Aurore Eaton's Looking Back: Edward Custer, Swiss immigrant to Manchester, shines as an artist
On the east side of the Valley Cemetery, facing Pine Street is an unusual carved stone monument. It looks somewhat like a Gothic crown. The lettering on both the main monument and on the individual grave markers is highly decorative with a Germanic flair. Buried in this plot are several members of the Custer family, Swiss immigrants who came to Manchester in the late 1840s.
The mother of the family was Nannette Tollman-Spann Custer, who was born in Switzerland in 1813. When her husband Henry M. Tollman-Spann died, she was left to care for their four young children. She later married Doctor Emil Custer, who was seven years younger than her. Dr. Custer had been born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1820, of a Swiss father and German mother. His family moved to Switzerland when he was a small boy, and he later studied medicine in universities in both Switzerland and Germany.
Emil Custer was a kindly man who loved children, and he thoroughly embraced his instant fatherhood. He adopted Nannette's four children, Ann, Edward, Frank and Carolina. In 1847, he was inspired to bring his family to America to find a better life. The Custers spent a few months in Syracuse, N.Y., before making their way to Manchester, where they would remain.
Here Emil and Nannette would have two children of their own, but sadly they both died as infants.
Dr. Custer practiced medicine in Manchester for nearly 50 years. He was known as an excellent physician who pursued modern methods for curing diseases. His patients enjoyed his company, as he was a cheerful and charming person, with a sharp wit. When he died in 1896 at the age of 76, he was the oldest practicing doctor in the city.
The older of the Custer's two sons, Edward Luke Custer was nine when he arrived in the United States. Once in Manchester he attended public schools. He took up drawing and painting as a boy, and often entertained his schoolmates with his artwork. When he was 15 he painted scenes of Switzerland, which he exhibited in City Hall. As a young man he was hired by the Manchester Locomotive Works to do decorative painting on steam engines. He also worked for a time in Lawrence, Mass., doing the same type of work.
In 1858, the city directory lists Edward as a "sign and ornamental painter." Two years later his enterprise had expanded, and his ad now touted that he was a "…Banner and Decorative Artist, also, Teacher of Drawing and Landscaping Painting."
At that time Edward had his own office in the Museum Building, a structure located directly across Elm Street from what is now Veterans Park. The Museum was a private enterprise that displayed a variety of curiosities to entertain the general population. This included the skeleton of a right whale that was mentioned in Herman Melville's novel "Moby Dick" published in 1851.
Edward was growing restless. He yearned for a formal art education, so he traveled to Europe in 1860. He spent about two years studying at an art school in Dusseldorf and at the Royal Academy in Munich. He took a particular interest in landscape painting, and spent summer months with his teachers in Switzerland, sketching scenes from nature. When he returned to Manchester he was eager to begin earning his living as a fine artist. He rented space in a building on the corner of Elm and Lowell streets and began taking portrait commissions. He also exhibited his works in different locations in the downtown, and selections of his best paintings were displayed in a commercial art gallery in New York City.
Edward so enjoyed sketching landscapes from life that he spent a great deal of time in northern New Hampshire and Vermont, particularly along the Connecticut River Valley and its tributaries. He would draw scenes of natural beauty including mountains, farmhouses and animals, as well as the local "rustics," and from these studies would produce exquisite paintings. His works, both landscapes and portraits, sold well, and he gained a loyal following. He began to look toward setting up a studio in Boston as the next logical step in his promising career.
Next Week: A Valley Cemetery Story — Edward Custer moves to Boston and his career is made.
Aurore Eaton is executive director of Manchester Historic Association; email her at firstname.lastname@example.org


Research has shown that teaching phonics systematically and explicitly, helps students decode and read unknown words. It is the most effective instruction for teaching students to read at the word level. With the right type of phonics instruction this process becomes automatic and frees up a student’s mental energy from word analysis to meaning. This is essential for a student to develop efficient reading strategies.
On this page you will find more information about why phonics is important and what type of phonics instruction is best. You will also find a framework for systematic phonics instruction and free online training in how to teach phonics explicitly and systematically to your students.
To learn more about phonics instruction in the classroom, check out the following resources:


Children need lots of explicit
and systematic phonics instruction in order to be able to read.
Beginning readers need to know that words are made of sounds.
They also need to know which letters make each sound. Because all
words contain vowels, it is usually best to begin teaching vowels. It
is easier to teach short vowels because they are most commonly found in
words with only one vowel. This lesson will focus on a = /a/.
Students will review the short a sound, and then the students
will practice spelling and reading words with the /a/ sound.
Materials: Class set of Elkonin boxes
Class set of letter manipulatives
Overhead Elkonin boxes and letter manipulatives (a,b,c,d,g,k,l,m,n,p,r,s,t)
Class set of A Cat Nap by Educational Insights
Sentence strip with tongue twister
1. Introduce the lesson: "Today we are going to be learning about the short vowel A and the sound that it makes. Every time you see an /a/ in a word, you will make the sound of a crying baby. I want everyone to act like a baby, ready, aaahhhh, Good! We need to know about this sound because we use it all the time.
2. Introduce the tongue twister to the students. Hold up a sentence strip: "Ok, now lets say the tongue twister together: Ashley gave her alligators apples after they asked nicely.
3. Using the overhead and the letter manipulatives, ask the students to name words with that sound in them and model the way to sound out the sounds in the words to the class. "Who can give me a word that has a crying baby sound? Good, nap. Now, if I was going to spell that word, I would listen to the sounds, /n/, /aaaaaa/ (thereās our sound), and /p/." Practice more words using the Elkonin boxes.
4. "Now I want all of you to get out your boxes and letters and we are all going to practice a few words." Have the students leave their letters on their boards and then check the spelling. Start with three phoneme words, then move to four and five phonemes. [s] [a] [d] [l] [a] [p] [b] [a] [ck] [g] [l] [a] [d] [l] [a] [m] [p] [s] [t] [r] [a] [n] [d]
5. "Now I am going to spell back a few words to you. If you know what word Iām spelling, raise your hand and you can answer." Without using the boxes, spell out the words to make sure they can really spell them.
6. With the book A Cat Nap, get into small groups or partners with children and have the students read the book aloud. They can assess each other by grading each other on reading speed, expression, and knowing more words
Assessment: For an assessment, have a picture sheet made out with lots of different pictures using different sounds and have the students circle the pictures with the /a/ sound in their name. Have pictures of apples, alligators, desks, lamp, shirt.
Eldredge, J. Lloyd. (1995) Teaching Decoding in Holistic Classrooms. New
Jersey: Prentice Hall, 54-57.
Alison Bradley: Excellent E!!: http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/guidelines.html
Click here to return to Beginnings.


Dear Mr. Dad: Our 7-year old son has been diagnosed with a learning disability (specifically dyslexia). Some friends of ours with a child the same age have been telling us that our son’s condition might have been caused by vaccines he had. They also say that vaccines cause autism and worse. We asked our doctor about this and he says vaccines are perfectly safe and that our son’s dyslexia was caused by other factors. Who’s right?
A: Your doctor. There’s been a lot of research in the past few years looking into the connection (or lack) between vaccines and learning disabilities or any other health risk. And the evidence is quite conclusive: According to the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD), there is absolutely no evidence—scientific or otherwise—that vaccines cause learning disabilities.
Unfortunately, your friends aren’t the only ones who are confused about learning disabilities (LD). The NCLD (ncld.org) just did a study and found that a large percentage of Americans don’t really understand what LDs are and what causes them. Here’s how the NCLD defines LD: “A learning disability is a biological ‘processing’ problem that impairs a person’s ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell and do math calculations.” That’s it. Here are a few examples of the misconceptions many of us have:
- 55% of Americans believe that poor vision is one cause of certain LDs and that getting classes can treat them. Many also believe that LDs could be caused by poor hearing. They’re wrong.
- 43% of us believe that there’s a connection between LD and mental retardation or low IQ. There isn’t.
- 31% of us believe that a child’s poor diet causes LD. It doesn’t. And neither does watching TV or spending too much time on the computer (which 22% believe).
- 25% agree with your friends that that vaccines cause LD.
- Many of us believe that it’s possible to grow out of an LD. It’s not.
- People have a tendency to lump many LDs, including dysgraphia (difficulty with handwriting), dyscalculia (difficulty with math) and dyspraxia (difficulty with motor skill development) in with autism disorders and anxiety disorders. They are not the same and there is no connection.
Okay, so if none of those things cause learning disabilities, where did your sons’ LD come from?
Well, first of all, genes play a role, meaning that LDs often run in families. Do you or your spouse have an LD? If so, there’s a good chance that that’s where your son’s came from. Second, LD may be congenital, meaning that whatever caused them happened before your son was born. Pregnant women who use cocaine, drink a lot of alcohol, or smoke are at higher risk of having a child with LD.
A few words of warning: Because none of us wants to see our children suffer and we all want to do everything we can to give them the best possible life, parents are often targeted by unscrupulous people and companies promising to ”cure” your child’s LD. I put cure in quotes because there is no such thing. As mentioned above, LDs aren’t something one grows out of—so save your money. But there are steps you can take to ensure that your son succeeds in school and in life.
Start by visiting the NCLD website, an unbiased source of excellent resources. Next learn about the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which provides public school special ed services for many students, and the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), which protects children and adults with disabilities (including LD) from discrimination


