to continue studying, achievement test results are still way below the passing mark.
To address this, President Benigno Aquino III has, since his presidential campaign, been batting for an additional two years of basic education. Education Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro has been laying the groundwork for this, saying that it could be fully implemented by school year 2017-2018.
Will the K+12 program solve the problems confronting Philippine education? What will be its impact on the education system in the country?
The proposal to add two more years to basic education is not new. This is already contained in the Philippine National Action Plan for EFA (Education for All) 2015 Goals (Philippine EFA 2015), which was formulated in 2005.
Much earlier, one of the recommendations of the Philippine Education Sector Study funded by the Asian Development Bank in 1997 is for the government to strengthen and allot more resources to basic education by lessening its exposure in tertiary education.
At first glance, the proposal seems logical. Filipino students do not perform well in achievement tests, then give them more years of education. However, progressive students and teachers’ organizations are correct in saying that it is not as simple as it seems. First, the government is not allotting enough budget for education because it is allocating more for debt servicing and military expenditures.
Kabataan Partylist revealed that in 2009, the government allotted a mere P2,502 ($57.95) per student per year. And at 2.17 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the education budget in 2009 is way below the UNESCO recommended standard of six percent of GDP. By adding another two years in basic education, the government would merely stretch a very limited budget. This measure would only worsen the shortages in classrooms, teachers, learning materials, and facilities.
Perhaps, the Aquino administration is banking on local government units to foot the bill because through the Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001, the management of local public schools have been devolved. Local government units allot one percent of their internal revenue allocation to education. These funds are managed by local school boards. For example, in Quezon City, the city government funds the salaries of some teachers — who are considered city-hired as differentiated from those with plantilla positions at the Department of Education — trainings and activities of teachers, and the construction of school buildings.
But what about poor municipalities? Would they have to enter into Public-Private Partnerships? This again is nothing new and was called build-operate-transfer schemes under the previous Arroyo administration. How would poor municipalities pay for it? More taxes?
Pages: 1 2


Department for Education
In 1870 the Elementary Education (Forster) Act was passed, giving a free public education for all children aged 5-13 in the UK. Further Acts in 1880 and 1891 strengthened the right and opportunity for all children to obtain an elementary education. Over time some "higher education" schools also opened, with entry based on the passing of exams rather than the ability of the family to pay.
Meanwhile, from around 1862 onwards the older universities and colleges were expanding their curricula.
But it took until 2014 for the eUK to have its own University - the eBrit University.
Anyone can enroll, although it is mostly aimed at those who are under level 25 - in fact, when one enrolls in the NHS, one will normally be invited to become an eBrit University student as well (if I've missed you, I apologise - real life got busy).
The curriculum is simple - complete tasks set out in order, and be rewarded. Rewards are normally GBP, food or weapons. At present there is no time limit to complete the course, although some sort of limit is under consideration to help spur completion. All the tasks are designed to help our students become familiar with most of the aspects of eUK citizenship.
Want to know more? Contact Madelina de Melrose, Chancellor of eBrit University and current Minister of Education.
What is this?You are reading an article written by a citizen of eRepublik, an immersive multiplayer strategy game based on real life countries. Create your own character and help your country achieve its glory while establishing yourself as a war hero, renowned publisher or finance guru.


Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin, (born Jan. 13 [Jan. 25, New Style], 1832, Yelabuga, Vyatka province, Russia—died March 8 [March 20], 1898, St. Petersburg, Russia), one of the most popular landscape painters of Russia. His paintings of wooded landscapes led his contemporaries to call him “tsar of the woods.”
Shishkin was the son of a merchant. He studied art with a characteristic thoroughness, first at the School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in Moscow (1852–56) and then at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (1856–60). In 1860 he was awarded the Academy’s Gold Medal and granted a stipend to travel to Munich, Prague, and Düsseldorf, Ger., to add final lustre to his art education. It was mainly the Düsseldorf school that furthered his inclination toward exact reproduction of nature and linear severity. His ink drawings were received with much acclaim in Germany, and while he was there he became familiar with the techniques of etching and lithography, which at the time had not yet gained a foothold in Russia.
When Shishkin returned to St. Petersburg, he became involved with the studio of Ivan Kramskoy, and in 1871 he joined the Peredvizhniki (“The Wanderers”), where his ideas about Russian landscape painting were enthusiastically welcomed. His paintings united fidelity to nature with an individual epic style. Shishkin preferred to paint pine or oak forests in their pristine state during dry, sunny conditions. These primordially Russian landscapes—seen in paintings such as Rye (1878), Far on the Plain (1883), Distant Forest (1884), and The Oaks (1887)—are imbued with folkloric associations. The naturalistic depiction of every blade of grass paradoxically created a sensation of the majestic scale of the whole, as the entire painting was conceived as a quantitative apotheosis of separate details. The artist’s rejection of the plein air style, which was roughly impressionistic, corresponded with his belief in the constancy of Russian nature and its abiding monumental order. The absence of an airy perspective in his landscapes (the trees grow smaller the farther they stand from the viewer, according to the rules of linear perspective, but they do not lose the definition of their contours) also helped create the image of epic Russian steadfastness. In the late 1880s Shishkin fell under the influence of new artistic currents and attempted to imbue his work with “atmosphere” (Morning in a Pine Forest, 1889), but even the air in such paintings gives an impression of solidity.
Shishkin’s “portrait” of Russian nature—expansive and rich, not subject to time and not dependent on human emotion—became associated with the staunchness and power of the Russian national character and with patriotic overtones of national history. Being in this sense an incarnation of the “Russian spirit,” Shishkin’s paintings entered everyday life in Russia, becoming the decoration on candy wrappers and illustrations in textbooks.


Top Ten Reasons to Teach Phonics
Top Ten Reasons to Teach Phonics
1. Phonics is an efficient way to teach reading.
There are only 43 common speech sounds (phonemes) in English and these are represented by about 89 common spellings. Learning the phonics code produces the biggest learning bang for the smallest instructional buck.
2. Phonics works.
The swing away from “whole language” to phonics-based instruction over the last 15 years has vastly improved reading test scores on nationally normed tests.
3. Phonics is the fastest way to learn how to read.
Reading is not a developmentally acquired skill that naturally derives over time from lots of reading (Adams, 1988; Stanovich, 1986; Foorman, Francis, Novy, & Liberman 1991). Learning the code is the quickest way to learn how to read accurately and independently. Non-readers can independently read simple decodable text after minimal instruction.
4. Phonics makes students better spellers.
5. Phonics requires less rote memorization.
The “Dick and Jane” reading method requires memorization of hundreds of words. Phonics makes use of prior knowledge (the sound-spelling relationships) to apply to new learning.
6. Phonics works better for students with learning disabilities.
Students with auditory and visual processing challenges learn best from the structure of explicit phonemic awareness and phonics instruction.
7. Phonics works better for English-language learners.
Phonics instruction relies on phonemic awareness and the connection of speech sounds to spellings. Phonics builds upon and adjusts that connection, rather than abandoning reading instruction already gained in the primary language.
8. Phonics works better for remedial readers.
Effective diagnostic assessments can easily determine which phonics skills have been mastered and which have not. Gap-filling simply makes sense. Remedial readers have strengths to build upon—they don’t need to start from scratch.
9. Phonics makes students smarter.
New research shows that phonics-based instruction can actually change brain activity, resulting in significant improvements in reading (Flowers, 2004). Shankweiler, Lundquist, Dreyer, and Dickinson (1996) noted that differences in comprehension for upper elementary students largely reflected levels of decoding skill.
10. Phonics learning builds self-esteem.
Because progress is so measurable, students can quickly see their improvement in assessment data, and more importantly, in reading.
Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, is adaptable to various instructional settings, and is simple to use—a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instructional levels. Get multiple choice diagnostic reading assessments , formative assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness, and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages recorded at three different reading speeds and accessed on YouTube (Check these fluency passages out!), 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games.
Also get the accompanying Sam and Friends Phonics Books. These eight-page decodable take-home books include sight words, word fluency practice, and phonics instruction aligned to the instructional sequence found in Teaching Reading Strategies. Each book is illustrated by master cartoonist, David Rickert. The cartoons, characters, and plots are designed to be appreciated by both older remedial readers and younger beginning readers. The teenage characters are multi-ethnic and the stories reinforce positive values and character development. Your students (and parents) will love these fun, heart-warming, and comical stories about the adventures of Sam and his friends: Tom, Kit, and Deb. Oh, and also that crazy dog, Pug.
Everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Ideal for students reading two or more grade levels below current grade level, English-language learners, and Special Education students. Simple directions and well-crafted activities truly make this an almost no-prep curriculum. Works well as a half-year intensive program or full-year program, with or without paraprofessional assistance.


