Reflecting on Postmodernisms
Stankiewicz, Mary Ann, Art Education
The term postmodern has been traced to the historian Arnold Toynbee who coined it about 1939 to refer to the close of the modern period of history which, according to him, occurred in the last quarter of the l9th century. Postmodern politics have been traced to European student and worker revolts in 1968. In the visual arts, some critics have argued that the decisive year was 1964, when Andy Warhol first exhibited his Brillo boxes. Postmodern architecture was identified in the 1970s. Postmodernism became pervasive in academic culture during the 1980s and entered art education literature early in the 1990s.
Definitions of postmodernism are as varied as past uses of the term. To some, the word carries negative connotations due to the tendency of postmodernists to critique and deconstruct the big ideas of Enlightenment philosophers. Postmodernists have offered critiques of realism, universalism, and individualism, of optimistic belief in the advances of progress. They argue that the grand metanarratives of history (like those written by Toynbee) should be abandoned in favor of modest, localized narratives. They assert that unified visions of high culture and the power of the avant garde are being replaced by art that is eclectic and ambiguous, characterized not by style but by multiple references to and appropriations from popular commercial culture. Perhaps because much postmodern theory developed in literary criticism and cultural studies, the focus on science, logic, and rationality characteristic of modernism has given way to an emphasis on the text, narrative, and interpretation.
While art educators in higher education have been dropping postmodernist references for nearly a decade, many K-12 art specialists find the topic difficult, boring, or irrelevant to classroom life. The authors in this issue argue that postmodernism does have implications for thinking about art teaching and learning, for curriculum development and classroom practice. Social and intellectual changes grouped under the label of postmodernism already affect the contexts of art education. For example, many school districts have been trying to replace the modern notion of one single best, most efficient system of management with sitebased management, shared decision-making teams, or charter schools to permit consideration of alternative points of view. Art teachers who want to introduce their students to contemporary art recognize that artists today do not use the aesthetics of significant form and self-expression predominant for most of our century. The modern belief that the thoughts and voice of one person-often a white male-should guide theory and practice is giving way to more interest in listening to previously ignored voices, to the stories of women and other "minorities."
In his statement as incoming editor, published in the Septemebr 1998 issue of Art Education, Paul Bolin wrote that he wants to hear from a medley of voices, a multi-voiced choir of writers for the journal. …


This article discusses the provenance of a partnership between the Digital Projects Department (DPD) at Northern Illinois University (NIU) Libraries and NIU's Art History Department that seeks to improve art education at NIU. Academic librarians and other library personnel have unique skills, which along With providing traditional library services, should be utilized to meet instructional and educational challenges. Since DPD has a history of providing access to multimedia content via the Internet, it seemed natural to partner with the art history department to create a tool for accessing slides of artwork via the Web.
In an age when students and faculty underutilize library services, librarians need to better market their skills in order to remain relevant on today's campuses. Many articles routinely cite the need for library-faculty collaboration in the pursuit of this goal, but these calls generally describe programs of traditional library instruction and information literacy. (1) While these are important objectives, today's librarian can offer much more. Academic librarians in particular have a technical skill set that can be use not only for providing access to materials, but also for developing tools for instructors to be used in the classroom. (2) As an example, the Digital Projects department (DPD) at Northern Illinois University (NIU) Libraries is currently working with the Art History department to offer image slides via the Web that can be searched and integrated into classes. This paper reviews how this library-faculty collaboration emerged, and how all parties are working together to make this a reality.
The DPD at Northern Illinois University Libraries (NIUL) has produced a series of multimedia Web sites dedicated to Illinois history. (3) The sites provide searchable databases of primary documents and images, historians' video and textual evaluations of important events, interactive maps that show demographic and voting information for the United States and Illinois from the years 1820-1860, and lesson plans that integrate these materials for use in the classroom. The success of the DPD comes from its collaboration with other departments on campus and with other institutions throughout the state of Illinois.
DPD staff works with partner institutions to provide the technology and primary sources that make up the Web sites. The database and search scripts come from a partnership with the University of Chicago. Other partner institutions provide content, including the Newberry Library, the Illinois State Archives, and Illinois State University.
In addition to working with other institutions, DPD has worked with departments on campus to develop digital resources that incorporate their unique skills and knowledge, the Communication department, with its experience in film production, assisted DPD in creating original video and sound files. The Faculty Development Office trained project staff in Adobe Premiere and Real Producer to offer these files on project Web sites. The response of these departments showed that the university community is a supportive, collaborative environment.
Within the library, many people and departments contributed to make projects successful. The systems department offered technical support. Much of the material came from Rare Books and Special Collections. Art librarian Charles Larry created graphics and assisted in the design and layout of the Web site. The diverse skill set and material resources found within the library illustrated how all library departments can contribute to the success of the whole. The experience suggested that this type of technological collaboration with the rest of the university might be successful as well.
Problem and Possible Options
The opportunity for testing the hypothesis came about when a new art history professor told the art librarian about an e-reserves collection of images at her former institution, and how she would like to see that offered at NIU. …


Bohemia, NY (PRWEB) February 12, 2014
ArtSchools.com, the leading directory of art colleges, discusses how artists are encouraging schools to teach students more about music and other forms of art.
In a February 3rd article posted on The Spectrum titled, “Artists Encourage Music Education in Schools,” members of the Utah Opera are giving presentations in schools to help promote arts education in the classroom. The musicians hope to introduce the arts to students in ways they have never experienced before.
The article says that five members of the Utah Opera are a part of a program that helps educate school students of the different areas of the arts. The program, funded by the Utah State Legislature, is designed to help children build character and learn how to express their feelings. The article says the artists involved in the program are from all different disciplines and want children to see how valuable the arts can be.
Andrew Girard, a representative for ArtSchools.com, a directory of art colleges, says that this arts program should be a model for schools around the country. “Education of the arts is key in the success of children. The arts offer a way for children to express themselves that is hard to do otherwise,” says Girard. “Programs like this offer a way for new, blossoming artists to see the value of their craft. These programs introduce children to new forms of music and art that they would probably have otherwise seen.”
Girard also says art education can help people become more accepting of other cultures. “By exposing children to the arts at a young age, we, as a society, can become more receptive to other cultures and histories. The arts offer a way of expressing new ideas and views. It’s an essential portion of education that should not be excluded from any curriculum.”
ArtSchools.com is a comprehensive directory of art degrees, art schools and art-related programs listed and maintained by Monster.com, the leading platform for job seekers. ArtSchools.com is dedicated to assisting prospective artists, teachers, and students find schools, jobs, and programs best suited for their preferences. Whether you’re looking for a new job, a new school or a new direction, the ArtSchools.com directory offers insight into top degree programs in a variety of fields, including graphic design, fashion design, interior design, game design, web design, photography and film.
ArtSchools.com is an affiliate of CookingSchools.com, a similar directory featuring the best culinary colleges.