Promoting social inclusion in music education - International comparisons of key issues of teaching and learning as perceived by music teachers from four countries
Burnard, Pamela, Dillon, Steven C., Rusinek, Gabriel, & Saether, Eva (2007) Promoting social inclusion in music education - International comparisons of key issues of teaching and learning as perceived by music teachers from four countries. In Research in Music Education, April 10th- 14th 2007, Exeter , UK. (Unpublished)
One of the impacts of globalisation is that many countries are faced with similar societal changes, most of which manifest as challenges to the classroom in terms of pedagogy, values and teaching strategies. Issues of achievement, social equality, learner disaffection, teacher stance and teaching strategies now receive considerable public exposure and attention. In this paper, we prefigure just two elements, which provide the specific focus for informed international educational comparison, as the overarching pedagogical challenges of 'engagement' (i.e. learning disaffection) and 'achievement'.
Impact and interest:
Citation counts are sourced monthly from and citation databases.
These databases contain citations from different subsets of available publications and different time periods and thus the citation count from each is usually different. Some works are not in either database and no count is displayed. Scopus includes citations from articles published in 1996 onwards, and Web of Science® generally from 1980 onwards.
Citations counts from theindexing service can be viewed at the linked Google Scholar™ search.
Full-text downloads displays the total number of times this work’s files (e.g., a PDF) have been downloaded from QUT ePrints as well as the number of downloads in the previous 365 days. The count includes downloads for all files if a work has more than one.
|Item Type:||Conference Paper|
|Keywords:||Music, Education, Social Inclusion, Comparison, International|
|Subjects:||Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification > STUDIES IN CREATIVE ARTS AND WRITING (190000) > PERFORMING ARTS AND CREATIVE WRITING (190400) > Musicology and Ethnomusicology (190409)|
|Divisions:||Current > QUT Faculties and Divisions > Creative Industries Faculty
Past > Institutes > Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation
|Copyright Owner:||Copyright 2007 (The authors)|
|Deposited On:||31 Mar 2008|
|Last Modified:||10 Aug 2011 17:12|
Repository Staff Only: item control page


A unique approach to early literacy work with families where children develop their language skills and their ability to read and write from an early age has had a huge success.
Researchers from the University of Sheffield funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) initially planned to use the approach with around 60 families, but discovered that around 6,000 had actually benefited from their work.
Professor Cathy Nutbrown of the University of Sheffield, who led the project, shared her approach to family literacy with Early Years practitioners including nursery workers, teachers, child-minders and family support units to help them plan and evaluate their family literacy work.
A report by the National Literacy Trust in May this year found that children in the UK are more likely to lack the basic reading and writing skills than children in Australia or Canada - even though the UK spends four per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on family benefits relating to children compared to 1.2 per cent in the USA and 1.4 per cent in Canada.
The Sheffield research team further developed the 'ORIM Framework in the Raising Early Achievement in Literacy' project in the late 1990s. The framework focuses on four key elements: opportunities, recognition, interaction and models (ORIM). The key to the framework is that it highlights parents’ roles and offers ideas for how they can help their child.
Opportunities included resources for engaging with literacy such as books, writing materials, and use opportunities to see and discuss printed work.
Recognition showed parents the small steps in literacy progress their children were making to encourage their efforts.
Interaction outlined situations where parents could positively involve themselves in literacy activities - writing birthday cards, saying nursery rhymes, reading stories or spotting print images in the neighbourhood.
Modelling was where the parents lead by example and their children could see that they were using reading, writing and print in everyday life.
Around 20 practitioners learned the theory behind the practical work they do and how it can benefit children's literacy. They agreed to adopt the framework and report back on its application, how they adapted it, and impact. Most said that it helped promote many activities including enhancing parents' recognition of the reading behaviour in three and four year-old bilingual children, encouraging talk in two year olds and encouraging young, reluctant boys to begin communicating with writing.
"We have been excited to see how the Early Years practitioners involved in this project are taking our ideas and developing them further to work with parents who have young children, so that they can help develop their interest in literacy from an early age," says Professor Nutbrown.
Professor Nutbrown was delighted to discover that the initial 20 practitioners had shared the approach with some 300 colleagues, far more than anticipated. She added: "This has greatly exceeded our expectations and by the end of the project the new approach reached over 6,000 families."
For further information contact:
Professor Cathy Nutbrown
Telephone 0114 222 8139
ESRC Press Office:
This release is based on the findings from the Framework for Early Literacy Development with Parents: Opportunities, Recognition, Interaction and Models funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and carried out by Cathy Nutbrown at Sheffield University. The project built on the results of two earlier projects - REAL (Raising Early Achievement in Literacy) and Making it REAL (in Collaboration with the National Children's Bureau).
The ORIM Framework and details of the whole project 'A Framework for Early Literacy Development with Parents' will feature prominently during International Literacy Day on the 8 September 2012.
The project involved active sharing of the ORIM Framework with preschool practitioners working with young children and their families followed by collection and analysis of field reports and results to build a variety of case studies that demonstrate the benefits of the approach.
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK's largest organisation for funding research on economic and social issues. It supports independent, high quality research which has an impact on business, the public sector and the third sector. The ESRC’s total budget for 2012/13 is £205 million. At any one time the ESRC supports over 4,000 researchers and postgraduate students in academic institutions and independent research institutes. More at www.esrc.ac.uk


Submit your links! If you feel we’ve missed a good resource for music education please contact us!
Resources on Programs that We Currently Offer
- Music for Little Mozarts – Read up on this award-winning popular method for young piano students
- Time Invested In Practicing Pays Off For Young Musicians, Research Shows – Find out what gives children who take music lessons the edge in education. Read this extensive Harvard-based study from 2008.
- Review of Alfred’s Classroom Music for Little Mozarts– Parent’s Choice Review of Alfred’s Classroom Music for Little Mozarts
Resources on Current Trends in Group Teaching and Digital Piano Technology
- Pianonet Resouces – A comprehensive guide to everything about pianos
- The Impact of Group Piano and Technology – Massive document (in Adobe Acrobat, download free reader here) from our friends at Roland U.S. on group teaching
- Roland KR-105 – Information about the pianos that we use in our academy
- Resources for Group Teaching– Bibliography on group-teaching ideas, methods, technologies and concepts
- MTNA (Music Teachers Nat’l Assoc.)– The MTNA is a national association dedicated to the advancement of music education. Our academy takes part in their events and uses many of their resources.
Organizations Committed to Music Edication in Young Children
- The Mozart Effect Resource Center
- American Music Conference
- Music-For-All Foundation
- National Association for Music Education
- Nat’l Assoc for the Education of Young Children
- Early Childhood Resources
- Music in Schools Today


For Parents and Caregivers
Your child's journey towards becoming a reader and writer starts with the words, stories, and songs she hears from you each day. When you name the things you see around you, read a book aloud, or give your child a crayon to scribble with, you are helping to lay the foundation for her to become a reader and writer.
Below, find resources to help you turn your daily activities into rich opportunities for talking, reading, and writing together.
Discover fun ways to bring this Sesame Street program to children and families into your community!
Find tools and information below to help you plan an Every Day is a Reading and Writing Day event, or to integrate rich literacy experiences for children into an existing volunteer project.
About This Project
Every Day is a Reading and Writing Day is a multimedia program that offers a comprehensive set of resources to support children's early literacy development. Each component of this initiative is developed to help young children and families make the most of everyday opportunities to talk, read, and write together.


|Student Teaching: Elementary Education|
|CLASS CODE:||ELED 490||CREDITS: 12|
|DIVISION:||EDUCATION & HUMAN DEVELOPMENT|
|GENERAL EDUCATION:||This course does not fulfill a General Education requirement.|
|DESCRIPTION:||Student Teaching is the culminating experience, the capstone of the academic and professional training of a pre-service teacher. A sixteen week practicum is completed in the public school classroom in a primary (grades K-3) and an intermediate (grades 4-7) placement. Pre-service teachers demonstrate their skill as they apply all they have learned about the principles and art of teaching.|
|TAUGHT:||Fall, Winter, Summer|
|CONTENT AND TOPICS:||Teaching Methods:
|GOALS AND OBJECTIVES:||1. Plan meaningful learning experiences that promote student achievement and active engagement in learning.
2. Understand the subject matter to be taught and create learning experiences that make the subject matter meaningful to students.
3. Use a variety of instructional strategies to promote student achievement and active engagement in learning.
4. Use a variety of formal and informal assessments to evaluate learning and teaching.
5. Display beliefs, values, and behaviors that guide the ethical dimensions of professional practice.
6. Defend teaching practice.
Letters of recommendation from cooperating teacher and supervisor.
|EFFECTIVE DATE:||April 2002|