The Ten English Accent Rules are important to understand and apply to be able to correctly pronounce and spell English words.
Accent Rule #1: Each word with two or more syllables has one syllable whose vowel is accented. For example, for-gét. Accents are very important to spelling rules. Accented means that the sound of that vowel is stressed, or louder, than those in other syllables.
Accent Rule #2: A long word may have more than one accent. The vowel that is stressed more or most is called the primary accent. The primary accent is key to many of the spelling rules. A second accented vowel is called the secondary accent. For example, cón-ver-sá-tion. Very long words can have even more stressed vowel sounds, but only one primary accent.
Accent Rule #3: The primary accent is usually on the root before a double consonant. For example, for-gét-ting.
Accent Rule #4: Unaccented vowel sounds frequently have the soft /uh/ schwa sound, especially when there is only one letter in the syllable. All vowels can have the schwa sound. For example, the a in a-boút.
Accent Rule #5: The primary accent is usually on the first syllable in two-syllable words. For example, páy-ment.
Accent Rule #6: The primary accent is usually on the second syllable of two-syllable words that have a prefix in the first syllable and a root in the second syllable. For example, dis-tráct.
Accent Rule #7: For two-syllable words that act as both nouns and verbs, the primary accent is usually on the prefix (first syllable) of the noun and on the root (second syllable) of the verb. For example, pró-duce as a noun; pro-dúce as a verb.
Accent Rule #8: The primary accent is usually on the first syllable in three-syllable words, if that syllable is a root. For example, chár-ac-ter.
Accent Rule #9: The primary accent is usually on the second syllable in three-syllable words that are formed by a prefix-root-suffix. For example, in-vést-ment.
Accent Rule #10: The primary accent is usually on the second syllable in four-syllable words. For example, in-tél-li-gent.
Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, is adaptable to various instructional settings, and is simple to use—a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instructional levels. Get multiple choice diagnostic reading assessments , formative assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness, and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages recorded at three different reading speeds and accessed on YouTube, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games.
Also get the accompanying Sam and Friends Phonics Books. These eight-page decodable take-home books include sight words, word fluency practice, and phonics instruction aligned to the instructional sequence found in Teaching Reading Strategies. Each book is illustrated by master cartoonist, David Rickert. The cartoons, characters, and plots are designed to be appreciated by both older remedial readers and younger beginning readers. The teenage characters are multi-ethnic and the stories reinforce positive values and character development. Your students (and parents) will love these fun, heart-warming, and comical stories about the adventures of Sam and his friends: Tom, Kit, and Deb. Oh, and also that crazy dog, Pug.
Everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Ideal for students reading two or more grade levels below current grade level, English-language learners, and Special Education students. Simple directions and well-crafted activities truly make this an almost no-prep curriculum. Works well as a half-year intensive program or full-year program, with or without paraprofessional assistance.


|Latest news | Subscribe|
Kids Get Science Project Ideas from NALBy Brian Norris
February 12, 1999
Elementary to high school students who need science project ideas in a hurry now have on-line access to a list of 140 publications chock full of project ideas, most related to the agricultural sciences.
The bibliography Projects and Experiments for Young Scientists was created by the National Agricultural Librarys (NAL) Technology Transfer Information Center (TTIC). The project is part of an effort by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), NALs parent agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to interest young people in science and scientific research. NAL staff will use the bibliography to respond to students who contact the library for ideas on science projects and research.
Literally hundreds of science project ideas are listed in the publications, on subjects ranging from Christmas tree farming to Samoan fruits and vegetables, according to TTIC Coordinator Kate Hayes. Every child should be able to find at least one experiment or project that catches the imagination. Many of the titles listed should be available at local public libraries and school libraries.
The bibliography is available on the NAL home page at:
Copies are also available by contacting the Technology Transfer Information Center, National Agricultural Library, 10301 Baltimore Avenue, 4th floor, Beltsville, MD 20705-235, telephone (301) 504-5372, firstname.lastname@example.org.
TTIC compiled the bibliography from a search of the NAL bibliographic database AGRICOLA (AGRICultural OnLine Access), which contains over 3.5 million citations to the literature of agriculture. TTIC staffer Mary Stevanus produced the bibliography.
ARS has also created a Web site, called Science for Kids, that highlights the agencys research in simple language geared for students ages 8 to 13. Science for Kids can be found at:
NAL is the largest agricultural library in the world and has been serving the agricultural community since 1862. It is one of four national libraries of the United States.
Contact: Kate Hayes, Technology Transfer Information Center, ARS National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, Md., phone (301) 504-6875, fax (301) 504-7098, email@example.com.


Motriz: Revista de Educação Física
On-line version ISSN 1980-6574
SOUSA, Arilson Fernandes Mendonça de; NOGUEIRA, Júlia Aparecida Devidé and REZENDE, Alexandre Luiz Gonçalves de. Training strategies for elementary education teachers in physical activity and health eating. Motriz: rev. educ. fis. [online]. 2012, vol.18, n.3, pp. 581-589. ISSN 1980-6574. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1980-65742012000300018.
The study evaluated the learning effects generated by long (IL) and short (IC) educational interventions in health eating and physical activity knowledge. 42 teachers from two public elementary schools completed knowledge questionnaires with a 0-10 grade, pre and post-intervention. IL offered a 40 hours course and IC offered a 30 minutes lecture, and both groups received the same printed educational material. The intervention produced a statistically significant (p<0.05) increased in averaged health eating knowledge [IL: +1.19 (SE=0.31) and CI: +1.18 (SE 0.34) points]. In physical activity, change in average knowledge was only statically significant in IL [IL + 1.69 (SE=0.52) and IC -0.36; (SE=0.45) points]. There were significant differences between groups in final notes for physical activity knowledge. Simple educational activities produced positive effects on health eating knowledge however, for physical activity may be necessary longer intervention.
Keywords : Physical activity; Health eating; Education; School.