Learning mathematics in mainstream secondary schools:experiences of students with Down’s syndrome
Monari Martinez, E. and Benedetti, N., 2011. Learning mathematics in mainstream secondary schools:experiences of students with Down’s syndrome. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 26 (4), pp. 531-540.
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You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided below. (Contact Author)
The key questions are: is it true that persons with Down’s syndrome can study mathematics only at a very elementary level? Might it be possible that their difficulties are mainly restricted to some fields, such as numeracy and mental computation, but do not encompass the entire domain of mathematics? Is the use of a calculator recommended? Is non-elementary mathematics accessible at most for the brightest students with Down’s syndrome? Our experience with about 30 students with Down’s syndrome, attending Italian mainstream secondary schools, is that these students can solve mathematical problems, using simple algebraic equations, though they may have very poor numeracy skills and need to use the calculator even with the simplest computations. Moreover, a familiarity with more advanced topics, as algebraic computation and analytic geometry, can help to raise their self-esteem and improve their numeracy too. Surprisingly, these students can learn and apply mathematical procedures in a variety of other different contexts. For instance, Francesca, an Italian student attending a secondary mainstream school, with a mild impairment in numeracy and relatively good linguistic skills, started with algebra and then learned to solve problems in the areas of nutritional science and of business administration. In the same way, Martina, a student in a mainstream secondary school with severe linguistic and numerical impairments, learned to work with Cartesian coordinates and formulas in analytic geometry. She began connecting points on a Cartesian plane, given their coordinates, and colouring in the shapes, such as flowers and animals, that they define. Applying the two points distance formula and verifying the result, she learned to measure the distance of two points with a ruler and to understand the concept of ‘millimetres’. The role of the inclusion in mainstream Italian schools of every disabled student, regardless the severity of the disability, has been crucial for these results.
|Creators||Monari Martinez, E.and Benedetti, N.|
|Departments||Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences > Psychology|
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Assessment of Phonological Awareness and Reading
The APAR was designed to assess the Phonological Awareness (PA) and reading skills of adult participants in the project Web Access for Literacy Development in Individuals with Disability, funded through AccessAbility, Department of Communications Information Technology and the Arts.
The participants in this project had physical and/or intellectual disability. Our aim was to create an assessment tool that was based on information in the literature assessing PA and text reading at the word, sentence and paragraph levels. The test was created to avoid spoken responses, since many of our participants were nonspeaking. In addition, we wanted a tool that could be administered to individuals despite their methods of communication or computer/communication system access methods.
The APAR has been administered to 40 participants using a system in which stimuli were presented on a clear Perspex sheet, with the examiner on one side and the participant on the other. The examiner presented stimuli on the Perspex and the participant indicated his/her response by looking at the chosen item.
The APAR was devised and designed by Teresa Iacono (firstname.lastname@example.org) from the Centre for Developmental Disability Health Victoria, and Linda Cupples, Dept of Linguistics, Macquarie University.
The APAR Website was prepared by Rob Seiler (email@example.com), graphics by Anna Breakell, and is hosted and supported by ELR Software Pty Ltd, authors of eLr - Speech Pathology Resources, and the EIA Browser - a specialised Web Browser for people with special needs.
|Print ready materials in PDF format||Computerised version|
|Recommended for accurate production of printed APAR Instructions, Scoresheets and Stimulus Cards.||Allows delivery of the APAR from a computer using either a scan-switch (such as the Discover Switch), or conventional mouse/keyboard, or touchscreen.|
Requires either Win98+, or Win95/NT4 with Microsoft Internet Explorer installed.
(approx 1.4 MB)
|Compressed PDF file
(approx 1.0 MB)
(approx 1.3 MB)
Instructions are presented here as though participants will use eye-gaze, although in the computerised version (APAR-C), clients may respond using a scan-switch (such as the Discover Switch), or mouse or touchscreen. Examiners may find that other response options are more suitable (e.g., pointing). In addition, for people with speech, spoken responses will provide added information and should be noted by examiners.
This site is Bobby 3.1 approved.


The Press-Gazette is right: Walker is playing politics with public education. What’s new?
According to international standardized testing, our students are falling behind other nations’ students. However, we test all our students; other nations don’t include poor students. “Common Core premises, standards and assessments put our children at risk,” by Joan Landes, says the growth in our economy was better than that of nations with higher scores.
Common Core has been around in essence since President Bush passed No Child Left Behind in 2002. I guess they haven’t gotten it right yet because they keep remaking it. No experts in child development, mental health, neuroscience, kindergarten-elementary education, or parents helped craft Common Core. Bush hired Pearson from England to develop the tests. He had no background on education or testing. He’s making $9 billion a year, according to Alyssa Figueroa of AlterNet.
Studies indicate poverty is the basis of underachievement. To improve scores, we must stop the decline of the middle class. The 1 percent is getting richer. It’s a hard job, but inequality is our problem. Common Core has been tested enough. It would be more fruitful to look into the causes of inequality. It’s hard to learn while hungry and homeless.
Peggy Burns, Green Bay


A comprehensive new report out Monday outlines the benefits and limits of arts education by digging into the data and outlining what research has been established in the field.
Among the findings: Learning music can boost students' IQ scores and visual arts likely help students' understanding of geometrical reasoning. But the report also notes that there's no evidence theater and dance help with overall academic skills.
The report, called "Art for Art's Sake: The Impact of Arts Education," is from the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation based in Paris at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The authors reviewed research databases in a variety of languages including Dutch, English, German, Italian, French and Korean.
Here are a few of the findings from the executive summary:
- Music education strengthens IQ (intelligence quotient), academic performance, word decoding and phonological skills and there is preliminary evidence that music education might facilitate foreign language learning. While there are a number of studies showing a positive impact of music education on visual-spatial reasoning, the sole longitudinal study on this question detected no persistent influence after three years of music, which suggests the need for caution. There is also no evidence that music education has any causal impact on mathematics scores, even though mathematicians may be attracted to music.
- Strong evidence shows that theatre education in the form of enacting stories in the classroom (classroom drama) strengthens verbal skills, but there is no evidence for a link between theatre training and overall academic skills.
- While there is no evidence that training in visual arts improves overall academic skills or verbal skills (literacy), two new correlational studies reveal that students who study the visual arts are stronger in geometrical reasoning than students who do not study the visual arts. However, causality has yet to be established. And one experimental study found that learning to look closely at works of visual art improves skills in observing scientific images – a typical instance of close skills transfer.
The 270 page report calls for additional study on arts education.
"There is far too little research on the impact of arts education on student outcomes of creativity, critical thinking, persistence, motivation and self concept and this prevents us from making strong conclusions about the outcomes," wrote Barbara Ischinger, director for education and skills, in the report's foreword. "The arts can be taught in a way that enhances these outcomes, or they can be taught poorly."
You can also listen to a podcast covering the report with coauthor Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin.