Literacy development is continuous from birth, beginning with a childs earliest experiences with language. Observations of young children show that the development of oral language, reading, and writing are interrelated processes, and that children learn to read and write concurrently. Young children will initiate activities with paper, pencils and crayons, and books and magazines, and will spontaneously assume the roles of writer and reader in their daily play. These observations of young children as they read and write form the foundation of the concept of emergent literacy.
In emergent literacy, children actively engage in acquiring language and in constructing their own understandings of how oral and written language works. They experiment with these understandings, testing them in verbal interaction with their parents and other adults. As parents and other adults demonstrate reading and writing in purposeful, meaningful ways, young children come to expect meaning from print. Studies show that children who are early readers have been read to extensively by their families. By the time they are two or three, many children can read environmental print such as familiar traffic or safety signs and symbols, restaurant names, or words they see in the media.
Early Years teachers recognize that young children bring to school a range of literacy experiences and knowledge that can be built upon in the classroom. Childrens knowledge about print expands quickly as they participate in meaningful and genuine experiences with reading, listening, talking, viewing, representing, and writing in the classroom. Teachers foster early literacy development by reading to children daily, by providing guided reading, writing, and representing activities from the first day of school, and by actively promoting literacy growth at a level appropriate to each childs development.
Daily reading at home is a vital support to childrens literacy growth. Children who are read to at home, and who experience warm interactions around books with a caring parent, grandparent, guardian, or sibling, tend to develop positive attitudes toward reading. Discussion between parent and child about stories and illustrations enhances oral language development, comprehension of text, and a sense of story. The parent is, in this way, providing a scaffold, or support for the childs literacy learning, just as the teacher does in the classroom.
Teachers who show determination in developing and maintaining a home reading program, and who provide regular information to parents about good books, useful strategies, and their childrens progress, are adding to their students literacy growth in immeasurable ways. This home-school partnership that begins in the early years is vital to childrens literacy development throughout the school years.
Students identified as Early Years students range from four to ten years of age. Kindergarten students and most students in Grade 1 are considered emergent literacy learners. Students in Grade 4 (and some in Grade 3) are moving into a transitional stage in which they are beginning to acquire many of the characteristics of the Middle Years learner. In order to meet the developmental needs of all students in Early Years classrooms, it is essential that teachers understand how children at these ages learn. Recently revised guidelines from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (Bredekamp and Copple, 1997) indicate the importance of appropriate support for literacy development in authentic contexts in all early childhood classrooms.
Recognizing the connections among childrens social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development has led educators to the philosophy that children learn best when schools provide a democratic, caring community with high family involvement. Within this kind of community, children feel valued. They receive relevant and meaningful learning experiences. They are offered appropriate choices about their learning. The research and theories of the past decade on childrens development and learning have added to our knowledge of early literacy development and are reflected in this document.
In the Early Years, there is dramatic growth in students listening, speaking, reading, and writing vocabulary. Most students move rapidly along a literacy continuum from pre-conventional (emergent) literacy to independence in reading, writing, viewing, and representing. An increased vocabulary and growing ability to consider other points of view greatly increase students oral and written communications skills. Their speech becomes more fluent, and they are capable of interactive, reciprocal conversations with teachers and peers.
By conversing with students, teachers extend and expand their conversations. Teachers can facilitate discussions among students by encouraging them to express their opinions, ideas, and feelings. These social interactions play an important role in learning. Conversing about their learning strengthens students abilities to express themselves, to construct meaning, to reason, and to solve problems. As they gain a greater control of language, children use it to think and to influence others thinking. Teachers demonstrate respect for students ideas by listening and responding attentively to them. It is important to provide small and large group activities in which students listen actively to peers, ask and respond to questions, in order to extend their developing communication skills and facilitate their cognitive development.


Keyword: Integrate Art History
Wikipedia page about arts integration
This Wikipedia article does a great job highlighting the fundamental aspects of arts integration and the obstacles faced by primary and secondary schools as budgets are cut and national policies are implemented. Unfortunately, arts programming is usually cut first, despite its integral use for engaging students and teaching higher-order thinking skills in ways that are organic and empowering for learners. The obstacles schools face are frustrating, but I see arts integration as the means for teaching more effectively, for motivating students, and creating opportunities for students to apply their skills in solving real-life problems and through that internalize collaboration and effective communication skills necessary for successful adulthood. More to write regarding these ideas.
This website is devoted to sharing information that helps educators, museums, and other cultural institutions provide inclusive learning opportunities to people who are blind. The information they offer is worth exploring, for it seems adaptable to the missions of all arts integration initiatives.
The lessons presented in this link demonstrate a few ideas for how to integrate art into various subjects. The lessons are still in their infancy with only the main objective, but they represent good ideas.
“Advocating for Arts in the Classroom.” Mark Bauerlein. Fall 2010. V 10. N 4.
This article describes the value of arts integration as a more meaningful way of teaching that leads to better learning and retention by students. The importance of connecting arts programming to Core Knowledge Curriculum and National Standards was emphasized as the means for achieving successful educational reform focused on arts integration. Educationnext is a journal publication dedicated to providing information about various topics in the field of education.
The link for this website is to an article about “How to Integrate Lessons” by Alan Haskvitz. The purpose of this article was to give advice on how to combine themes from various subjects into the same curriculum, which allows for collaboration among teachers of different subjects, and creates opportunities for students to learn through doing.
Reach Every Child has links of over 5,000 websites with topics ranging from the fine arts, history, language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and special education. This website is part of the Horace Mann Companies.
This article also emphasizes the importance of integrating the arts into core curriculum because of its value as a strategy for effective teaching and learning, but more importantly to ensure the arts continue in schools despite budget constraints and cut-backs of art programming.
The information provided by the Vermont Arts Council about Arts Integration in Education a great overview piece about the skills learned by students who apply the arts in interdisciplinary learning. They demonstrate the value of arts integration through providing descriptive examples of student work.
The two women who run this website offer free lesson plans for parents, teachers, and children. The lessons present various ways to enhance curriculum with art making projects. They offer lessons for different age levels and for multiple disciplines, though the targeted age level seems to be more elementary and middle school. I see ways that many of these lessons can be modified for high school students.
The weblink for this resource was created by the NAEA to provide helpful links for educators to access when creating lesson plans. A similar idea to what I am doing here at Integrate Art History, and the ideas provided here will be further explored in future posts.
Overall the NAEA is a fantastic resource for connecting with fellow arts education enthusiasts. As described on their website:
“Founded in 1947, The National Art Education Association is the leading professional membership organization exclusively for visual arts educators. Members include elementary, middle and high school visual arts educators, college and university professors, researchers and scholars, teaching artists, administrators and supervisors, and art museum educators, as well as more than 45,000 students who are members of the National Art Honor Society or are university students preparing to be art educators.
This is by far the favorite resource I have discovered since starting Integrate Art History. The founder, Susan Riley, is someone I am now looking to for inspiration. I love the design of this website, the services she offers as an education consultant, and the topics of the articles she explores through EducationCloset. The work she is doing confirms my desires to build a business as an art history integrationist and shows me that one, it is possible, and two, it is a service that is wanted by others!
The content of this blog centers on arts integration in K-12 settings, and more particularly elementary settings. Susan Riley offers free weekly lesson plans, organizational graphic organizers, consulting services, and professional development to schools and teachers in the Maryland area. The work she is doing is incredible and you should definitely check it out!
Till next time ~ Let Your Creativity Shine!


Graduate Catalog 2015-2016
Home | Graduate Catalog 2015-2016 | Graduate Programs, Disciplines, and Course Offerings | Graduate Programs in Education | Graduate Education Courses | EDE - Childhood Education (Elementary Education) Courses | EDE 684 Big Ideas Of Science
EDE 684 Big Ideas Of Science
3 Lecture Hours; 1 Laboratory Hour; 4 Credits
Education research suggests that students improve their learning and understanding of science when connections are made to essential questions and big ideas. In science big ideas include energy, evolution and matter. This course will enable students to develop deep, transferable understanding and skills by relating the concepts taught in the elementary science curriculum to science big ideas. This course will focus on the development of students' ability to understand the changing world in which they live. They develop this by utilizing a broad range of thinking skills and learning styles to promote meaningful and deep learning. The course will include activities and experiments that address multiple learning styles and abilities, and foster skill development including mathematics, scientific literacy and technical skills.
Prerequisite: Matriculation in Sequence I of the Graduate Elementary Education Program or EDE 604 or equivalent
Up one level
Click arrowheads to expand or collapse contents