Otto F. Ege Collection
The Ege Manuscript Leaf Portfolios
In the late 1940s, longtime Cleveland resident and art historian Otto F. Ege selected fifty medieval manuscripts from his personal collection and removed several dozen individual pages from each one. He mounted each leaf onto a large paper mat using tape hinges, and added a descriptive label to the mat. He then put one leaf from each of the fifty component manuscripts into a durable portfolio box; each of the resulting boxed sets thus contained a different leaf from each of the fifty original manuscripts. Forty boxes containing fifty leaves each were made in this way, and were offered for sale to university and public libraries around North America.
This was an extraordinary thing to do. For centuries, the act of biblioclasty (literally, "book-breaking") has been reviled--in most people's minds there exists an urge to protect books, especially old ones, and to view cutting pieces out of them as nearly acute a crime as burning them outright. But Ege's impulse was actually a largely altruistic one. He had devoted his career to teaching book arts such as decoration, typography, and layout design to the general public, and he believed that the transformative beauty of medieval book decoration could inspire bookmakers today to greater heights of creativity. He authored dozens of articles on this subject in art education journals, and loaned materials to public book exhibits regularly. His "Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts" portfolios were part of his longstanding commitment to populist art education in North America.
The manuscripts he took apart were his personal property, and there is strong evidence that most if not all of the books he used in this project were already damaged in some way. Manuscripts which have lost their front or back covers, or from which pages are already drifting out, were (then as now) less expensive to acquire than ones with intact bindings. They were mostly books that saw a lot of use during church services in the Middle Ages: Bibles, psalters (collections of the Psalms), missals (books containing the text of the mass), hymnals, Books of Hours (personal prayer books, often owned by wealthy women), breviaries (prayer books used by priests), and so on. Rarer items in the portfolios include pages from 15th-century manuscripts of Livy's History of Rome, Thomas Aquinas's Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and the Dialogues of Gregory the Great. The relative scarcity of copies of these latter texts, combined with the high quality of the work of their scribes, earns these three leaves special mention.
A secondary intention of Otto Ege's in making these sets was, of course, to profit financially from what was by then more than thirty years of book collecting. Sadly, Ege died in 1951 before selling any of these particular manuscript portfolios. His widow Louise, however, continued with the commercial plan, and began selling the boxed sets compiled by her husband to individuals and institutions for $750 each. Denison University is fortunate to own one of these forty portfolios, purchased in 1956 by Denison alumnus, benefactor, and longtime trustee Percy Wiltsee (Class of 1901), who then generously donated the set to the college.
To date, thirty of Ege's forty specimen sets of medieval manuscript leaves have been located, nearly all of them in libraries in the U.S. and Canada. The purpose of this website is to provide a single location where images, descriptions, and other information about Otto Ege and his leaves can be gathered and shared; in a sense, it is an attempt to "virtually" reconstruct the component manuscripts, as well as to promote the study of one of the most important figures of 20th-century book collecting. We hope you find the contents of this site useful, and invite your participation to the ongoing project of Ege Studies as we move into the future.
Greta Smith (Miami University) and Fred Porcheddu (Denison University)


January 27, 2009
WSGC Newsletter for Educators
The Washington NASA Space Grant Consortium's electronic newsletter for teachers provides curriculum ideas, Internet links and other resources to help you better meet the Washington EALRs and the National Science Education Standards.TABLE OF CONTENTS
-- EDUCATOR OPEN HOUSE (K-12)
-- PEGGY VATTER MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP
-- SNAPSHOTS OF EARTH FROM SPACE (5-9)
-- DAWN MARS FLYBY WORKSHOP
-- CHEMISTRY GRANTS FOR TEACHERS (K-12)
-- TEACHERS ON THE LEADING EDGE (5-9)
On February 7, the Museum of Flight will hold its free winter educator open house for K-12 public, private, and home-school teachers, administrators, and their families.
Visitors are invited to tour the exhibits, learn about the museum's educational programs, and discover air and space resources, products, and activities. For directions and other information, go to
Applications for the 2009 Peggy Vatter Memorial Scholarship are now available. Sponsored by Washington Science Teacher Association, the scholarships are intended to increase equity education in science and mathematics.
The scholarship provides up to $1,500 in funds to pursue certification in science education or in elementary education with an emphasis in science. The funds may also be awarded to certified teachers who show intent to improve skills in providing equitable science education through professional development.
The application packet must be postmarked by May 1. For more information, go to
Through ISS EarthKAM, middle school educators and their students will have a chance to take pictures of Earth from a digital camera on board the International Space Station.
The International Space Station EarthKAM Winter 2009 Mission will take place February 3-6. Only teachers and those affiliated with a school or education group (a home schooling group and informal education club such as GirlsBoy Scouts) may register. Participation is free. For more information, see
On March 7, K-12 and informal educators from the region will have a unique opportunity to meet with Dawn scientists and engineers in a workshop at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) in Portland.
Dawn flies by Mars next month. As the spacecraft executes special maneuvers to shift its direction into the correct orbital plane for encountering its first intended destination, the asteroid Vesta, science and engineering teams will share key updates and information. Workshop participants will also receive curricular materials as part of this unique opportunity.
For more information and registration, go to
The Puget Sound chapter of the American Chemical Society will award one-year grants of up to $500 to area K-12 teachers.
Awards may be used for supplies and equipment for high school students conducting chemistry/sciencer demonstrations at K-9 schools; for selected chemistry journals and books, including safety and waste disposal texts; for K-12 teacher supplies and equipment to develop new chemistry experiments; and for K-12 teachers to attend chemistry courses, symposia or institutes.
Teachers are asked to submit a one-page proposal. Preference will be given to teachers who are extending their range of competence. The deadline for proposals is April 30. For more information, please contact Clarita Bhat at
Teachers on the Leading Edge, a five-day workshop on Pacific Northwest plate tectonics, geologic hazards and EarthScope science for middle school teachers, is being offered July 26-31 at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma.
The workshop, funded through the National Science Foundation EarthScope Project,includes one field day investigating Cascadia great earthquakes and tsunami geology and one field day exploring Cascade volcanic hazards. Participants must teach in Washington state. The application deadline is April 1. For more information, go to
Ideas, comments and Web sites of interest to other teachers should be sent to Irene Svete, newsletter editor, at
If you are not a regular subscriber and would like to receive our newsletter, simply go to UW's Mailman and fill in a subscription form. Concerned about spam? Please note Space Grant does not sell its address lists.


Explore a range of information, maps, images and games which will support your studies across a variety of subjects including History, Architecture, Irish writers, Flora & Fauna, Irish Language & Legends, Sport, Transport & much more
The AskaboutIreland website also hosts the Digital Archive of the Irish Times. However it can only be accessed online through schools or libraries. Every edition of the Irish Times since 29th March 1859 is available online in an easily searchable format.
Providing a range of resources and information for all subjects within the Irish post-primary curriculum including a search facility for resources within a range of topics in both the junior & senior cylcle.
This website provides valuable resources to help students Learn, to Revise for their Exams, and to enable students and teachers to Explore the wider world of education.
As part of Ireland's Science, Technology & Innovation (STI) Awareness Programme, the science.ie website provides resources for visitors of all ages who are interested in science and technology
A database of Irish terms containing over 270,000 terms, searchable under both Irish and English versions.
|Khanacademy.org provides students with an extensive library of content, including interactive challenges, assessments, and videos from any computer with access to the web. ontent covers math, science biology, chemistry, physics, finance and history|
Webwise.ie educates on safer usage of the Internet. Aimed at students, teachers and parents it also promotes the positive aspects of using the Internet and informs on how to deal with the risks.
An online free encyclopedia written collaboratively by volunteers all around the world
|Google Earth |
Google Earth combines the power of Google Search with satellite imagery, maps, terrain and 3D buildings to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips
|National Geographic |
Information on the environment, animals, people and history
Mathletics is a leading digital maths resource, helping children aged 5-18 to improve their numeracy skills and build confidence in maths whilst having fun. Parents can set tasks and closely monitor progress. Aligned to the Irish curriculum. Visit www.Mathletics.eu
This is a website with educational games about Europa. The games are free and easy to use, and available in Gaeilge, English and seven other languages. Topics: countries, capitals, flags, regions, lakes, seas, rivers, islands and more
|BBC Education |
Tons of information on the schools and education sections of the BBC site
Educational Website Directories – the following directories list out educational websites on the world wide web:
|www.thinkquest.org – the thinkquest libraries contain unique education web sites that have been created by students and for students. The library currently contains more that 5,000 web sites to search and surf.|