All teenagers will be given an extra maths lesson every week under Government plans to pull pupils up to standards seen in the Far East.
Schools are being told to provide at least one addition session in the subject – typically around 40 minutes in many cases – amid fears children are lagging behind those in Hong Kong and Singapore.
The disclosure is made as part of a new maths curriculum for 14- to 16-year-olds in England to reflect the demands of tough new GCSEs.
As part of the reforms, lessons will be expected to cover ratio, proportion and rates of change, as well as requiring that children learn key formulae by heart in preparation for the end-of-course exam.
Syllabuses – introduced from 2015 – will also involve “real-world problems” including an introduction to financial mathematics.
A Government report published on Thursday said demands on pupils would be “wider and deeper” than the existing curriculum to reflect standards seen in top performing countries.
It came as a separate study published by the Independent Schools Council showed that fee-paying schools were dominating grades in traditional subjects such as maths and further maths – putting privately-educated pupils at the front of the queue for places at top universities.
The Department for Education said English schools currently spend “far less time teaching mathematics than other countries”, adding: “We anticipate that schools will review the amount of time that they currently spend teaching this vital subject to ensure they are able to cover the content thoroughly.
“An extra lesson each week would put England closer to jurisdictions such as Hong Kong and Singapore which both teach an average of 138 hours a year of mathematics at secondary level.”
International studies show that English schools devote an average of 116 hours a year – or around three hours a week during term time – to maths.
By comparison, Australian schools provide an average of 143 hours each year and pupils do around 138 hours in Singapore.
DfE officials said one extra lesson each week – typically around 40 minutes in many schools – would place English pupils on par with those in the best performing countries.
Elizabeth Truss, the Education Minister, said: “Our new, more demanding and ambitious maths GCSE has more content and will ensure pupils cover more topics than currently, aligning our system much more with world leaders in this vital subject.
“It will mean pupils gain a far deeper and broader mathematical understanding, and will mean they are better placed to study maths post-16 and have the numeracy skills essential for universities and top jobs.
“The amount of time currently given to maths teaching in our secondary schools lags behind the time afforded this key subject in world-leading countries. It is essential this is corrected.”
The comments were made as a study by the ISC found that private school pupils were more likely to study traditional A-levels and score A* or A grades than peers in the state system.
In maths, physics and chemistry, pupils from independent schools form less than 20 per cent of candidates but win a third of A* grades, it emerged.
In French and Spanish, privately-educated pupils account for 28 per cent of entries but claim half of all A*s.
Prof Sir Michael Sterling, former vice-chancellor of Birmingham University and ex-chairman of the Russell Group, said: “Without these well qualified applicants many university STEM courses (science, technology, engineering and maths) would face serious recruitment difficulties.”


Sweet and tangy pickled carrots are a fun way to get in the kitchen and make something special without much fuss or muss. Your child will learn more about the pickling process as well as learn more about what flavors he likes!
What You Do:
- Help your child get started by getting out a saucepan along with the other ingredients needed to make the pickling brine. A brine is a combination of water and salt along with seasonings traditionally created to preserve food items.
- Invite your child to fill the saucepan with water and bring it to a simmer. Then he can fill the 8-ounce jar with baby carrots and then place in the boiling water for two minutes. This will blanch, or slightly cook, the carrots so they are ready for the brine! Once the two minutes are up, he can drain them in a strainer.
- Now he can use the same saucepan and measure and add the rest of the ingredients. Your child can turn the heat back to medium and let the brine simmer for about 10 minutes.
- While the brine is bubbling away, your child can pack the carrots into the 8-ounce jar so they are ready for the brine.
- Encourage your child to place the jar of carrots on a kitchen towel and then carefully pour the brine over the carrots. Then he can carefully seal the jar with the lid! Offer assistance as needed – the brine is hot!
- Invite your child to place the carrots in the fridge after they’ve come to room temperature. After a couple of hours, he can give his carrots a taste and see how they turned out!
Did you know: Not only does pickling improve the flavor of foods, it also makes many of them easier to digest because of bacteria created during the pickling process?
Sarah Lipoff has a K-12 Art Education degree and enjoys working with kids of all ages.


Print Resources on DBAE:
Alexander, Kay and Michael Day, editors. Discipline-Based Art Education: A Curriculum Sampler.
Getty Trust, 1997. Actual graded lesson plans, K-12.
Dobbs, Stephen Mark. Learning in and through Art: A Guide to Discipline-based Art Education.
Getty Trust, 1997.
Eisner, Elliott. The Role of Discipline-Based Art Education in America's Schools. Getty Trust, 1988.
This book is a policy statement about the positive gains to be made in art education by the expanded
use of DBAE.
Reynolds, N. Art Lessons for Middle Schools: A DBAE Curriculum. Weston J. Walch, 1999.
Smith, Ralph Alexander. Discipline-Based Art Education: Origins, Meaning, and Development.
University of Illinois, 1989. This thesis is a basic history of the development of DBAE.
Stewart, Marilyn G. Thinking through Aesthetics. Davis Publications, Inc., 1997. This small volume
is a teacher handbook for guiding students through discussions about art.
Stewart, Marilyn G. "Diving Below the Surface: A Conversation with Dr. Marilyn Stewart."
ArtsEdNet Offline Newsletter, Winter, (#8), Getty Trust, 1998.
Online Resources for DBAE:
The homepage of ArtsEdNet; Web resources of the Getty Education Institute. Sections include
changing DBAE online units, image galleries, lesson plans and ideas, resources, a listserv, and
valuable links to art education and interdisciplinary arts education websites. There are many online
units, such as Artworlds, developed as a teacher course; it includes units on art worlds, Mexican-
American Art, African-American Art, and Navajo Art.
Forum: Asking Questions about Art. This is a high school level discussion sight featuring
`big' questions about art using a Web site about Trajan.
The Web site features an interactive use of pairs of paintings
to illustrate elements of art. It is from the University Museum in Utah.


From the mind of Gregory Burk comes a new music app for the iPad called MyRhythm. The app allows you to practice and test your skills at playing simple duple rhythms. Is it something I would use in my music education classroom? Read on to find out.
MyRhythm is essentially a rhythm tapping game set up in a sequence of eight duple measures. The beats are stacked on top of each other, with one line for the right hand and one line for the left. The accuracy required to tap the rhythms correctly is quite strict, and I found that it was ideal for helping some of my percussion students to improve on keeping a strong, steady beat. It is also nice for helping reinforce rhythms that are often hard for people to learn. I would set it up with a series of off-beats to be played with the left hand for example and let the student practice the pattern over and over until they had learned to get the feel for it. It would also work quite well with younger students in a general music class.
MyRhythm Offers Multiple Ways To Play
The app includes three different modes, a practice mode, a challenge mode which tests your rhythmic memory, and a creative mode where you can create your own rhythms. All modes have four different difficulty levels and can be set at different tempos from 60-140bpm with various groove beats for accompaniment. The tones of the two pads can also be changed to a number of different sounds if desired.
The app does leave me wanting a few things improved however. First, it would be nice from a music education perspective if they were to have an option to show the notes in normal rhythmic notation with quarter notes and rests. That alone would increase the value of the app in my classroom. Second would be that they make an adjustment so that if you hit a pad at the wrong time it would mark it as such, perhaps with an empty circle outline or something to show you where you played incorrectly. Right now you can literally just hit both pads in time with the beat and get a perfect score every time.
MyRhythm is a neat little rhythmic training game that could definitely be used in a variety of ways in a music education classroom. Of course, it's also just a fun little game to play. As mentioned you have to be very accurate in order to get the rhythms correct, so even experienced musicians might want to have a try at it.