D id you know that only 52 percent of Berkshire County third-graders are reading proficiently and that children living in homes where family income is at or below the poverty rate have even greater challenges to developing early literacy skills?
Research demonstrates that 74 percent of children who struggle with reading in third grade will continue to struggle in school, are less likely to attend school every day, are more likely to fall behind their proficient classmates during the summer, and are six times more likely to drop out of school.
High school dropouts have fewer options for securing a job and becoming financially stable. This impacts the workforce available locally and has a significant economic impact on our community.
The good news is Berkshire United Way knows what works and that by working together as a community we can change the trend on third-grade reading proficiency. We know that children from low-income homes start school with a vocabulary significantly below that of non-low-income students. We know that a quality preschool experience ensures children arrive at kindergarten ready to learn. According to economist James Heckman, investing $8,000 in early childhood education saves approximately $800,000 over the life of a child.
With many community partners, Berkshire United Way has set a goal that by 2020, 90 percent of Berkshire County third-graders will read proficiently. This is an aggressive goal and our children deserve our commitment to it.
Berkshire Health Systems has partnered with Berkshire United Way to provide every new parent delivering a baby at Berkshire Medical Center with a "literacy bag," which includes a book, resources on early literacy development, a Berkshire Athenaeum library card application and a family pass to the Berkshire Museum. The bag also includes hands-on tools parents can use to increase vocabulary and literacy skills through reading, singing, playing and talking with their children -- emphasizing that literacy begins at birth. Nurses at Berkshire Medical Center personally hand these bags to parents and discuss the importance of literacy.
It’s essential that children’s experiences outside of school include literacy and learning so we have partnered with many community organizations to address the need for more before and after school and summer programs. The "Word of the Day" calendar was created by Pittsfield Promise partners and is designed to energize and engage the community in early literacy activities during the summer. Berkshire United Way also partnered with Greylock Federal Credit Union, Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation and the Pittsfield Public Schools to leverage funds to expand and enrich summer learning programs at Conte, Crosby, and Morningside Schools.
In South County, Berkshire United Way partners with Berkshire Hills Regional School district to fund Project Connection at Muddy Brook Elementary, a before and after school program for more than 200 kids -- half of whom come from low-income families with little access to literacy activities or whose first language is not English. Berkshire South Community Center, Multicultural BRIDGE, Flying Cloud Institute, and IS183 are community organizations that participate in Project Connection -- to enrich curriculum and increase family engagement to improve educational outcomes for children.
As you can see, Berkshire United Way is partnering with organizations across the county to improve early childhood literacy. You can help make a difference -- you can give, advocate or volunteer. Find Berkshire United Way and the Pittsfield Promise on Facebook to learn more about our early literacy strategies and how you can help create sustainable change in the Berkshires.
Kristine Hazzard is president and CEO of Berkshire United Way, berkshireunitedway.org.


Understanding Everyday Mathematics
To guide curriculum development, the original Everyday Mathematics authors formulated a set of beliefs and principles based on research about what worked best in other countries and in the authors' own field research. Based on these principles, the original Everyday Mathematics authors identified guidelines for the best teaching methods that help children build a strong mathematical foundation in their elementary education years.
Based on this philosophy, the Everyday Mathematics authors created a curriculum that featured several specific pedagogical principles. These principles include emphasizing appropriate use of technology, teaching real-life problem solving, improving home/school partnership, and more.
Everyday Mathematics is organized around Grade-Level Goals, Program Goals, and Content Strands. Learn more about what this means and how the strands and goals interact with one another to support the Everyday Mathematics curriculum.
At Everyday Mathematics, games are not considered competitors for class time, nor are they viewed as mere time-fillers and rewards. In fact, we believe that games satisfy many standard drill objectives that can help children master and reinforce skills and concepts.
Based on research showing that the use of calculators can enhance students' performance in number sense, conceptual development, and visualization, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics recommends the integration of calculators into mathematics programs for all grade levels. With this in mind, Everyday Mathematics emphasizes using the calculator as a tool for learning mathematics, and offers appropriate applications for calculators at each grade level.
Here you will find sample Everyday Mathematics lessons for each grade level, complete with Home Links and Study Links.


ERIC Number: EJ415808
Record Type: CIJE
Publication Date: 1990
Reference Count: 0
The Role of Music in General Education.
Broudy, Harry S.
Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, n105 p23-43 Sum 1990
Focuses on the role of music education in a general education. Reviews music education from ancient times to the twentieth century. Argues that effective instruction in music education and the arts is an essential part of a complete education. Appends the chronological developments in music education and goals of arts education. (DB)
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Guides - Classroom - Teacher; Opinion Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: Teachers; Practitioners
Authoring Institution: N/A


Drawing On Science For Kids
Water droplets are always rising in the atmosphere. When the droplets get cold enough they condense (turn to a liquid) on dust, pollen grains or other small particles in clouds. When they reach a temperature of 32o F (0 o C) they begin to crystalize forming a cover of thin ice. When ice crystals form they trap air making them light and fragile. This combination of ice on dust particles forms a snow crystal. As snow crystals grow they become heavier and fall to earth. Falling crystals will combine with each other to form a snowflake. About 2 to 200 snow crystals can form a single snow flake. There is no reason why we can call a snowflake a snow crystal. They are really the same. A symmetrical, six-sided snowflake is perfectly formed. All sides are exactly alike. But most are asymmetrical (not the same on all sides).
There are four basic types of snow crystals. The shape depends on the temperature at which it was formed. The simplest type is needle-shaped, which is formed at temperatures between 27o F and 23o F . All of the other crystals have six sides. One is shaped like a six-sided, hollow column formed at tempratures between 18o F and 23 o F. One is shaped as a thin, flat six-sided plate formed at temperatures between 10o F and 18o F. And then there are very complex six-pointed star shapes formed between 3 o F and 10 o F.
Crystals grow as more and more water molecules settle on them. If a crystal has small branches sticking out, water molecules will combine with them. When more and more water molecules reach the branches they grow larger and larger. If the large branch has smaller branches the crystal becomes complex. It seems that the higher the temperature, the slower a snow crystal grows.
The many surfaces of snow crystals tend to reflect light in all directions. Our eyes see this light as white, so that snowflakes will always appear white to us. If you've ever seen glacial ice it appears blue. This is because the ice is so fully packed that there's little or no air in the crystals. When impurities in the air are trapped in the formation of snow crystals the snow will, of course, become discolored.
We all like it when it snows; especially if the weather conditions are not very severe. The life of a snowflake depends on the temperature, which must be at least 32o F both in the high atmosphere and on the ground. If the temperature is warmer near the ground the snowflakes will melt and it will rain instead. But even though snowflakes are fragile, there are times when they can be dangerous. High winds and falling snow result in a snowstorm. And when the storm is a blizzard then the danger is increased.
Blizzard conditions occur when the winds reach a speed of at least 35 mph. But the blizzard does not have to be falling snow. It can be snow that is being lifted from the ground - snow that has fallen previously. Or it can be a combination of falling and ground snow. In any case the visibility must be ¼ mile or less and the conditions must last for at least three hours.
In some areas the falling snow can reach ground layers of 3 to 6 feet. Winds can increase the depth by piling up masses of snow in selected areas.
When rain falls during conditions where the ground temperature and the air just above the ground is below freezing, the water droplets will freeze into small ice pellets before they reach the ground. This results in sleet. Freezing rain occurs when the rain water does not freeze until it actually touches the ground.
Whenever such storms or severe cold weather is predicted, you have to consider the Wind Chill Index. We experience a greater loss of body temperature on a windy, cold day than we do on a windless, cold day. This loss of temperature makes us feel colder. This is what is meant by wind chill.
Something to think about: 1) Snowflakes as large as 15 inches fell in Montana during a snow storm. 2) The average yearly snowfall in Stampede Pass, Washington is 430 inches. 3) Snowflake High School is in Snowflake, Arizona. 4) Even when snow is white and looks clean, you should not eat it. Especially if it falls in an area with air pollution. 5) Can two snowflakes be exactly the same? Studies have shown that small crystals may be alike, but larger crystals are different in shape.
Questions/comments? E-mail Steve: Drawingonscience@aol.com


Inquiry-Based Teaching Using the World Wide Web
Wongse-Sanit, Naree, Art Education
The World Wide Web is a vast, image-rich, and essentially free educational resource that offers exciting opportunities for enhancing teaching and learning in art. Businesses, government and nonprofit organizations, colleges and universities, schools, special interest groups, and individuals have their own home pages or web sites. Cultural institutions from around the world have been posting information and educational materials on the Internet. This article offers suggestions for how teachers in their classrooms might use a set of resources found on the World Wide Web.
THE WORLD WIDE WEB
The World Wide Web is the portion of the Internet that includes pictures as well as text and provides the ability to link information on one computer with relevant information on another computer anywhere in the world. At its most basic level, the Internet is a network of computers that are connected to one another (much like telephones are) and thus able to "talk" or share data with one another. Eventually scientists devised an easier way to link information that resided on different computers on the Internet and developed a method of transmitting images, and even sound and video, along with text These advances led to the creation of the World Wide Web, "the scenic route" of the Internet. Software known as web browsers makes accessing information on the Web as easy as pointing an arrow and clicking a mouse. Many web browsers are available, including Netscape Navigator, Mosaic, and browsers provided by America Online, Compuserve, Microsoft, and Prodigy.
The World Wide Web consists of web sites, computers on the Internet on which someone has placed information for others to access. Web sites can be modest, comprising a single home page, serving as a kind of "electronic billboard." Sites can also be large, with one home page that acts somewhat as a title page and table of contents of a book and contains many different links to other "pages." Each of these pages is actually a file which contains information and hyperlinks to other web pages within the site or to other sites. Hyperlinks are words or phrases that, when clicked, take the user to a related page; they are embedded footnotes. Web pages often include graphics, such as photographs, drawings, and other images, and may also incorporate audio and video clips.
Because of the ability to combine text and images on web sites, many artoriented sites have appeared on the Web. Hundreds of museums have produced web sites which feature online exhibitions of their collections or traveling exhibitions. For example, the web site of the University Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, CA, provides online tours of exhibitions, even after the actual shows have moved to other museums (address for websites are listed at the end of this article). The web site of the Detroit Institute of Arts features artworks from the museum's Ancient, Oceanic, African, Asian, American Art, and other collections, organized into "virtual galleries." The web site of the National Museum of American Art extensively incorporates images, allowing a visitor to the site to view artworks from exhibitions and search for artworks from the museum's permanent collection. Many international art museums and contemporary art galleries have web sites, such as the Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya, Japan, and the Uffizi in Florence, Italy. There is also a web site known as the Diego Rivera Virtual Museum containing images of the artist's paintings and murals. The web site of New York's Dia Center for the Arts includes works by contemporary artists as well as projects created specifically for the web.
Schools have web sites and many feature student artworks. For example, students at Desert View High School in Tucson, Arizona, have created a web site which describes a school mural project The web site of FayettevilleManlius School District in Manlius, New York, features online displays of students' artworks. …