- Shopping Bag ( 0 items )
Curriculum Leadership Development is an up-to-date, user-friendly textbook offering unique approaches to help readers understand the complexity of curriculum leadership. It is grounded in current and relevant theory, research, legislation, and application in the closely related areas of curriculum leadership, development, and scholarship. The text solidifies the concepts of curriculum and leadership in experiential learning contexts, and promotes democratic action and critical thinking.
Author Carol A. Mullen uses a descriptive, qualitative approach that integrates case study, data analysis, personal reflection, and lessons learned. Among the most important elements of the book are:
*the inclusion of the voice and curricular experiences of the professional student who is a seasoned teacher or beginning adminstrator;
*detailed illustrations of practitioners' experiences as curriculum makers and action researchers;
*an articulation of the links among curriculum development, constructivist curricula, and mentoring scaffolds; and
*practical exercises to accompany case studies.
Graduate and advanced undergraduate students in education will find this textbook of value in their coursework, as will curriculum professionals who teach practicing teachers.
Contents: Preface. Part I: Trends and Issues in the Study of Curriculum Leadership. Changing Times for School Curriculum Leaders. Origins, Definitions, and Types of Curriculum. Process/Product Classification of Key Curriculum Thinkers. Part II: Curriculum Leadership Cases for Schools and Faculties. Coping With Transitions as a New Site-Based Administrative Leader. Information Literacy Development for Students and Equitable Access. Inclusion and School Preparedness to Educate Students With Disabilities. Nurturing School Culture and Collaborative Curriculum as Campus Leader. Countering Interruptions of Teaching With Curricular Leadership. Reflective Analysis of National-Board-Certified Teacher Mentoring Programs. Administrator Walk-Through as Instructional Aid for Classroom Teachers. Transformation of an Inner-City Elementary School Into a Magnet School. Career Academy Trends in Modernizing Curriculum and Infusing Technology. Early Reading Intervention Through After-School Tutoring Programs. Curricular Effects of Looping for Students, Teachers, and Parents. Science Teachers as Curriculum Coaches of Language and Meaning-Making. Part III: University-Based Curriculum Leadership Exercises. A Guide for Instructors, Coaches, and Future School Leaders.


A “literacy-rich environment” is one that provides children with easy access to interact with a variety of printed and writing materials. These materials may include such things as books, magazines, crayons, paper, signs, pencils, or word labels. Having a literacy-rich home brings your child one step closer to becoming ready to read! Today I'm sharing a quick checklist of features of a literacy-rich environment that can help you to evaluate your own home.
"Children with access to books and to quality reading experiences in their homes have more rapid language & literacy development compared with children without such advantages, and they are more able to enter school ready to learn. And although early childhood educational programs can do much to help children develop strong language and literacy skills, there is little substitute for the power of children’s rich, positive, frequent experiences with books with their homes under the sensitive guidance of a parent.”– quote from Shared Storybook Ready: Building Young Children’s Language & Emergent Literacy Skills by Helen K Ezell & Laura M. Justice.
Complete this quick checklist of features of a literacy-rich environment
to help evaluate your home:
___ My home includes a variety of books that are easily accessible to my children (that is, placed on easy to reach bookshelves, or in bins on the floor, etc).
___ My home includes a variety of other printed materials (for example, card games, newspapers, magazines, notes, informative labels).
___ My home contains writing tools that are easily accessible to my children (for example, pens, pencils, crayons, markers, paper, journals).
___ There are numbers throughout my home that are in my children’s view (on clocks, thermostats, calculators, calendars, money).
___ There are areas in my home designated for reading (for example, a comfy chair with a light or a “book nook”).
___ There are areas in my home designated for writing (for example, a playroom with a kid sized table, a desk with paper and pencils, or a night stand with a journal).
___ The play spaces in my home promote literacy skills (for example, having a cookbook in a child’s kitchen area, or a notepad and pencil with a doctor’s set).
___ My children often see the adults in the home engaged in reading and writing activities (for example, reading a magazine or writing a shopping list).
___ We have a specific time set aside for reading and writing activities (for example, writing or drawing in a journal before bed, or reading stories before dinner every night).
How do you measure up?


Reach Out and Read (ROR) is a health provider based early literacy program developed at Boston City Hospital in 1989, by pediatricians and educators to encourage literacy development in young patients.
The three key components of ROR are:
During the well-child visit, physicians and nurse practitioners advise parents about the importance of reading with young children and offer age-appropriate tips and encouragement.
Children receive a new, developmentally and culturally appropriate children’s book to take home and keep at every well-child visit from six months to five years of age.
In some clinics, volunteers read with children in the clinic waiting room, exposing children to books and modeling reading aloud and the pleasures of looking at books together for parents.


Funky Chickens: Free Lesson Plan Download
Level: 3-5 Art Education Lesson Plan
Art Elements: Line, Shape, Color
Art Skills: Drawing, Coloring, Digital Design
Art History: Folk Art
* Get more free lessons like this, on our Lessons Page
Technology in the art room is a really hot topic. Classrooms are filling up with mind-blowing hardware and devices, apps and websites are getting better, and the products they can create are getting more sophisticated. So, what do we want our students to learn from this 21st century media? It is the perfect opportunity to dig into our art history! This lesson asks students to discuss and experience making very traditional and very high-tech art then compare and contrast the two. These activities constitute a well-rounded unit that directs students to create art, think about it critically, and then reflect on their experience. Perc-a-doodle-doo!


The Power of Play for Early Childhood Learning in Your Library
What do you do to play? Would you like to play all day? Play is a child's work! Research clearly shows play is key to early childhood development and lifelong success. Play is critical to a child's healthy development in all areas of school readiness, especially social emotional development and early literacy. How is play relevant to library services? Join us as we answer that question and identify ways to incorporate play in library programs and spaces to promote children's early childhood development and motivate caregivers to enjoy play with their children.
- Understand the critical role of play in early childhood development and its impact on learning, particularly early literacy and school readiness
- Learn at least 4 techniques for using props in storytime and other programs to promote and expand play
- Learn at least 3 methods to encourage caregivers to provide enjoyable play experiences for and with their children
- Learn ways libraries are incorporating play into their programs and spaces.
Who Should Attend
Children's librarians and library paraprofessional and support staff in public and school libraries who work with young children. Children's librarians and library staff who will be involved with planning, preparing and presenting workshops for adults on early literacy and school readiness. Library administrators and staff involved in designing and planning children's spaces in libraries.
Course Level & Prerequisites
This course is open to all library staff of all experience levels, no prerequisites are required.
Connie Wilson recently retired after 21 years in various librarian and supervisory positions at Carroll County (MD) Public Library. She has incorporated the importance of play and ways to promote children's play in workshops for librarians in various states, most recently Montana. Additionally, in Maryland she has presented workshops incorporating play to child care providers, parents and early childhood educators. Connie as lead trainer for an Early Literacy Training research study in Carroll County, recently presented ALSC/PLA webinars on training and motivating adults to foster early literacy and school readiness.
Accessing the Webcast
To take part you must have a computer, high-speed Internet access, web browser, and a copy of Flash® Player 8 or higher. You can download a free copy of Flash® Player from the Adobe website if you do not already have it.
You are encouraged to test your connection prior to registering for a webinar. If your internet connection is not high speed you may have problems inside the virtual meeting room. For more information, view a video about Abode Connect meetings produced by Adobe.