Increasingly, students are coming to us with skills on (electric) guitar, keyboards and other instruments (mandolin has become popular recently because of it's use by some mainstream pop artists). Students who don't play instruments are coming to us with much greater exposure to music specifically because of pop culture influences (Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Glee, video games, etc..). A 6th Grade student recently asked if we could play the theme to Halo, a science-fiction video game. Why not? If we don't do it at school, students are busy learning it anyway , despite the school music program! This is NOT a position we in Music Education want to be in. Imagine students dropping music classes because they don't do music there (or at least music they know). Unfortunately this happens every day in music programs everywhere. I know a student who won the local 'American Idol' contest but dropped Chorus at school. She didn't see the relevance. There are, of course Music Directors who get it, the one's who understand that connection is more important than coverage. So, to further expand the paradigm shift I am suggesting, here's what I think *secondary music programs should include now:
- A Music technology Classes (formerly called General Music) where students create, remix and share music (and, yeah, learn the basics, too)<---largest population of students. I suggest this for 100% of the school population if possible.
- Guitar "Clubs"<---if don't play guitar, have your students teach you. They would love to teach you how to shred a solo.
- Jazz/Rock-Pop Ensembles (any combination of instruments/voices)
- (World) Percussion Ensembles (mallet instruments as well as djembes, bongos, congas)
- Traditional Music Ensembles (Band/Chorus/Orchestras)
*Note that I am addressing secondary music programs, specifically. Elementary programs should, as most do, continue to incorporate movement, singing, Orff instrument playing, rhythm games and general "experimentation" with music.Tweet this!


On K-12 Websites in Educational Technology, Jim says, "there are so many ways to focus here. From the perspective of rich informational portals, there is one of my long time favorites, RefDesk. Any teacher or student who hasn't visited the wonderful American history resource provided from the Library of Congress site is missing a wealth of information. With the tragic decrease of art education in our schools, a site such as Artcyclopedia provides well over 100,000 images of various works of art."
On College Technology Expectations
"This probably is very school dependent, but from my perspective I feel that many kids actually do not know as much about technology as their parents [go parents!] think they do. The real generational difference is in the lack of fear that kids have to pick up new information and learn new tools. Many adults think that there is a red button on a computer which, if they click on it, will destroy everything they've saved (ala Mission Impossible). Kids just keep clicking away, knowing that one of their clicks will finally work for them.
With that said, I don't think many kids have the technology fundamentals. If we view the internet as the world's public library, why aren't we providing tools to kids that help them understand how to access the information? I know, kids know how to "Google", but do they really know how to search for information [Can I get a Amen!]. And, with the 2-way posting of information that is prevalent today (see my next answer), being able to use various types of research sites (search engines, portals, niche sites) will help provide balanced information."
Predictions "My crystal ball these days doesn't say much more than I'm probably going to gain about 5 pounds due to all the good holiday foods around (it's also showing an exercise bike in my future, but that seems a bit distant)." [Levity is a good thing]
A few thoughts about 2007 technologies…
RSS will continue to expand, even if people don't know they're using it. With tools from Yahoo and Google, as well as integrated into browsers such as Firefox and the new version of IE, people will continue to learn how to customize their own pages with information of interest to them.
Two-way communications will continue to become the norm. Not just conversational tools such as IM and VoIP (though that will continue to expand), but how information is posted and shared. The growth of blogs and podcasts will continue exponentionally. An interesting article about how USA Today is reshaping their regional newsrooms to reflect the Digg model of user-based information continues this trend forward. The term crowdsourcing is being used to reflect this significant change.
Wireless & broadband keep moving to become a standard. RFID tags, WiMax, wireless communities, EvDO cards, wearable devices, among many others, will continue to become more prevalent."
I'd like to thank Jim for sharing with SLJ Blog readers his technological insights. You can also sign up for his FREE monthly technological newsletter and, if food is (or will be come the holidays) getting you down, you can order his uplifting fabulous food book by clicking HERE.


Learn to Play Flamenco Guitar with Step-by-Step Lessons and Authentic Pieces to Study and Play. Guitar Method. Softcover with CD. With guitar tablature. 64 pages. Published by Hal Leonard (HL.697363).
Item Number: HL.697363
ISBN 0634088157. 9x12 inches.
Here's your complete guide to learning flamenco guitar! This method uses traditional Spanish flamenco song forms and classical pieces to teach you the basics of this style and technique. You'll learn to play in the style of Paco de Lucia, Sabicas, Niño Ricardo and Ramón Montoya. Lessons cover: strumming, picking and percussive techniques; arpeggios; improvisation; fingernail tips; capos; and much more. Includes flamenco history and a glossary, and both standard notation and tab. The CD features 58 tracks for demonstration and play-along.
About Hal Leonard Guitar Method
The world-famous Hal Leonard Guitar Method is preferred by teachers because it makes them more effective while making their job easier. Students enjoy its easy-to-follow format that gives them a solid music education while letting them play songs right away. The Hal Leonard Guitar Method provides a complete system to playing success which includes three levels of instruction and a myriad of play-along supplemental songbooks that let students play great songs while they're still learning to play.