This is the nation’s first public school district to give every kindergartener an iPad. And the implementation was done very carefully, with the research component built in from the start, not added as an after-thought.
This fall, the district randomly selected 8 of its 16 kindergarten classes to receive iPads. There’s been ongoing professional development to help the teachers incorporate the devices into literacy instruction.
In December, iPads were rolled out to the rest of the classes. Assessments of all students’ literacy were made at the beginning of the year and again in December. The initial assessments and research has focused on literacy skills, but the researchers are also looking at how iPads might affect numeracy skills as well.
Of the assessments that were made, the results all trended positive, with students in the group that received iPads at the beginning of the school year performing better on average than students in the comparison group. However, the differences between these two groups were not statistically significant, except in one area. That is, students with the iPads exhibited a substantial increase in their scores on the Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words (HWSIW) test, a test of a student’s phonetical awareness, assessing their ability to make the sound and letter connection.
via Hack Education


Strategies for struggling readers - peter pappas, Strategies you can use to help the “word caller” • model and coach pre-reading strategies: previewing text to activate thinking, set purpose, and predict
Precision reading | empowering lifelong learning, Precision reading is a new, inexpensive, short, daily, research-based reading activity that quickly improves students' abilities in the following key areas.
Sheena cameron – teaching reading comprehension strategies, Are you concerned about students in your class who can decode but have no understanding of what they have read? current research indicates that we should be
Strategies to facilitate reading comprehension among, Research to practice. strategies to facilitate reading comprehension among college transition students. the nctn research to practice briefs are designed to
Key comprehension strategies to teach | reading rockets, What are the key comprehension strategies to teach? studies on good readers have identified a number of comprehension strategies to be highly useful.
Reading strategies booklet - slideshare, Reading strategies booklet 1. 1 reading strategies. 2. 2 “you have to be a speedy reader because there’s so so much to read.” - dr. seuss, i can read
A handbook of rhetorical devices - virtualsalt, This book contains definitions and examples of more than sixty traditional rhetorical devices, (including rhetorical tropes and rhetorical figures) all of which can
how to Reading Strategies Handbook tutorial


DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) are a set of procedures and measures for assessing the acquisition of early literacy skills from kindergarten through sixth grade. They are designed to be short (one minute) fluency measures used to regularly monitor the development of early literacy and early reading skills. When used as recommended, the results can be used to evaluate individual student development as well as provide grade-level feedback toward validated instructional objectives. DIBELS can be used to as assessments for
· determining benchmarks goals,
· for progress monitoring, and
· as outcome measure assessments.
Each measure has been thoroughly researched and demonstrated to be reliable and valid indicators of early literacy development and predictive of later reading proficiency to aid in the early identification of students who are not progressing as expected.
The DIBELS measures were specifically designed to assess the Big Ideas of early literacy: Phonological Awareness, Alphabetic Principle, Fluency with Connected Text, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. The measures are linked to one another, both psychometrically and theoretically, and have been found to be predictive of later reading proficiency. Combined, the measures form an assessment system of early literacy development that allows educators to readily and reliably determine student progress.
Measures of Phonological Awareness
· Initial Sounds Fluency (ISF): Assess a child’s skill at identifying and producing the initial sound of a given word.
· Phonemic Segmentation Fluency (PSF): Assesses a child’s skill at producing the individual sounds within a given word.
Measures of Alphabetic Principle and Phonics
· Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF): Assesses a child’s knowledge of letter-sound correspondences as well their ability to blend letters together to form unfamiliar “nonsense” (e.g., ut, fik, lig, etc.) words.
· Oral Reading Fluency (ORF): If accuracy is less than 95%.
Measure of Accuracy and Fluency with Connected Text
· Oral Reading Fluency (ORF): Assesses a child’s skill at reading connected text in grade-level materials.
Measure of Comprehension
· Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) and Retell Fluency (RTF): Assesses a child’s understanding of verbally read connected text.
Measure of Vocabulary and Oral Language
· Word Use Fluency (WUF): Assesses a child’s ability to accurately use a provided word in the context of a sentence.


Braille Monitor July 1986
by Fred Schroeder
(Fred Schroeder is the President of the National Federation of the Blind of New Mexico. He is also the President of the National Association of Blind Educators. In the Fall/Winter, 1985, issue of The Blind Educator--the publication of the National Association of Blind Educators--the following article appeared in the column, "From the President. ")
Perhaps the greatest barrier which blind people face today is in the area of employment. For it is in the search for jobs that blind people come face to face with the attitudes of the public about blindness. I am frequently told that there is no discrimination against the blind--that by and large society is sympathetic to the blind and eager to be of help in any way possible, and in many cases this is true. Yet, in many cases those who would keep us down and keep us out are the same ones that proclaim the loudest their belief in the capability of blind people.
In 1983 Paul Flynn, who is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Blind Educators, learned firsthand the true meaning of discrimination. Mr. Flynn had been a successful high school English teacher for more than twenty years when a new principal, Father Xavier fired him from his job proclaiming it "a sacrilege" for a blind person to teach. Nevertheless, Father Xavier claimed that he harbored no prejudice against the blind but simply felt that it was not reasonable for a blind person to teach at the secondary level. He urged Mr. Flynn to pursue elementary school teaching, and since the school Father Xavier ran was a high school that meant seeking a job somewhere else.
A year later we had the case of Gwynne Widhalm. Ms. Widhalm had just completed a degree in elementary education but was told by her university that she would not be allowed to student teach. Her university supervisor, Dr. Divney, explained that a blind person could not possibly supervise young children and therefore recommended that Ms. Widhalm consider high school teaching.
In both bases the discrimination was clear and the negative attitudes about blindness undeniable. Yet, Father Xavier and Dr. Divney both claimed that they believed in the ability of the blind to teach as long as they taught somewhere else. This same problem occurs over and over again.
In 1980 Karen Arellano Edwards enrolled as a freshman at New Mexico State University at Las Cruces. At that time she planned to pursue a career in teaching. In high school she had volunteered in a kindergarten class and found the work interesting and enjoyable. Nevertheless, when she went to speak with an advisor in the elementary education department she was told that it was not practical for a blind person to be an elementary school teacher because of the large number of children that would need to be supervised. At that time Mrs. Edwards did not know of the National Federation of the Blind and that there were hundreds of successful blind teachers throughout the country. So Ms. Edwards decided to enter the field of speech pathology. As a speech therapist she would still have an opportunity to work with young children, and since most therapy is conducted individually or with small groups, she reasoned she would not have any problem supervising her clients. Yet, the same pattern of discrimination again emerged. Mrs. Edwards was counseled by department faculty against speech pathology and once again was urged to consider pursuing another field of training.
Throughout her experience those with whom she dealt would have become angry had she told them that they did not believe that a blind person can become a competent professional. They would have become angrier still had she told them that their actions were discriminatory and reflected stereotypes and misconceptions about blindness. Yet, their treatment of Mrs. Edwards speaks more loudly than their claims of only thinking of what was in her best interest. The following article describes Karen Edwards' experiences in working toward a degree in speech pathology and describes for us the demoralizing and humiliating effects of discrimination. For discrimination it truly is, and we cannot be deceived by pronouncements of others that they are only thinking of what is best for us.
The blind can teach in elementary school. There are hundreds of blind teachers to prove it. The blind can teach in high schools and in colleges, for there are hundreds of blind teachers to prove that as well. And yes, the blind can be speech pathologists, for there are blind speech pathologists successfully practicing in schools and in clinics throughout the country. The real issue is not can the blind teach or conduct therapy. The issue is can we as an organized blind movement change societal attitudes which represent the real barrier to opportunity.