|CLASS CODE:||MUSIC 373A||CREDITS: 2|
|DIVISION:||PERFORMING AND VISUAL ARTS|
|GENERAL EDUCATION:||This course does not fulfill a General Education requirement.|
|DESCRIPTION:||This course provides music education students with the technical knowledge and pedagogical information needed for teaching brass instruments to beginnng and intermediate students.|
|TAUGHT:||Fall, Winter, Summer|
|CONTENT AND TOPICS:||Instruments taught will be trumpet, French horn, baritone, trombone, and tuba. Every method taught will include an objective for teaching students with multicultural and special needs.|
|GOALS AND OBJECTIVES:||1. Develop skills for classroom instruction of all brass instruments.
2. Learn to play all brass instruments.
3. Be able to access resources available to actual classroom teachers.
4. Develop an understanding of basic principles of brass instruments and their performance.
5. Develop strategies and techniques to teach basic principles of music and brass playing to young students.
6. Gain an understanding of and techniques for dealing with classroom management issues related to teaching brass instruments in a group setting.
|EFFECTIVE DATE:||August 2002|


A handy, thorough, and convenient guide to children's music education. Tipbook Music for Kids and Teens
has valuable, practical information that parents need to know in order to support and guide the musical development of their children, regardless of the style of music they love.
Tipbook Music is based on the ideas and experience of musicians, teachers, directors, parents, and other specialists, it provides open-minded information on all aspects of this essential element of your children's musical growth, including the importance of music, selecting an instrument (based on factors such as your child's age, physical limitations, instrument prices, availability, band and orchestra needs, etc.), buying and renting instruments, all phases of music education (music programs for toddlers, grading systems, seeking a teacher, etc.), how to make practicing fun, and so much more.
- Interactive Tipcodes for audible examples of topics in the book can be accessed at www.tipbook.com
- Numerous Diagrams and drawings
- Includes tips on practicing
This really is an essential guide for the parent or guardian of any child that expresses a wish to enter the joyful world of music. To make sure your child gets the best possible start in learning a musical instrument, be sure to pick up the Tipbook Music For Kids And Teens so that you can help your child unlock their full creative and musical potential.


It’s time to stand up and let the world know, at least in Australia, that if we are to be a truly creative nation then we need to nurture creativity from the start of a child’s life and we need to do it properly.
Music education, the prime mover in nurturing children’s creativity, is often maltreated by people, let’s call them teachers, who think that children should have a diet of only popular music, because, AND WAIT FOR THIS...THE CHILDREN LIKE IT!
What fabulous reasoning; children tend to like sugar: should they therefore have only a diet of sugar?
By giving children ONLY popular music you say to them in an oblique but very forceful way: ‘ Children, you are too dumb to understand any music other than popular music.
Your brains will never understand Jazz; you will never get any European folk music or world music or fusion or crossover jazz/classical/ethnic music because you are not capable of listening to anything other than pop music.
‘So children’, says the music teacher of limited imagination, and even more limited ability, ‘let’s play the latest pop song and see how it’s just like every other pop song.’
The real tragedy is that there is some crackerjack pop music out there which, in conjunction with a wide range of all sorts of other music, could really have a profound impact on children’s musical development. Comparing, contrasting, examining a broad range of styles and genres is the life-blood of a music program. Music education is not about entertainment.
Would History be taught with the view that we will only study Australian history from 1900 -1905? That could be fun and entertaining!
Would Geography be taught with the view that we will only study mountains in Victoria? We love mountains and hate seas and plains and valleys!
Would arithmetic be taught with the view that we only really need to do addition up to ten? My children don’t like any numbers above ten!
If this Federal Government is really serious about creative Australia, really serious about education and genuinely interested in literacy and numeracy then it would put its money where its mouth was and fund music and arts education as a priority, taught properly by teachers who know something about music, teachers who are serious about music as a subject and not disc jockeys.
Parents need to know that children, who receive only pop music and nothing else, are being short-changed in a significant way.
How is it that in Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Argentina, for example, where music is studied and taught sequentially as a serious subject that there has been no deleterious impact on the literacy and numeracy results of students? In fact just the opposite: these countries excel in all fields of educational endeavour precisely because of their arts and music programs, in which pop music, by the way, plays a very minor role
Wake up Australia; we are behind the eight ball big time-but we can change it; you can change it-you can show concern-you can write to education ministers and politicians, even when they seem not to be understanding the problem they still need to hear that there is a problem and it can be fixed. Watch this space.


- Getty Images
- Playing with puzzle can help children develop the ability to focus on a task, a later predictor of success in school.
Young children who can sit still and focus are more likely to graduate from college than children who are easily distracted, according to a new study from Oregon State University.
Researchers made use of data that spanned 25 years, tracking a group of 430 preschool-age children through age 21. Parents were asked to rate their children on such behaviors as “playing with a single toy for long periods of time,” or “gives up easily” when a task or games gets hard.
“We were interested in identifying early predictors of later success,” said Megan McClelland, early childhood research core director at OSU’s Hallie E. Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families, and a lead author on the study.
“We know that early academic skills predict later academic stills,” she said. “But the ability to pay attention and focus are foundational skills that help kids persist through difficult tasks when they need to.”
She was quick to add that academic skills are critical, and that “aptitude part is part of the equation.”
Still, she said, “There are a lot of very smart people who have difficulty finishing tasks.”
Of course, a lot transpires in a person’s life between age 4 and age 21. While researchers couldn’t control for all variables, McClelland said, they were able to control for some of the most important predictors of academic success: including parents’ education level, the child’s cognitive ability, and childhood vocabulary.
Teachers and parents can help young children develop the qualities of persistence and self-discipline by adding new rules to some familiar games. For example, McClelland suggested playing “Red Light, Green Light,” but changing the rules so that “red” means go, and “green” means stop.
“Kids ask me all the time, ‘Are you trying to trick me?’ I tell them, ‘No, we want you stop and think about what you’re doing first.’”
Another simple activity to help build the concentration muscle is a dance game in which children are told they have to dance slowly when the music is fast, and dance quickly when the music is slow.
“When kids have to control their bodies, it’s more challenging for them,” McClelland said. “They actually have to stop their movements and do something different. It requires a lot of thinking.”
McClelland is also the mother of a 3-year-old son. She acknowledges it takes time to help kids practice ways to focus and get engaged in things they are interested in.
“He will sit there for 15 or 20 minutes doing a Thomas the Train puzzle.” While putting it together, McClelland will sometimes ask ‘How many pieces have we used?’ to build her son’s aptitude for counting.
But she says, “I’m also helping him focus and persist.”