If an appropriate learning situation is not available in your geographic region, and if the stresses of school—any kind of school—are making it difficult for the child to function, or to recover from an episode or hospitalization, some parents may want to consider the option of homeschooling.
Homeschooling was viewed, not too long ago, as very counterculture, or something that people did solely because of religious beliefs. As outcomes of homeschooling were measured, however, and the homeschooled children often tested two years ahead of their in-schooled peers, homeschooling has become more generally accepted. All 50 states allow for it as long as the parent completes the necessary paperwork with the state’s department of education. To locate your state’s DOE, go to http://www2.ed.gov/about/contacts/state/index.html.
Thanks to advances in technology, homeschooling can be done richly and effectively on computers with CD-Rom curricula or even over the Internet. This mode of learning may be particularly beneficial for a bipolar child because it focuses learning and helps students with attentional problems. One such curriculum, Switched-On Schoolhouse, is an advanced multimedia-based learning environment that incorporates video clips, sound files, animations, computer games, drills and tests. With earphones, a parent can homeschool several children.
The student works at his or her own pace and if a hospitalization should interrupt learning, the student doesn’t miss the work but just picks up where he or she left off.
Switched-On Schoolhouse has curricula for grades 3-12, but it is a Christian curriculum with some religious content woven sporadically throughout the text. If this is an issue, a similar secular program is available from Pathway Publishers and is called “Odyssey Ware” (see homeschooling web sites below).
The availability of special education services for homeschooled children varies from state-to-state. Some states may consider a homeschooled student to be enrolled part-time in the local district; in this case, the district would continue to provide full or partial services under an IEP. Other states classify homeschooling as private schooling, so the student is not entitled to an IEP. (However, the student may qualify for a services plan. See http://www.ideapractices.org/law/briefs/brief10.php for a description of the law when parents place their child in a private school.)
You will need to research the practices and options in your state and local district. Start with your state’s Department of Education. The following link may help you determine the current status of special ed services for homeschoolers in different states: http://www.hslda.org/search.asp.
To further explore the prospect of homeschooling, or to take a look at programs that may help a child catch up when work is missed, take a look at the following web sites:
http://www.elementaryeducationdegree.com/101-homeschooling-sites/— An extensive list of home schooling support and information sites . Found within the site: Elementary Education Degree .
http://www.home-school.com –Official web site of Practical Homeschooling Magazine, Listing of homeschooling organizations in your area, Home Life Catalogue, Discussion forums.
http://www.HSLDA.org — The Home School Legal Defense Association
http://www.network54.com/Forum/180575— Interesting discussion forums for parents who are or are thinking about homeschooling.
http://www.aop.com — Switched-On Schoolhouse ‘s CD-Rom Curricula and other Alpha Omega products
http://www.pathwaypublishers.com (Odyssey Ware CD-ROM curricula, the secular version of Switched-On Schoolhouse)
ttp://www.welcometoclass.com — On-line accredited schooling from Alpha Omega Publishers (interactive schooling with teachers, counselors and support staff)


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Addressing the sensitive issue of difficulties in literacy development this practical book outlines what is meant by 'literacy' and the barriers to literacy development such as social class, ethnicity, culture and gender. It emphasises practical strategies and programmes to help reduce these barriers at school, family and community levels. Throughout, the highly qualified team of authors relate cognitive, psychological, and socio-cultural perspectives to current curriculum policies, controversies and ethical considerations.
This book enables practitioners to reflect critically upon the choices available to them in assessing and supporting students who experience difficulties in literacy development. Topics covered include a thorough consideration of dyslexia, bilingualism, the conceptualising of literacy, equity issues, and suggestions for assessment and planning for pupils.
This is essential reading for students on initial teacher training courses and teachers on CPD courses in the area of special needs, literacy and dyslexia. It is also a companion course guide for the Open University’s new Difficulties in Literacy Development course.
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|Academic Unit/Department:||Education and Language Studies > Education
Education and Language Studies
|Interdisciplinary Research Centre:||Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology (CREET)
Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology (CREET)
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|Date Deposited:||30 May 2006|
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Teacher education programs that focus on preparing urban elementary school educators face a daunting task. In a relatively short time, roughly four semesters of coursework, students are prepared to be transformed into teachers who are certified to meet the challenges of urban schools. This transformation occurs from the outside in as they learn culturally responsive pedagogy, effective strategies for classroom management, instructional design, assessment, and develop strong content knowledge in literacy, mathematics, science, and social studies. At the same, they must be transformed from the inside out, developing the dispositions and identity of an urban educator. To maximize development within program confines, it is essential that every assignment in every course be relevant and powerful with elements that facilitate both content and disposition development.
We decided to study how this happens with preservice teachers in the context of a reading methods course. Accordingly, our purpose was to examine the use of a case study assignment in a reading methods course for elementary and early childhood pre-service teachers preparing to be urban educators. We sought to identify elements that resulted in outside in/inside out development as well as those that were not functioning as designed. As literacy teacher educators in a university committed to the preparation of teachers for urban schools, we continuously revise and refine our coursework, engaging in the same cycle of learning, enactment, assessment, and reflection (Snow, Griffin, & Burns, 2005) that we intend for our students to adopt as habits of practice. We seek new ways to develop content knowledge and dispositions by scaffolding their learning experiences through authentic tasks that "enculturate" them into the community of reading professionals (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Lave & Wenger, 1991). The case study assignment is the primary vehicle for this work as students connect their growing understanding of literacy development and the reading process with their work with a struggling reader in their field placement.
This work began with identifying a need to make the case study a learning experience for our students that would build knowledge, efficiency, and insight (Sternberg & Horvath, 1995). We were not satisfied with the level of analysis of reading behaviors that our students demonstrated in their assignments. We sensed that students were approaching the case study as "one more hoop to jump through" in their progress toward certification and were not building their knowledge and skills to the extent we believed possible. Thus, we examined all aspects of the assignment to see how outside in and inside out elements could be combined and strengthened. Elements were added to the assignment prior to the beginning of the semester to support our students' growing understanding of ways to differentiate instruction for an individual struggling reader, to scaffold them in developing greater expertise needed for reading instruction in urban schools, and to facilitate the development of teacher dispositions and identity. These elements included the dialogic learning log, collaborative sessions, and presentation of the case study in a mock parent/teacher conference.
With these goals in mind, the following questions guided our investigation:
(a) What aspects of the case study, as currently implemented, were effective in developing preservice teachers' content and pedagogical knowledge and dispositions? and
(b) What were the students' perceptions of their outside in/inside out development from completing this assignment?
The case study assignment is consistent with the dual focus of developing pre-service teachers from the outside in and the inside out. Outside in development occurs as content knowledge and pedagogy in reading are mastered, and inside out development occurs as teacher dispositions and identity take root. …