Blended-learning pioneer Rocketship Education now uses "flexible" classrooms in grades 4 and 5 in some of its Bay Area schools. At Mateo Sheedy Elementary in San Jose, Calif., 92 students, 2 teachers, and 1 instructional aide share a single room, divided into different learning stations. During a recent morning, five different types of learning took place simultaneously.
In the center of the room, 25 students work on laptops, receiving tailored math lessons from a software program while an hourly-rate instructional aide oversees their work.www.thinglink.comTOUCH this image to discover its story. Image tagging powered by ThingLink
Teacher Juan Mateos leads 22 students through a lesson on identifying figurative language. The children have been grouped based on ability.www.thinglink.comTOUCH this image to discover its story. Image tagging powered by ThingLink
In the center of the room, an hourly-rate classroom aide also oversees 17 students working independently. Here, Celeste Martinez examines a painting by Pablo Picasso.www.thinglink.comTOUCH this image to discover its story. Image tagging powered by ThingLink
Michael Yeung, an "individualized learning specialist" making roughly $15 per hour, uses a scripted curriculum to provide phonics instruction to four students in need of extra help. Mr. Yeung is also responsible for monitoring online learning and independent work.
All photos by Ramin Rahimian for Education Week. The panoramic photo is made up of multiple images.
Teacher Jason Colon works with 22 advanced students on a lesson about graphing coordinates. Students in the flexible classroom are regrouped according to ability every six weeks or so.www.thinglink.comTOUCH this image to discover its story. Image tagging powered by ThingLink


A Quick Guide to Literacy Lingo in the Classroom
A conversation with my children about their reading and writing activities at school can leave me feeling like I’m the one who needs a vocabulary lesson. The approach to literacy currently taught in most American classrooms includes a balance of whole language and phonics, and a long list of buzzwords that often sounds like a secret code between teachers and students. Fortunately, decoding “Quickwrites” and “Grand Conversations” is as easy as ABC.
Keep this classroom literacy glossary handy (or bookmark it):
- Big Books: Oversized versions of picture books that teachers read to students during a Shared Reading. Usually, the students follow along in their own smaller copies.
- Emerging Reader/Emergent Literacy: A reader in the early stages of literacy development or the early stages of reading and writing development.
- Grand Conversation: A discussion among the entire class or a smaller group about something they’ve read or are studying.
- Guided Reading: Working in small groups, students read a book or story chosen by the teacher. Often the teacher will read individually with each student in the group to assess reading ability and offer strategies.
- High Frequency Words: The most common words in the English language, usually listed as the top 100 or 300. Each grade level has a list of High Frequency Words that students should be able to read and write.
- Independent Reading Level: The level at which a person can read and understand a text with 95 to 100 percent accuracy. Students are often grouped according to their reading ability and comprehension and assigned books appropriate to their level.
- Instructional Reading Level: The level at which a person can read and understand a text with a teacher’s help with 90 to 94 percent accuracy.
- Interactive Writing: A writing activity in which the class, along with the teacher, writes something together. The students do the majority of the writing with guidance and assistance from the teacher.
- Invented Spelling: The way in which students spell words as their literacy skills are developing. Often Invented Spelling is encouraged to help Emerging Readers become comfortable with writing.
- Just Right Books: Books that are appropriate for a student’s Independent Reading Level. In a Just Right Book, a student should understand all but one or two words on a page.
- KWL Chart: A chart created by students or a class to integrate background knowledge into a new reading or lesson. In the first column students record what I/We Know, in the second what I/We Want to Know or Wonder, and in the third, after the reading or lesson, what I/We Learned.
- Language Experience Approach (LEA): In this approach to literacy, a student, often an emergent reader, dictates a story to the teacher, who writes it down. The teacher and student then use the dictated story as a reading text.
- Literacy: The ability to read, write, and understand written text.
- Literature Circle: Small group literature discussions.
- Mini-Lesson: Instruction about literacy concepts, skills, or strategies often given to the class before a more interactive or independent activity.
- Phonics: The relationship between sounds and letters in spelling and reading.
- Prereading: The steps taken before actually reading a text, for example, creating a KWL chart.
- Prewriting: The steps taken before actually writing, including developing and organizing ideas.
- Publishing: Producing a final copy of a piece of writing and sharing it with others.
- Quickwriting: An impromptu writing exercise, often at the beginning of a discussion of a new topic or text.
- Read Aloud: The teacher reads a text to the students, usually as a whole class.
- Running Record: A method of assessment of a student’s oral reading fluency.
- Scaffolding: The background information that must be supplied for students to understand and retain new material.
- Shared Reading: Students follow along in their own books as the teacher reads aloud to a small group or the entire class (often from a Big Book).
- Think Aloud: The teacher or a student explains her thinking process as she reads, explaining strategies and demonstrating how readers make sense of text.
- Whole Language Approach: An approach to literacy instruction that emphasizes meaning, interpretation, and expression, and in which phonics, grammar, spelling, and punctuation are taught contextually.
- Word Sort: An activity in which students group the words in a list or text into categories.
- Word Wall: A highly visible chart or board in the classroom listing words the class is learning to use, read, and spell.
Recommended Products for Your Child Ages 5-7


Contact the Director of Special Collections for more information:
Information for Faculty: The award winning project TeachArchives.org offers exercises, ideas, and more for using primary sources in your classes. The Society of American Archivists also hosts a useful site, Using Archives: A Guide to Effective Research.
- NEW FOR SCIENCE FACULTY: A possible treatment for MRSA (serious antibiotic-resistant infection) was found in a 1000 year-old manuscript. Special Collections has a number of old medical treatises and “household remedy” books. Mine these and test some of the recipes for efficacy.
- World War I started in 1914 and the US entered the war in 2017, so the centennial of the war in being memorialized throughout these years. How did the war effect Southwestern and her students? Create an exhibit (online or actual) or documentary related to the war and SU. Online resources related to SU and WWI are found here: digitalcollections.southwestern.edu.
- Take advantage of the “One Book/One Case/One Exhibit” venue to select a work from Special Collections and showcase it. Staff will be happy to provide more details and help.
- 18th century English imprints - curate an exhibit. How is William Hogarth’s Analysis of Beauty reflected in his own engravings?
- Add to the Zenas Matthews Diary mapping project. This 1846 US-Mexico War diary kept by a young soldier has been transcribed and location-mapped. Add value to the map by tagging flora, fauna, and other environmental features that Matthews records. Write a paper about how the landscape has changed. OR - study Matthews mention of food - how does the diary illustrate the saying “an army travels on its stomach”?
- Use Senator Tower’s papers to research the Republican stance on national health care in the 1970s. FYI: Senator Tower and the Republicans supported a national health care plan!
- The history of Texas Young Republicans. The Tower Library has a number of collections of Young Republicans who were mostly active in the transitional years of the 1960s and 1970s as Texas became increasingly Republican and decreasingly Democratic.
- A cursory examination of Senator Tower’s campaign voter attitude studies from the mid 1960s through the 1970s seem to have NO questions from the survey takers asking about abortion. When interviewees are asked what they see as the state/nation’s most pressing issues, abortion does not seem to appear. Why? Roe vs Wade was 1973; the Hyde Amendment 1976. When and how did abortion become a hot political topic that could make/break candidates?
- Curate an online exhibit using Special Collections resources. Just a few possible topics: Civil War; changes in student rules and regulations at SU; changes in curriculum (both at SU and in elementary education); Texas environmental history, oil and gas industry, ranching; history of magazines. Lorenzo Dow (only the Bible sold more books than he did - now who has heard of him?)…
- Create an online historical timeline using free online tools. Suggested resources can be found here: http://libguides.utk.edu/dhtools


To Do This, You Must Know How
Music Pedagogy in the Black Gospel Quartet Tradition
Publication Year: 2012
To Do This, You Must Know How traces black vocal music instruction and inspiration from the halls of Fisk University to the mining camps of Birmingham and Bessemer, Alabama, and on to Chicago and New Orleans. In the 1870s, the Original Fisk University Jubilee Singers successfully combined Negro spirituals with formal choral music disciplines, and established a permanent bond between spiritual singing and music education. Early in the twentieth century there were countless initiatives in support of black vocal music training conducted on both national and local levels. The surge in black religious quartet singing that occurred in the 1920s owed much to this vocal music education movement.
In Bessemer, Alabama, the effect of school music instruction was magnified by the emergence of community-based quartet trainers who translated the spirit and substance of the music education movement for the inhabitants of working-class neighborhoods. These trainers adapted standard musical precepts, traditional folk practices, and popular music conventions to create something new and vital.
Bessemer's musical values directly influenced the early development of gospel quartet singing in Chicago and New Orleans through the authority of emigrant trainers whose efforts bear witness to the effectiveness of "trickle down" black music education. A cappella gospel quartets remained prominent well into the 1950s, but by the end of the century the close harmony aesthetic had fallen out of practice, and the community-based trainers who were its champions had virtually disappeared, foreshadowing the end of this remarkable musical tradition.
Published by: University Press of Mississippi
Download PDF (44.0 KB)
Title Page, Copyright
Download PDF (96.1 KB)
Download PDF (60.0 KB)
Download PDF (69.0 KB)
We started sharing research back in 1980, based on a mutual interest in the African American gospel quartet tradition. Ray Funk was the third member of our original research team. Between the three of us, we located and interviewed hundreds of quartet veterans and spent hundreds of hours reviewing historical...
Introduction: “Say Four Come . . .”
Download PDF (109.9 KB)
Early-twentieth-century African American sacred harmony singing, spiritual and gospel, was, in a sense, shaped by the interaction of two historical impulses. The first was to perpetuate folk music traditions, a cornerstone of black cultural identity; the second was to master standard Western musical and cultural...
Chapter One. John Work II and the Resurrection of the Negro Spiritual in Nashville
Download PDF (1.7 MB)
The treasury of African American folk song known as the spirituals arose anonymously from slave cabins and brush arbors and was initially perpetuated as an oral tradition. The Original Fisk Jubilee Singers of Nashville, Tennessee, were first to demonstrate the usefulness of the spirituals, the “genuine...
Chapter Two. “Time, Harmony, and Articulation”: Quartet Training and the Birmingham Gospel Quartet Style
Download PDF (2.1 MB)
Jefferson County, Alabama, incorporating the city of Birmingham and the neighboring towns of Bessemer and Fairfield, was a cradle of black gospel quartet singing. Grassroots music pedagogy, presided over by community-based quartet trainers, was the critical factor behind the intense outbreak of...
Chapter Three. An Alabama Quartet Expert in Chicagoland
Download PDF (1.4 MB)
For many years Chicago was the capital of African American entertainment commerce. State Street’s legendary vaudeville theater and cabaret district was a haven for the first generation of jazz and blues musicians and composers. Progressive race music educators made their home in the city, and world-famous...
Chapter Four. The “Alabama Style” and the Birth of Gospel Quartet Singing in New Orleans
Download PDF (1.8 MB)
New Orleans is a universally celebrated musical homeland with a deep but underestimated heritage of African American vocal quartets. For the better part of a century, a cappella quartets thrived in black New Orleans; more prevalent than brass bands, they were also more directly connected to folk music...
Download PDF (277.0 KB)
Download PDF (1.3 MB)
Download PDF (253.3 KB)
Page Count: 368
Illustrations: 160 b&w
Publication Year: 2012