LOWER ELEMENTARY: KINDERGARTEN THROUGH 3rd GRADE
In the younger elementary years, students are fascinated with stories and asking big questions. Students want to know where things come from and learn about the great accomplishments of humankind. The Montessori elementary curriculum engages the student’s imagination and creativity while focusing on the broad concepts and skills that will provide the foundation for more abstract work. Students work with specially designed, multi-sensory materials that teach abstract concepts in a concrete manner.
Lessons encourage self-discipline and enhance the student’s ability to concentrate. The school day allows for 2-3 hour blocks of concentrated work (individual, in pairs, or small groups). Daily circle time is used to foster a sense of community by providing opportunities to share experiences, present projects, and work in a supportive environment building confidence, compassion, independence, and communication and conflict resolution skills.
UPPER ELEMENTARY: 3rd AND 4th GRADES
The upper elementary program for 3rd and 4th grade students continues the foundation provided in the lower elementary levels. From a daily work plan to a weekly work plan, students learn the value of time management and planning. Academic expectations are higher in this level but Montessori materials still provide the basis for most of the instruction in language, mathematics, and science. While there are many opportunities for students to engage in learning through computer technology, the Montessori materials are still fundamentally important to bridge each student’s developmental process from a need for concrete representation to the understanding of abstract concepts in mathematics, science, and language.
Montessori schools are well prepared for the adoption of Common Core standards, which call for students to understand rather than to memorize. In addition to an individualized but challenging academic experience, students participate in physical education, voice and instrumental studies as well as art education. The goal of the Upper Elementary Program is to prepare students for the Upper School.
To learn more about the elementary program, you can visit the individual learning environment (LE) pages section of our Website or make an appointment to tour our campuses. Find out more about our Upper School and Secondary Programs in this section of our Website.
“The Montessori philosophy is a method of seeing children as they really are and of creating environments which foster the fulfillment of their highest potential – spiritual, emotional, physical, and intellectual – as members of a family and the world community….. Montessori practice is always up-to-date and dynamic because observation and the meeting of needs is continual and specific for each child.” ~ www.montessori.edu


Job Description - Teacher, Child Care Description View created on 01/31/2015
Teacher, Child Care
Child Care School Manager
To provide lab and/or classroom support services and instruction to children, students, and faculty.
Description of Duties and Tasks
Essential duties and responsibilities include the following. Other duties may be assigned.
Plans and implements the curriculum by creating strategies and activities to target learning; determines long and short range age-appropriate teaching goals for individual students and groups; oversees and leads learning projects and activities; designs and leads off-site field trips.
Monitors and guides children's daily classroom activities and interactions. Provides for children's needs and teaches self-help skills such as toileting, hand washing, dressing, and feeding.
Schedules and conducts annual in-home visits; tracks children's development using assessment tool. Collects, formats, and interprets information relating to children's developmental progress; shares and uses information to plan with parents during bi-annual conferences.
Oversees and guides lab students doing classroom fieldwork: writes and updates information packets; tracks and reschedules lab students; provides oral and written feedback; approves classroom activities and projects. Oversees classroom fieldwork times and semester long classroom practicum experiences for advanced lab students.
Oversees assistant teachers, hourly employees, and volunteers.
Conducts indoor and outdoor safety checks, removing any hazardous objects or materials; sanitizes all surfaces, toys and equipment.
Communicates with parents to share and exchange information relating to the child. Writes and posts weekly lesson plans; fills out attendance forms, daily activity charts, and individual education plans. Posts notes and reminders; writes and distributes classroom newsletters, calendars and information packets.
Takes on the responsibilities of the Director when delegated in charge of the Center in his/her absence.
Must possess required knowledge and be able to explain and demonstrate, with or without reasonable accommodations, that the essential functions of the job can be performed.
Principals and practices of child development and early childhood education.
Student assessment techniques and critique strategies.
Safety practices and procedures as they related to a child care facility.
Interpersonal skills using tact and diplomacy.
First aid and CPR.
Principles and practices of early child care program activities.
Must possess required skills and be able to explain and demonstrate, with or without reasonable accommodations, that the essential functions of the job can be performed.
Effectively using interpersonal and communications skills.
Effectively using organizational and planning skills.
Maintaining an established work schedule, including evening hours.
Assessing lab student's performance in the classroom.
Designing, scheduling, and implementing learning activities and programs.
Maintaining confidentiality of work related information and materials.
Establishing and maintaining effective working relationships
Providing early childhood educational programs.
Demonstrated proficiency using standard office software applications.
Frequent lifting and moving of children or objects up to 25 pounds. Occasional lifting and moving of children up to 50 pounds.
Subject to standing, walking, sitting in small chairs or on the floor, bending, reaching, kneeling, pushing and pulling, running, climbing, balancing, and stooping
Work is routinely performed in both inside and outside work environments.
Two years work experience as a lead teacher, including one year supervising teaching staff in an NAEYC accredited center.
Bachelor's degree in early childhood education, child development, elementary education, early childhood special education or a related field with a minimum of 36 college credits (semester hours) in child development and/or early childhood education.
Infant/Child/Adult CPR and First Aid Certification prior to employment.
Required to successfully complete state and FBI criminal background checks, completion of OSHA blood borne pathogen training, and health assessment and TB test prior to employment.
Work safely and follow safety rules. Report unsafe working conditions and behavior. Take reasonable and prudent actions to prevent others from engaging in unsafe practices.


In an argument already almost two centuries old, some people claim that classical music is stuffy, old fashioned, and appeals only to a cultural elite. Popular music is new, up to date, and broad based. Opera seems to appeal only to a subset of the aging classical music crowd. School children know nothing of such philosophical arguments. They only know what they like. They like classical music, and even opera, just fine.
I have written several posts about distinctions between classical and popular music, but I’d like to use “popular” in a broader sense for a while. It’s something a lot of people like. The Beatles are popular. Al Jolson used to be popular, but discovery of a new picture of him won’t cause the same stir as a 50-year-old picture of the Fab Four recently did. In classical music, Beethoven has always been popular. Schoenberg never was.
And opera? When flame wars over the relative merits of classical and popular music first erupted in the early nineteenth century, contemporary Italian opera (new works by Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti) were definitely at the popular end of the spectrum in Europe.
In England and the US, it was only popular music when translated into English and with the recitatives replaced with spoken dialogue. Early attempts to establish a permanent theater for Italian opera in Italian in New York foundered on a snobbishness unknown in Europe.
The New York upper crust sought to reserve this more sophisticated entertainment for itself. It built theaters in neighborhoods that made the lower classes uncomfortable. It put ticket prices beyond their reach. The effort soon failed. There weren’t enough rich snobs to support such an expensive art form.
At least partly for that reason, New York’s earliest Italian opera companies went out of business almost as soon as they opened. Meanwhile, when opera companies toured the rest of the country, a mixed class of people thoroughly enjoyed their performances of opera in Italian.
P.S. 58, Brooklyn, 2011
Music education has taken a beating in this country in recent decades. Programs in many schools have been gutted or eliminated altogether as a misguided cost-cutting effort.
A few generations ago music educators generally disapproved of popular music and sought to educate children’s tastes. That worked about as well as the older generation of rich New Yorkers trying to keep opera to themselves. Popular music is now everywhere in such school music programs as still exist. Not every school gives their children much chance to experience classical music at all.
One school that still fosters an appreciation of the arts is Brooklyn’s P.S. 58. In 2011 music teacher Stephen Cedermark earned a Blackboard Award. Among other things, his classes of kindergarteners through second graders enthusiastically learned to sing Italian opera in Italian. Not only that, they learned the meaning of the words.
Cedermark points out that opera combines singing and stories. Children love both singing and stories. Why would they not love the combination?
The same article that announced Cedermark’s award mentioned that he was on the lay-off list for the end of the year. Why is that not surprising?
I suppose he wound up keeping his job. The NBC Nightly News broadcast of December 22, 2012 featured Cedermark’s class as they learned a number from Rossini’s Barber of Seville, attended a dress rehearsal of the opera at the Metropolitan Opera, and sang for the cast back stage.
Singing His Praises / by Linnea Covington. Blackboard Awards.
Opera on the Road: Traveling Opera Troupes in the United States, 1825-60 / by Katherine K. Preston (University of Illinois Press, 1993), pp. 99 ff.
Photo credit: Some rights reserved by stevendepolo.