Arachnaut's Lair - FTP Site. A music educator's ftp heaven! You'll find lots of surprising goodies here!
Aria Database - At this amazing site, you can search for arias by opera, composer, and voice part. Once you find it, many arias come with lyrics and translations.
ARTSEDGE: The National Arts and Education Information Network
Classroom Connect - Welcome to Classroom Connect's home on the Internet! We have designed this site with the hope that it will become "homebase" to thousands of K-12 educators and students around the globe.
Electronic Music Interactive - Electronic Music Interactive is a multimedia primer for electronic music that prepares students for more advanced study.
Harmony Central - Harmony Central is an attempt to bring together much of the music related items that can be found on the Internet.
History of the Metropolitan Opera - Learn about the history of one of the world's most celebrated opera companies.
Institute for Music Research - The Music Research Information Service (MRIS) is a gateway to research information in the fields of music education, music psychology, music therapy, and music medicine.
J.S. Bach Home Page - Sections here are Johann Sebastian Bach's life, complete works, recommended (or not) recordings, cantatas, and Bach information around the world. Perhaps a Website is the first medium which could put before a student so much from this complex and prolific genius. In the biography section a map shows the places where he lived, and the extensive timeline gives a framework to Bach's life, with a parallel column for contemporary musicians. The works and recordings are listed by BWV number, category, instruments, key, title, and year.
K-12 ART ED Listservs - The MUSIC-ED listserv puts you in touch with other great minds who care deeply about music education.
Maestronet Conservatory - The Maestronet Conservatory is your source of sheet music online. This is sheet music you can download and print now! All of our sheet music has been arranged by grade level by our staff and senior editors to provide a structure or syllabus which conforms to the prevailing standards or levels of the major methods from around the world.
Maria Callas - One of the most famous sopranos ever. Learn about her life and her career at this site from Italy.
Music 101 - Wonderful interactive lessons! Eartraining lessons, guitar chords, and a great links page. This is a fun site with a large amount of information!
Music Education Launch Site - a little of everything for the music educator. Offers an interactive page for teachers to share ideas and a section for music lessons. Jokes and a great set of music links for needed resources.
Music Education Online - This page is designed to aid music educators in connecting with a variety of music education resources located on the Internet as well as providing an interactive bulletin board for posting questions and comments on music.
Music Education Resource Base - MERB/CMI is a bibliographic database of more than 28,000 resources in music and music education.
Music Educators National Conference Website - Nearly 70,000 Music Educators dedicated to providing a complete, balanced, sequential education to every child in America.
Music is..and the Value of Music in Education - a home page by James Hubers on the value of Music Education.
Music Resources on the Internet
Musicians Institute - This is a most encouraging site about the power and benefits of music education.
Operas of Gilbert & Sullivan - Texts of the operettas by Gilbert and Sullivan.
Sheet Music Online - The Johns Hopkins University Sheet Music Online and the Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection.
Suite 101 - Suite101.com, located on the World Wide Web at http://www.suite101.com/, provides a solution to the chaotic information flow of the Net by offering to its members a comprehensive and efficient way to find high quality sites on the Web -- fast.
Underground Music Archive - IUMA is the one stop for all your Internet music needs
Wagner on the Web - Richard Wagner was a composer know for his classical music and for his operas. This site offers biographical information, as well as resources on his famous works.
Welcome to MusicSearch
Welcome to the American Music Conference! - A service to all those who care about the importance of music, music making and music education.
zZounds Music Discovery Center - Musical instruments from around the globe. If you are looking for a well known instrument or even a not so well known instrument, zZounds is the place to go. A well organized site that is well designed.


This is a very exciting time to work with a speech-language pathologist (SLP) if your child has difficulties with listening, speaking, reading, spelling, and/or writing.
In the past SLPs worked on speech sound development and oral language understanding and use and the special educator or reading teacher worked on reading. This is no longer the case. SLPs' roles and responsibilities have come a long way from the old days of articulation therapy. This is because we now understand the important and critical role that oral language development plays in learning to read and spell. Oral language skills are the foundation for learning to read. The American-Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) has outlined the SLP's role in the remediation of literacy disabilities such as dyslexia.
As a parent of someone with dyslexia, you should know that SLPs are experts in oral language development, which as stated above serves as the foundation for learning to read, spell, and write. An SLP can be a great resource to you.
SLPs are trained in the following areas that affect learning to read, spell and write:
- Oral language comprehension and use (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics)
- Phonological processing, including phonemic awareness
- Articulation (speech sound production)
- Letter/sound knowledge
- Word-finding difficulties
- Emergent metalinguistic awareness
- Narrative discourse
- Short-term memory
With this knowledge-base, SLPs can:
- Participate on pre-referral child study teams
- Consult with parents, teachers, and other team members to help determine whether a full diagnostic assessment is warranted
- Evaluate and treat language-based learning disabilities
- Collaborate with other professionals in the design of effective intervention programs, including classroom modifications, accommodations, and supports
- Educate dyslexics, parents, teachers, and other professionals about the role of oral language in literacy development, language development across the lifespan, and ways to identify and treat behaviors.
To find a speech-language pathologist in your area, contact your local school district or go to the ASHA website. Together you can begin to answer your questions and start the process toward success.


ONCE UPON A TIME: THE REFERENCE OF STORY GRAMMAR UNITS DURING PARENT-CHILD STORY BOOK READING
Acquiring literacy skills is a complex process that requires social influences. One important social influence, according to Lev Vygotsky, is the caregiver. Within a child's Zone of Proximal Development, the caregiver can help the child learn new concepts and ideas. Caregivers are particularly important as a child develops literacy skills. By using a variety of techniques, caregivers can teach reading comprehension as well as critical thinking skills in order to promote literacy development. Sixteen children were read Bear Shadow within parent-child dyads. Transcripts of de-contextualized language from each session were analyzed for frequency, range and relation categories. The results showed that the story grammar elements referenced most frequently were Attempt and Consequence. Also, on average, most parents referenced 4.75 out of the eight total story grammar elements during story book reading. To do this, most parents related their comments to story book illustrations, followed by text.
School:University of Cincinnati
School Location:USA - Ohio
Source Type:Master's Thesis
Keywords:literacy story grammar units
Date of Publication:01/01/2007


Story looks at 'the state of black art'
Posted 01.25.10 by MICA Media Relations
Instead of race being used as the dog that bites our tail, race is now used as the flag, the anthem you use to create your path to freedom.
An article about how black artists capture the complex issue of race in their work, which appeared in the Sunday, Jan. 24, issue of The Washington Post, featured Dr. Leslie King-Hammond, founding director of the new Center for Race and Culture at MICA and graduate dean emeritus, as an expert in the field.
Race issue a two-edged sword for black contemporary artists, written by staff writer Blake Gopnik, quoted King-Hammond as saying that "race is a political construct, a total mythology" that "tries to lock you into an inauthentic identity." Black artists can use their awareness of this as "fodder" to make art that liberates them, and us, from the limiting identities of race. "Instead of race being used as the dog that bites our tail, race is now used as the flag, the anthem you use to create your path to freedom."
The article also mentions the Transformations: New Directions in Black Art conference, which took place in late October 2009 at the College and was organized by King-Hammond's Center for Race and Culture and the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African-American Research at Harvard University.
Founded in 1826, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is the oldest continuously degree-granting college of art and design in the nation. The College enrolls nearly 3,300 undergraduate, graduate and open studies students from 48 states and the District of Columbia and 52 countries in fine arts, design, electronic media, art education, liberal arts, and professional studies degree and non-credit programs. With art and design programs ranked in the top 10 by U.S. News & World Report, MICA is pioneering interdisciplinary approaches to innovation, research, and community and social engagement. Alumni and programming reach around the globe, even as MICA remains a cultural cornerstone in the Baltimore/Washington region, hosting hundreds of exhibitions and events annually by students, faculty and other established artists.