Reading Comprehension Strategies
By Faith Berens, MA
The main comprehension strategies readers use are:
- Picturing (using sensory images, making a movie in your mind)
- Noticing the important parts
- Synthesizing and inferring (Figuring out)
- Predicting and guessing (part of inferring)
- Monitoring (noticing when you stop understanding)
Teach your child these strategies, explicitly and systematically.
Ways to Teach Comprehension
Model the reading strategies you, as an adult reader, use. Do this during your family read aloud time.
Example: Ust the “think aloud” technique: “I wonder what it going to happen next?” “I think
is going to
.” “This story reminds me of the time
.” By doing this you are modeling making connections and predictions.
- Choose texts/books carefully for modeling strategies. Use picture books!
Use supervised “Internet Workshop” to provide your child with opportunities so sharpen their critical thinking skills, motivate them, and give them an opportunity to share their discoveries.
Steps to do an internet workshop:
- Locate sites that are appropriate and connected to the content or unit of study; bookmark them.
- Develop an activity requiring your child to use the sites, such as finding out three interesting facts about Greek civilization. (This is often called a “webquest”—think of it as a treasure hunt on the websites.)
- Assign this activity to be completed during the week.
- Have your child share his or her work and discoveries, questions he or she still has, and new insights at the end of the week or on the weekend (over pizza on family night!)
Reciprocal Questioning Strategy (ReQuest) developed by Manzo:
- Parent/teacher and child read.
- Student/child questions teacher.
- Parent/teacher questions students.
- Student/child predicts the story’s outcome.
- Parent/teacher and child finish reading to check predictions.
Reciprocal Teaching—Parent and child read a passage together. Parent models and guides child in summarizing, discussing parts that were not clear/not understood, tricky vocabulary, etc. Parent and child share questions and predictions. The goal of this technique is to help readers internalize these steps so that they can then apply them independently during silent reading.
Teach sequence relationships and sequence signal words such as, before, after, finally, first, initially, following, earlier, afterward, next, later.
Teach cause and effect relationships and signal words and phrases such as, because, so, therefore, hence, thus, since, as a result, consequently, on account of, accordingly.
Directed-Reading-Thinking Activity (DRTA):
- Predicting—Tell me what you think the story/book will be about? Where might it take place? Who do you think will be in the story?
- Reading—Have child read silently to a predetermined point, at which time the child’s earlier predictions should be checked.
- Proving—Ask child to draw conclusion and explain his or her reasoning. Ask child to evaluate the evidence in relation to their predictions. (Was your guess correct? Why or why not? What do you think now? Why? Why do you think X happened? What do you predict will happen next?
Read aloud a passage, poem, part of a story. Then pause, and ask the child to sketch what he or she is imagining in his or her head. Who is in the movie in his or her mind? Where does the story happen? What is happening?
Use Graphic Organizers, such as story maps, flow charts, webs, venn diagrams, etc.
Books and Resources:
- 7 Keys to Comprehension: How to Help Your Kids Read It and Get It by Susan Zimmerman and Chryse Hutchens
- Constructing Meaning by Nancy Boyles—Comes with reproducibles on CD
- Subjects Matter: Every Teacher’s Guide to Content Area Reading by Harvey Daniels and Steven Zemelman
Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction by Isabel L. Beck
- Strategies that Work by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis
- Improving Comprehension with Think-Aloud Strategies by Jeffrey Wilhelm, PH.D.
Comments/Suggestions | Disclaimer | Advertising


I just discovered the Graphic Organizer Maker from Recipes4Success. This is a handy tool for when you find yourself in a bind and need something ASAP for the afternoon lesson. The site is easy to use, with clear directions. Click on the “new” button for a full explanation of how to create a customized organizer.
Use the graphic organizer Maker to create customized graphic organizer worksheets. Choose from concept maps, KWHL charts, Venn diagrams, timelines, cycles, and more. If this is your first time using the Graphic Organizer Maker, click the New button to begin.
I always find myself using graphic organizers in the classroom to teach reading comprehension strategies. I think I’ll use a Though Web or a Five Ws Chart to do some prewriting activities.
Classroom Tip: Make one copy of each organizer on an overhead projector sheet to use for whole group instruction.


We often think that outdoor learning is synonymous with the school trip, but it needn’t be! As a parent you can use outdoor activities and trips to give your children physical examples and experiences to help them with their literacy and numeracy skills.
Children who may struggle with classroom-based learning often excel when learning in outdoor environments because it releases them from the pressures they may associate with school.
Outdoor learning can take place in massively diverse settings – whether it’s your back garden, your local park, a heritage site, or a farm, you will find there are many activities and games you can play with your kids to stimulate and extend their literacy and numeracy skills.
Outdoor learning and literacy
Try these fun activities to boost literacy skills:
1. Storytelling fun
When you’re outdoors ask your child to pick something they see to tell you a story about. It could be a tree that has stood for hundreds of years. What might it have seen?
2. What can you see, what can you spell?
Asking children to identify objects and species is a useful way of encouraging observations of their surroundings. See if your child knows the name of something you point at – if it is a tree, what type is it? Can they take a guess at how it is spelt? Perhaps they can start a nature book to record details of what they see outdoors.
3. Countryside rules!
As every parent well knows, all outdoor settings need to be treated with respect. Composing a set of rules for the setting, either jotted down into a notepad or just discussed can help children to think carefully about their surroundings while using appropriate language. Examples could be, ‘Don’t disturb nests’ or ‘Remember to shut gates’.
4. Character games
All children are natural actors, so asking them to become a character from the setting you are in shouldn’t be too hard! Your child could choose their favourite bird and find things in the surroundings that it might use to build its nest or things it might eat.
Outdoor learning and numeracy
Try these fun activities to boost numeracy skills:
Mazes are an excellent way of helping your child with numeracy. Exploring direction and logic, mazes extend children’s classroom numeracy skills in a fun and interactive setting. Ask your child to draw directions as they go and then test them out yourself!
The world around us contains so many different shapes. When out with your child, ask them what shapes they can see in buildings, trees, leaves and wildlife.
3. Survey skills
Try doing a survey! It could be on anything: cars, wildlife or trees. Your child could record the number of the items they see as pictures, tallies or as numbers, and even put their results in a graph.
4. Fun with seeds
Look at a variety of seeds and ask your child to point out similarities and differences between them, such as size, colour, shape and weight. Plant some seeds and make a chart, recording the size of the plant and ask your child how long they think it will take to grow to a certain height.


By Matthew Hutson, published on November 1, 2009 - last reviewed on November 20, 2015
Thanks to video games, kids take interactive design for granted, but when Edwin Schlossberg founded ESI Design in 1977, show and tell meant look, don't touch. ESI has done "experiential" projects ranging from Web sites to store displays to museum exhibits (they're currently working on a new wing for the Museum of Science in Boston). No one does touchy-feely better.
What's your educational background?
I got an interdisciplinary doctoral degree in physics and English. I've always been interested in both the physical novel we live in and the sciences, where you prove things wrong or right.
I bet it's hard to get a job in either physics or literature with that.
One of my advisors said, "It's a fascinating but doomed effort." I wasn't worried. Two months after I finished I was asked to design the Brooklyn Children's Museum.
Which was ground-breaking, right?
Museums were about objects, not intellectual discovery. Montessori and Piaget were beginning to talk about interactive learning, but it was talk.
What have you learned about cognition?
The world doesn't have text around it. You should be able to experiment with learning from and with other people. Ideally, the subject matter of the experience is a collaborative reaction to a phenomenon. I never thought that was my goal until I saw how joyful and natural it was.
What's an example of collaborative discovery?
We did this thing at the Henry Ford museum called the Innovation Station—a giant ball-sorting machine that took 35 people to operate. Each role involved one key invention of the mechanical world, like pulleys, levers, an Archimedes' screw. You're kind of yelling at people—"Send it this way, send it that way!"
Is finding interactive solutions challenging?
We were asked to design the educational Macomber Farm for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. They said they wanted children to learn about all the ways people are cruel to animals. I said: No you don't; that would be off-putting. So in one area we made masks that replicate the optics of each of the farm animals so you see the world through their eyes. The chicken mask says, "I'm seeing like a chicken." Humor is a really good way to get people to do stuff they might be embarrassed about doing. To get a dialogue going is good, even if it's just smiles.
Could you theoretically make any material interesting to anyone?
Maybe. We did a classical music education center. Music is about teamwork, notation, metaphor, storyline, organizing sounds in space, ritual, and celebration. So we decided those would be the subject matter for the experiences. And it worked.