Ivanic, Roz and Ormerod, F. (2002) Materiality in children's meaning-making practices. Visual Communication, 1 (1). pp. 65-91. ISSN 1741-3214Full text not available from this repository.
This article develops Kress and Van Leeuwen's insight that material features combine with visual and linguistic features to convey meaning, showing how this is particularly true of the meaning-making practices of children. Taking examples from a corpus of project work by children aged 8-11 years, we identify the sorts of material resources they were drawing on and categorize the examples according to the types of meaning they carry, linking this categorization to Halliday's three macro-functions of semiotic resources. We then provide examples of the ways in which physical characteristics provide traces of decision-making processes in the construction of a meaningful message, and of importation and adaptation of semiotic material from elsewhere. We end by suggesting that the practices we have observed represent a fast-changing period in the development of technologies of literacy and that awareness of the materiality of children's meaning making may contribute to an understanding of the richness and complexity of literacy development.
|Journal or Publication Title:||Visual Communication|
|Additional Information:||RAE_import_type : Journal article RAE_uoa_type : Linguistics|
|Uncontrolled Keywords:||literacy practices • materiality • meaning making • semiotic resources|
|Subjects:||P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics|
|Departments:||Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences > Linguistics & English Language|
|Deposited On:||05 Mar 2008 13:21|
|Last Modified:||07 Jan 2015 15:52|
Actions (login required)


Vincent Macrina, Director of Music Education, K-12
The Brockton Public Schools' Music Program, K-12 encompasses a sequential program of general classroom music instruction, instrumental and choral instruction and performance, and introduction to computer technology. The program is based upon sound current research and provides students with multiple strategies for becoming critical and creative musicians, listeners, and composers.
The Brockton Public Schools adopts the vision of the Massachusetts Arts Curriculum Framework. Music should generate intellectual and emotional excitement that helps bring people and art together. Through an effective program, music will have a lasting positive influence throughout one's life.
• All students will have access to high quality music programs.
• Music instruction will encourage learners to make multicultural and interdisciplinary connections.
• Students will develop musical skills through interactive learning.
• Teachers will provide challenges and opportunities for students at all levels of musical ability.
• Material will be drawn from many genres, time periods and cultures.
• Music assessment will monitor students' performance, improve instruction, enhance learning, and encourage students' self-reflection.


The oldest known inhabitant of the Philippines was the Callao Man dating back 65,000 years ago. The second oldest was the Tabon Man of Palawan, whose skeletons were carbon-dated to over 24,000 years ago. The first know migrants are known to be that of the Austronesians that came from Taiwan in 4000 BCE.
From 1521 until 1821, the Philippines was a territory of Spain. During the span of over 300 years, the country was opened to international trade. First was the trade route to Acapulco, which brought fruits and crops from the Americas to the Philippines. By the 19th century, the country was open to world trade, bringing with it shifts in society, creating incredibly rich Spaniards and mestizos and further divided the social classes.
During the Spanish reign, schools and universities were built, as well as hospitals and many infrastructure. Roman Catholicism was also spread throughout the country, converting majority of the Philippines to Christianity. In 1898, the country was sold to the United States for an amount of $20 million, in accordance to the Treaty of Paris. On the same year on June 12, the Philippines had also declared independence from Spain, which the US did not recognize, leading to the Philippine-American war.
By 1935, the US had granted Commonwealth status to the country but plans on developing the nation were halted by the Japanese invasion during World War II. When Allied Troops defeated the Japanese, the country was then given full independence from the US on July 4, 1946. However, the Philippine government regards June 12, 1898 as its official independence date.
The Philippines is an archipelago located on the farthest Western part of the Pacific, and also the farthest eastern country in Asia. It is an archipelago made of 7,107 islands, with 3 main islands called Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The islands are located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, which means it is susceptible to earthquakes and its proximity to the equator exposes the country to a number of tornadoes each year. But despite these plausible natural calamities, the country is also endowed with abundant natural resources.
The highest peak is Mt. Apo, found on the island of Mindanao, which is at 9,692 feet above sea level while the deepest point is the Philippine Trench, which is the 3rd deepest point in the world.
The country is made of 17 regions, 81 provinces, 144 cities, 1,491 municipalities, and 42,028 barangays or small communities. The head of the state is the president, elected by popular vote through national elections. The government is democratic, and governed through a constitution. The president, who stays in office for 6 years on a single term, appoints his own cabinet and also holds the position of commander-in-chief of the army. The Senate is the upper house of the government while the lower house is the House of Representatives. The judicial system is governed by the Supreme Court, with the Chief Justice its presiding officer.
Thousands of tropical islands make the Philippines a tropical paradise. Aside from its spectacular beaches and natural wonders, the country is also filled with historical monuments and buildings.
The most popular island in the country is Boracay - a small island of white sand beaches and crystal blue waters. Its bustling nightlife is legendary, making it the perfect party paradise for locals and tourists. The Chocolate Hills on the island of Bohol consists of over 1,000 small hills that look like chocolates during dry season. Its origin has never been explained and remains as one of the country's most visited places. The San Agustin Church in Manila is the oldest stone church in the country and boasts of the best example of Mexican-influenced interiors in the Philippines. And lastly, the Banaue Rice Terraces is a prehistoric engineering marvel that is a must-see. Carved mountain ranges are used for rice planting, which was created over 2000 years ago. The site is still being used for planting rice until today.
There are over 600 public schools in the country, with over 1000 private institutions. Elementary education is compulsory and free public elementary and high school are provided. The nation's university is the University of the Philippines, which is the nation's top ranking school. The oldest is the University of Sto. Tomas, which is also the oldest university charter in Asia, having been built in 1611. According to the QS University Rankings, the University of the Philippines is currently ranked as the 67th best university in Asia.
The people of the Philippines make up the largest diaspora in the world, with over 12 million Filipinos spread all around the cities of the world. The country is the text capital of the world, with an average of 450 million text messages sent every day. It is also the only Christian country in Asia.
Last Updated : September 18, 2014


Click here for course listings.
Elementary education is designed for a student who plans to teach in elementary schools.
What can I expect from a career in Elementary education?
Kindergarten and elementary school teachers play a vital role in the development of children. What children learn and experience during their early years can shape their views of themselves and the world and can affect their later success or failure in school, work, and their personal lives. Kindergarten and elementary school teachers introduce children to mathematics, language, science, and social studies. They use games, music, artwork, films, books, computers, and other tools to teach basic skills.
Kindergarten teachers use play and hands-on teaching, but academics begin to take priority in kindergarten classrooms. Letter recognition, phonics, numbers, and awareness of nature and science, introduced at the preschool level, are taught primarily in kindergarten.
Most elementary school teachers instruct one class of children in several subjects. In some schools, two or more teachers work as a team and are jointly responsible for a group of students in at least one subject. In other schools, a teacher may teach one special subject—usually music, art, reading, science, arithmetic, or physical education—to a number of classes. A small but growing number of teachers instruct multilevel classrooms, with students at several different learning levels.
Traditional education programs for kindergarten and elementary school teachers include courses designed specifically for those preparing to teach. Among these courses are mathematics, physical science, social science, music, art, and literature, as well as prescribed professional education courses, such as philosophy of education, psychology of learning, and teaching methods. Aspiring secondary school teachers most often major in the subject they plan to teach, while also taking a program of study in teacher preparation. Many 4-year colleges require students to wait until their sophomore year before applying for admission to teacher education programs. To maintain their accreditation, teacher education programs are now required to include classes in the use of computers and other technologies. Most programs require students to perform a student-teaching internship. Teacher education programs are accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and the Teacher Education Accreditation Council. Graduation from an accredited program is not necessary to become a teacher, but it may make fulfilling licensure requirements easier.
What can I earn? What is the job outlook? Click here.