A USQ academic travelled to East Timor recently to help launch an exciting new national education policy document promoting the use of children’s mother tongues in the classroom.
Dr Kerry Taylor-Leech, a member of the Linguistics Team within the Faculty of Education, joined the country’s President and educational leaders at the launch, which was held on UNESCO International Mother Language Day. This event is celebrated annually to promote linguistic and cultural diversity.
Dr Taylor-Leech has been co-operating with the National Education Commission and the Ministry of Education in Timor-Leste to help draft the new policy.
She said that until recently, teachers had been expected to use the official languages of Portuguese, the former colonial language, as the language of instruction along with Tetum, the national lingua franca, as a pedagogic aide.
“However, many children do not use these languages in the home and were not achieving the desired literacy results so the government is now considering the use of local languages for teaching in pre-primary and primary schools to help children acquire the basic foundations for literacy development in their first language,” Dr Taylor-Leech said.
“This is an exciting and brave initiative. Children learn from what they know. Learning in a language spoken at home makes it easier for children to achieve a strong foundation in basic literacy and communication skills which they can then transfer to additional languages.
“This initiative supports the learning of Tetum and Portuguese as well as other languages like Indonesian and English.”
Dr Taylor-Leech said the East Timorese were excellent language learners, with many people speaking up to five languages in this highly diverse society.
During the launch Dr Taylor-Leech presented a seminar entitled: First language first: A bridge to peace and prosperity.
“My main message in this seminar,” she said, 'is that by using and valorising children’s home languages and cultures in the classroom, teachers can promote social inclusion and contribute to peaceful nation building.”
Members of the Linguistics team in the Faculty of Education strive to apply their academic expertise to real world language issues and problems. More details about Dr Taylor-Leech’s work in East Timor can be found at: http://ktlweb.wordpress.com
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Reading & Writing Tools
KnowledgeBox by Pearson Digital Learning (www.pearson digital.com) is a digital learning system that provides educators with standards-based multimedia for reading and language arts. Designed for grades K-6, KnowledgeBox contains 80 new "Between the Lions" language arts lessons, which are based on the popular PBS series for children, and customizable lesson plans for teachers.
Kurzweil 3000 Version 7 by Kurzweil Educational Systems (www.kurzweiledu.com) is designed to help boost performance in reading and writing for struggling students. By delivering total flexibility in the testing experience, students are able to appropriately leverage the visual and auditory features of the same software for both formal test taking and everyday use.
Planet Wobble by Crick Software Inc. (www.planetwobble.com) is a series of literacy materials for early readers and writers that is delivered on CD-ROM and in print. The materials include stories that follow six central characters. Once students are finished reading, they have the opportunity to write stories on their own and interact with the characters through e-mail at PlanetWobble.com.
IntelliTools Reading: Balanced Literacy (www.intellitools.com) is a yearlong program of nine units that can be used as supplementary literacy instruction for first-graders. Balanced Learning's Network Version allows students to use the software from any LAN-connected computer to access the reading and writing programs.
Now available on wireless handhelds, Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) by Sopris West Educational Services offers reading assessment that can be used to meet the Reading First portion of NCLB. This K-3 applicable program is a system of standardized, individually administered measures of early literacy development. For more information, visit www.DIBELSassessment.com.
PLATO Writing Process and Practice (www.plato.com) is a program based on the belief that teaching writing skills is a process and not a mechanical skill. Formulated for grades 3-12, the program aims to instill in students the value of writing as a communicative activity that is relevant to all aspects of their education. …


According to the first annual Children’s Report Card, released by First Focus and Save the Children, the country earned an overall lackluster grade of C minus on several domains of a child’s life. The five categories measured in the report card include economic security, early childhood, K-12 education, permanence and stability and health and safety. The full report can be found here.
The report card, Commissioned by former Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Senator Robert Casey (D-PA), points out that 22 percent of American children live in poverty and they lag behind international students in reading and math proficiency at all grade levels. In addition, in the 2010–2011 school year, 1.1 million children out of the 49.5 million enrolled in the public school system were identified as homeless by the U.S. Department of Education.
Of note, the early learning programs earned a C plus grade overall. State investments in early education were reduced by $60 million in 2010-2011, the second year in a row of funding cuts. Currently 28 percent of 4-year-olds and only 4 percent of 3-year-olds were enrolled in state funded pre-kindergarten programs. In 2010, only 4.5 percent of eligible infants and toddlers under age 3 were enrolled in Early Head Start and only 29 percent of eligible children age 3–5 were enrolled in Head Start.
Early learning programs, especially successful Pre-K programs that effectively interface with comprehensive Pre-K-3 systems, are an essential investment to ensure that children at-risk of beginning formal education behind their peers, particularly low-income children, have a chance to begin school on equal footing.
Principals have a unique understanding of the consequences that occur when children are not fully prepared to enter the school building. However, principal preparation programs and school systems lack sufficient training and professional learning opportunities to help principals design and lead quality early childhood programs.
This is why NAESP supports the Continuum of Learning Act, which was introduced in Congress by Senator Casey and Rep. Mazie Hirono (D-HI). The Continuum of Learning Act is based on the NAESP landmark publication, Leading Early Childhood Learning Communities, which outlines standards and guidance for principals in designing aligned Pre-K-3 systems and implementing high-quality early childhood programs. The standards focus on helping principals rethink the connection between early childhood centers and elementary schools.
The release of this report card came just weeks before the November elections, and parents and concerned Americans are urged to stand up for children -- who are too young to fully participate in the election process -- by voting for political candidates that will put children first and make them a legislative priority. The report card states that improving the economy repeatedly polls as the main concern for voters in the current election cycle, but due to the tremendous cost of caring for poor kids, the economy can only improve when the number of U.S. children living in poverty is reduced.


Solutions for Success: Online Resources is a collection of reading comprehension e-Lessons which feature animated, interactive lessons in an effective, exciting, and easy format. It offers ready-to-present lessons organized by various writing structures and genres. Reading comprehension strategies are designed to improve test performance and to show how well students comprehend reading selections. The strategies detailed in the e-Lessons are also available in Solutions for Success: Reading books.
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to print an order form.
Each Story Consists of Three Lessons:
- Lesson 1 - Read for Understanding
- Lesson 2 - Produce a Summary
- Lesson 3 - Answer Comprehension Questions
Try them out! Sample frames. Click on one.
to see all lessons that come with purchase!
- Available in English and Spanish
- Based on best practices and leading research
- Guiding questions keep students focused
- Lessons incorporate tested vocabulary words through context
- Web-based software
- PDFs available for: Selections, selections with strategies, graphic organizers, color-coded activities, test items
- Color-coded frames.
- Test items classified by reading skills
Key Instructional Features:
- Ensures vertical alignment
- Ensures positive transfer of reading skills to all content areas
- Teaches appropriate academic language
- Strategies allow teachers to make effective instructional decisions
- Guiding questions model appropriate comprehension questions before, during, and after reading
Types of Selections Include:
- Narrative, Expository, Mixed, Paired
- Newspaper article
- Magazine article
- Internet article
- Narratives with a problem-solution plot
- Narratives linked by occasion or theme
- Journal entries
- Script writing
Online high quality reading comprehension e-lessons,
online training topics, and
released tests and test connection activities
Excellent resources in Reading, Writing, and Math in English and Spanish. View sample pages of Solution for Success Books.
View detailed information on workshops in reading, writing, and math. Workshop materials in English and Spanish.