AUSTRALIAN BUREAU OF STATISTICS (ABS)
NAME OF COLLECTION
The Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALLS)
The Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALLS) was designed to assess the levels of literacy skills in Australia, and to analyse the relationship between literacy skills and social and economic status. ALLS was part of an international study being coordinated by Statistics Canada and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and is a source of internationally comparative data on participation in adult education and training.
ALLS aimed to assist in the development and evaluation of policies relating to literacy, lifelong learning and education and training. Information from the survey will be used by federal and state government departments with responsibilities for education and training; industry associations; academic researchers; and others. Nearly 9,000 people aged 15 to 74 years across Australia completed the survey in 2006. They were provided with material printed in English, and asked to complete a set of 'everyday' tasks requiring comprehension and simple arithmetic such as using a bus timetable and adding up the cost of a meal from a menu. Responses to the tasks were then used to derive literacy skill levels.
ALLS collected data under the broad topics of socioeconomic and demographic information, language spoken, parental information, employment history, literacy and numeracy practices at work and in daily life, self-perception of reading, writing and numeracy skills, participation in education and learning in the last 12 months, general health and well-being, and use of information and communication technology. This information is supplemented by an assessment of five literacy scales. They include two literacy scales (prose and document), a single numeracy scale, and a problem solving scale through a series of exercises that respondents are asked to complete. A scale measuring health literacy proficiency will be produced as a by-product of the exercises used to measure the scales mentioned above. Data items contained within these topics are capable of being cross classified with Data Items Relevant to Migrants and Ethnicity.
The predecessor to ALLS - the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) was first conducted in Australia in 1996 as the Survey of Aspects of Literacy (SAL). The 1996 survey reported only three literacy scales (prose, document and quantitative) of which only prose and document are comparable with the most recent survey.
ALLS, conducted between July 2006 and January 2007, allows comparison of 2006/07 literacy skill levels with those reported in 1996, and comparison of Australians' literacy skills with those of other countries participating. The ABS will conduct another survey of adult literacy, the Survey of Adult Competencies (SAC) from October 2011-February 2012. Conducted as part of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) to be held in 26 countries, the results are expected to be released in late 2013, and will again allow comparison of skills over time and between participating countries. SAC extends the concepts of literacy, numeracy and problem solving to a technology-rich environment. SAC also seeks to provide greater information about individuals with low levels of competency by assessing reading skills.
DATA ITEMS RELEVANT TO MIGRANTS AND ETHNICITY
- Country of birth
- Year of arrival in Australia
Language related variables of the non-English speaking population include:
OTHER DATA ITEMS COLLECTED
- First language spoken
- Main language spoken at home
- Proficiency in spoken English
- Self-perception of current reading and writing skills in non-English language first spoken
- Self-perception of current reading and writing skills in second non-English language first spoken
A full list of data items collected for
is available in Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey, Australia: User guide, 2006
(cat. no. 4228.0.55.002).
For further details on scope, geographic coverage, data availability and publications, methodology, classifications and concepts visit the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey
entry in the Directory of Statistical Sources
For more information on the 2006/07 ALLS visit Current Household Surveys.
For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service.
Phone: 1300 135 070
Fax: 1300 135 211
Post: Client Services, ABS, GPO Box 796, Sydney 2001
This page last updated 28 March 2011


- About ACTFL
- Convention & Expo
- Assessment & PD
Languages as a Core Component of Education for All Students
In the 21st century, language learning meets real world needs:
- Rewards learners with a resume differentiator – the ability to communicate and collaborate in another language across cultures and time zones
- Provides access to information and collaboration in any field - including science, technology, engineering, mathematics; business; and health care
- Develops critical literacies by practicing skills to understand, exchange opinions, and present ideas
- Develops flexible and adaptable thinking, plus an ability to function in new and unfamiliar situations
- Prepares learners to think and interact in a global community
Language learning develops these 21st century skills as learners:
- Participate in face-to-face interactions via technology, internships and volunteer opportunities in the community.
- Apply their competence in a new language to their career and personal goals, broadening their thinking beyond self-serving goals.
- Become more adept in understanding diverse cultural perspectives and their own identity.
These benefits are essential for and are within reach of all learners. An early start to learning a second language, programs of immersion or dual language immersion, and long learning sequences show strong results in helping all learners achieve these results. More states are setting up processes to verify second language competency (whether learned through classroom experiences or not) and provide academic credit.
The five goal areas (five Cs) of the National Standards become a rationale for learning languages and provide a roadmap for effective and motivating teaching and learning.
Standards-based language learning develops literacy and numeracy. By learning communication strategies to use language for interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational purposes, learners expand their repertoire to elicit information and exchange ideas, to comprehend and interpret, and to create effective oral and written messages. As learners compare the new language with their native language, they gain a deeper awareness of how language functions. As learners collect and interpret data, they practice numeracy. This process builds literacy and numeracy skills as described in the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics.
Through language learning, learners:
- Develop literacy with a balance of informational and literary text
- Use their second language to access, discuss, and create content across all disciplines
- Access increasingly complex text
- Provide text-based answers
- Write from sources to explain, persuade, and convey experience
- Build academic language
Standards-based language learning prepares learners in the STEM areas. The goal area of connections broadens the content for learning languages to any area where learners might use language. Project- or Problem-based language learning with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) content develops problem solving, critical thinking, and inquiry skills when activities are at a level of cognitive challenge that is age/developmentally-appropriate.
- Reading informational text on STEM topics
- Using technology to access information not available in English
- Creating surveys for learners to conduct, interpret, and share the results with non-English speaking audiences
- Participating in projects underway throughout the world
Standards-based language learning engages learners through practical applications for special purposes. By interacting with new information and acquiring new perspectives that are only available through the target language, learners expand their knowledge beyond what they are learning through their native or heritage language. Learners identify local and global communities in which they can apply their new skills, perspectives and language skill in purposeful ways. Service learning, business environments, the arts, and technology provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their ability to communicate in culturally appropriate ways. In these contexts, learners build a disposition for lifelong learning while they acquire technical skills.
Standards-based language learning strengthens college and career readiness. Learners heighten their essential 21st century skills of communication, critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration, and creativity. Strengthening their performance in each of the modes of communication, learners become ready for post-secondary education and careers as described in the Common Core State Standards: responding to the varying demands of audience, task and purpose; developing collaboration skills; presenting or conversing with clarity and precision; comprehending as well as critiquing; valuing evidence; and using technology and digital media strategically and capably. These skills are also identified as essential for all high school graduates by state employability standards and postsecondary initiatives (such as Project LEAP). By using their new language to explore interests and any subject areas, learners build strong content knowledge.
Language learning is real world education; the knowledge and skills are applied lifelong.
Monday, May 20, 2013


Within the last year
Within the past 3 years
1 - 10 of 11 articles
Empathy, the ability to care about others, is a learned process and can be successfully modeled in the elementary classroom. Although there are various methods available for improving empathy and other aspects of moral development, one recommended strategy is the use of moral dilemmas and...
The purpose of this article is to present many of the obstacles presented by poverty in the fulfillment of the basic needs of children. Each of the 5 basic needs identified by Maslow are addressed with regard to children reared in poverty. The article concludes by reiterating the need to do more...
A pretest-posttest control group design was used to measure the effect of practical life materials on public school kindergarten children's fine motor skill development over a 6-month period. The dependent measure was a penny posting test. More than 50 different sets of activities were provided...
Teachers play a critical role in establishing the verbal and nonverbal environment in the early childhood classroom. Within this article, children's literature is used as a vehicle for enhancing understanding of (a) how teachers talk to children, (b) how teachers allow children to talk to each...
This article identifies the types of common and toxic mold that are found in homes, schools, and child care centers; explains the negative health effects of mold for infants and young children; discusses ways of preventing and controlling mold in homes, schools, and child care centers; and...
Read and print from thousands of top scholarly journals.
Sign up with Facebook
Sign up with Google
Already have an account? Log in
Save this article to read later. You can see your Read Later on your DeepDyve homepage.
To save an article, log in first, or sign up for a DeepDyve account if you don’t already have one.
Sign Up Log In
To subscribe to email alerts, please log in first, or sign up for a DeepDyve account if you don’t already have one.
To get new article updates from a journal on your personalized homepage, please log in first, or sign up for a DeepDyve account if you don’t already have one.