A passagem do FUNDEF para o FUNDEB em um município de Goiás
Maria Luiza Costa Sampaio Lima
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO
Fundef leaded in 1998 the distribution of financial resources to States and Municipal Districts based on the number of pupils enrolled on elementary schools. In 2006, upon ten years of its development, Fundef was amplified and replaced by Fundeb, which will be in operation until 2020. This research aimed to analyze the impacts generated in short term by the replacement of Fundef by Fundeb, including the levels and the modalities of teaching and education taken into priority in the new distribution of financial resources. The theme studied straitened the term of the research to the last two years of Fundef operation (2005-2006) and to the first two years of Fundeb operation (2007-2008). The study was taken in one municipal district of RIDE District Distrito Federal Integrated Area. This study can be classified as an exploratory research and was conducted based on the analysis of aggregated financial and educational data, on the analysis of primary information resources and on interviews with managers through focus groups. The results indicate that the establishment of Fundeb raised the number of student enrollments in elementary education, enhanced the value of the professionals that work in educational field, gave more funds for teachers qualification, raised teachers wage and made possible a more effective social supervision of education expenditures. It can be concluded that there was amplification on the financial resources distributed to the District and a rise of the number of student enrolled in schools. Therefore, the main challenge will be to keep the students in schools and to reach success.


People who crack under pressure on tough cognitive tasks like solving math problems can blame distracting thoughts that lead them to focus too little on the task at hand, according to research in December's Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (Vol. 133, No. 4).
Miami University of Ohio psychology professor Sian Beilock, PhD, Michigan State University professor Thomas Carr, PhD, and students Catherine Kulp, of the University of Michigan, and Lauren Holt, also of Miami of Ohio, investigated whether distracting thoughts or overthinking hinders performance in stressful situations requiring working memory.
The researchers tested 80 undergraduates--none math majors--on modular arithmetic: true-or-false math questions that involve the combination of basic subtraction and division.
Researchers divided participants into low- and high-pressure groups. Students answered three 24-question blocks, divided into working-memory questions that were either high- or low-demand.
Before the third block, researchers presented the high-pressure group with a scenario designed to create three common sources of pressure: monetary incentives, peer pressure and social evaluation. Specifically, high-pressure participants were told their performance would be videotaped so that local math teachers could study students' performance. Researchers also paired students with others who the researchers falsely said had already improved their score by 20 percent. If participants could also improve by 20 percent, both students would receive five dollars. The low-pressure group took the third block without these stipulations.
Researchers found no difference between groups on questions demanding little working memory. However, the high-pressure group scored worse on high-demand questions and reported significantly greater anxiety and pressure than their low-pressure counterparts.
The findings contrast with previous research by Beilock and Carr on well-learned motor skills, such as golf putting, suggesting people choke because pressure causes them to overthink each step in a learned, routine task that doesn't require much thinking to begin with. In this study the opposite is true, Beilock says. Since the task required a lot of attention and memory resources, thinking too much about performance was not detrimental. However, on difficult cognitive tasks such as math problem-solving, individuals seem to choke on high-demand questions because external pressures create distracting thoughts that co-opt working memory, leaving participants without enough cognitive resources to answer high-demand questions successfully.
The results indicate yet another way people can choke, which varies by context, note the researchers.
"Depending on the task or situation, there are multiple ways that skills can fail under pressure," Beilock explains, adding that mentally tough tasks that require a lot of attention and working memory resources are harmed when step-by-step consideration is eliminated, while the opposite seems to be true for well-learned routine tasks that run largely outside of conscious control. "How a quarterback chokes when passing a football might differ from someone choking during a math test."
The environment also can affect performance--an implication for schools, Beilock says. "The results indicate that performance in high-stakes testing situations may just be a function of how people perform in pressure situations and not a reflection of their knowledge," she notes.
Letters to the Editor
- Send us a letter


Date of Award:
Master of Science (MS)
Family, Consumer, and Human Development
Lori A. Roggman
Conventional literacy is important for academic and life success. Emergent literacy is a precursor to conventional literacy, and parent-child book read ing experiences can foster emergent literacy development. Fathers are important figures in children's development and may make important contributions to their emergent literacy development.
This study observed 179 fathers from families who participated in research evaluating the Bear River Early Head Start program. Father-child book reading was videotaped as part of a 10-minute observation session in each child 's home at 14 months, 24 months, 36 months, and pre- kindergarten (age 4 or 5). Book reading observation sessions were coded based on parental strategies (i.e. language and behaviors) used during book reading. Pre-kindergarten observation sessions were transcribed for a measure of children's oral language. Children were tested in their homes at prekindergarten with measures of phonological processing, receptive vocabulary, and concepts of print. Regression analyses investigated the individual impact of book reading strategies on outcomes and the impact of strategies over time (cumulative). Findings revealed certain individual strategies had more impact than cumulative strategies, which was contrary to the hypotheses. The most positive cumulative impact was time spent during book reading. Overall, receptive vocabulary was the emergent literacy domain most strongly predicted by father book read ing strategies, and cumulative time spent book reading was the strategy that predicted emergent literacy outcomes most consistently.
Brooks, Cherri H., "Father Book Reading Behaviors and Pre-Kindergarten Emergent Literacy" (2005). All Graduate Theses and Dissertations. Paper 2522.
Copyright for this work is retained by the student. If you have any questions regarding the inclusion of this work in the Digital Commons, please email us at .


Music Education programs explore through developmental experiences involving singing, playing instruments, listening, movement, creative expression, and music reading.
Administrative Rule PI 8.01(2)(j)
Wisconsin Education Standards j, k, and l articulates that music instruction shall be provided in accordance with a written comprehensive music curriculum including developmental experiences involving singing, playing instruments, listening, movement, creative expression, and music reading. Music instruction shall be provided for all pupils in grades kindergarten through 6 and shall be performed by or under the direction of a licensed music teacher. Music instruction including general music, vocal music, and instrumental music shall be available to all pupils in grades 7-12 and shall be taught by a licensed music teacher.
Instructional minutes are not stated in the law for any subject area but the recommended minimum instruction time for elementary music is 60 minutes a week (usually two 30-minute sessions).
Specific information about programming and curriculum design is available through two publications: Wisconsin's Model Academic Standards for Music Education (1997) and Planning Curriculum in Music (2009). You may purchase each guide at DPI Publication Sales or 800-243-8782.
- Disciplinary Literacy - Music - Follow this link for additional information about engaging students in creativity, communication, and critical thinking through literacy skills.
- Music Pedagogy
- Music Standards - Poster
Preliminary information for the 2012 Wisconsin State Music Conference, scheduled for October 24-27, 2012 at the Monona Terrace Convention Center in Madison is available here.
If you have any questions or wish to share your ideas about arts and creativity education, please contact Julie Palkowski (608) 261-7494.