What You'll Find in This Section
The first year of working with ELLs can be full of challenges. Fortunately, there are a number of resources to help! Colorín Colorado has compiled this list to help new ELL teachers navigate their experiences in the classroom. These resources may also be helpful for veteran teachers who are new to teaching ELLs.
An important first step in helping English language learners succeed is building their confidence and comfort level by making them feel welcome in the classroom and building positive relationships wtih students.
There are a number of ways to support the language and literacy development of ELLs that also allow students to participate more fully in classroom activities and lessons. This section provides specific ideas and strategies, such as tips for planning lessons and the use of language objectives, as well as broader approaches such as using informal assessment and differentiation for varying language levels.
An important key to the helping English language learners (ELLs) — and their classmates — succeed in the classroom is the mastery of academic language and vocabulary. These resources offers tips for identifying the kinds of language and vocabulary words that will be the most useful to teach, as well as numerous strategies and resources.
English Language Learners (ELLs) can have a wide variety of needs in their reading and writing instruction. Some students may read and write fluently in their native language while others will enter the classroom with little or no prior literacy instruction. This resource section covers many topics, including grade-level strategies and ideas for teaching more advanced reading and writing skills such as those required by the Common Core State Standards.
In order for English language learners (ELLs) to become successful students, they need to learn grade-level content as well as the English language skills needed to access that content. The strategies in this section suggest ways in which you can provide your ELLs with additional language support in learning content areas such as math, science, social studies, and language arts.
How can we help English language learners successfully meet the Common Core State Standards? This resource section offers ideas and materials including classroom videos, teacher interviews, and bilingual parent tips.
English language learners' experience with technology can vary greatly from one student to the next. Some kids may have never used a computer. Others may be doing all of the troubleshooting! This resource section provides ideas for using technology with ELLs, activities for using multimedia tools, and bilingual tips for managing media at school and at home.
ESL teachers have a variety of important roles in their schools and districts. Some may be assigned to a specific grade or students, while others travel from building to building each day. Learn more about the unique opportunity that ESL teachers have to collaborate, advocate, and lead their colleagues in the resources below.
In your work with English language learners (ELLs), you may meet students who have unique social, emotional, and academic needs based on their prior experiences. Resources for working with special populations such as refugees, migrants, students with interrupted education, newcomer immigrants, unaccompanied children, and internationally adopted students follow below.


Professor encourages critical thinking in children through reading
July 3, 2013 | Valorie Coleman
Books are a window to the world.
Shonna Crawford realized early on as a teacher in the elementary classroom that almost all barriers to a student’s learning stemmed from problems with reading.
This realization changed the course of her career.
“I loved the classroom and didn’t think I would ever leave it,” says Crawford, now an assistant professor of education at Evangel University. “My goals have broadened to include equipping other educators. If we can teach children to read, we give them the key to their futures.”
Crawford earned both her Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education and her Master of Education in Reading from Evangel. She is currently a Ph.D. student studying literacy, early childhood, and language in society at the University of Missouri.
Her study of how literature increases a child’s critical thinking abilities benefits her at home as well. She has written an article that was published in the May issue of the education journal Talking Points.
“The fun thing about this article is that it’s all about a project I did with my daughter, Aubree,” Crawford says.
The article is titled “Examining a Child’s Perception of Mommyhood through Critical Book Conversations.”
“One night as we were playing the game, Life, as a family, Aubree made the comment, ‘But daddies are supposed to make all the money, not mommies!'”
This led Crawford to explore with Aubree her perceptions of moms and what moms do. “All of this happened to coincide with a course I was taking in my Ph.D. program. My at-home reading time with Aubree became a perfect project for the class.
“My goal is to continue helping Aubree, and all young children I work with, to use book conversations as mirrors and windows to help them understand how they can see themselves differently and, in turn, see the world differently,” Crawford said.


(1875 - 1951)
Charles Keck was active/lived in New York / Italy. Charles Keck is known for portrait sculpture of notables, medallions, friezes.
Biography Charles Keck
Sculptor Charles Keck, 1875-1951, known for his portraits of famous people, was born in New York City, though he is associated with Henderson, Texas. His art education took place in New York City at the Art Students League*, and National Academy of Design*. He also studied for an extensive period at the American Academy in Rome*, and in Greece, Florence, and Paris. He was a student of Augustus St. Gaudens.
Keck created the frieze on the facade of the Bronx County Building in New York in 1933 under the auspices of the Depression-era Works Progress Administration (WPA).* His subjects are classical, Biblical and symbolic, including the West Facade frieze depiction of the Civil War surrender of General Lee to General G
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Circle of Security
Circle of Security® Parenting is a DVD parent education program. The program uses an eight chapter DVD to educate caregivers. The program presents video examples of parent/child interaction in the zero to five age range. See Circle of Security® Website for more information about the Circle of Security® Parenting Program.
Please click here for the Fall 2015 Circle of Security Flyer
Full School Day Kindergarten
A high quality, play-based Kindergarten program has long-term benefits for children's academic and social skills and helps them to succeed in school and in life.
StrongStart Centres In Powell River Schools
StrongStart Centres are an initiative that supports smooth and successful transitions for children and families into kindergarten, supports families as the primary educators of their children, and makes school facilities and resources available to the preschool population.
StrongStart Outreach Programs
Ready, Set, Learn
The Ready, Set Learn initiative provides opportunities for elementary schools to influence school readiness in children through school based community events. It is also intended to facilitate partnerships between schools and local community agencies and early childhood service providers, and is designed to encourage positive connections between families and the school system as well as the participating community agencies.
The Parent-Child Mother Goose Program
The Parent-Child Mother Goose Program is a group experience for parents of young children focusing on the pleasure and power of using oral rhymes, songs and stories. This program promotes the development of early literacy skills, but also empowers parent with tools to encourage positive social development in their children.
Ages And Stages
School District #47 contributes to "Ages and Stages"- an interactive preschool fun day that takes place at the Powell River Recreation Complex. It is a collaborative effort of the Building Blocks Committee 0-5; members are from agencies and services that serve the preschool population.
Young Parent Program
School District #47 offers a young parent program through Brooks Secondary School. This program is offered to young adults who have become parents before they have had the chance to complete their grade 12 education.
EDI stand for "Early Development Instrument" and is a questionnaire designed to measure children's school readiness. Kindergarten teachers participate by administering the EDI to current kindergarten students.
Roots Of Empathy (ROE)
ROE is a program offered in School District #47 classrooms. This evidence-based program has shown dramatic effect in reducing levels of aggression among children while raising social and emotional competence and increasing empathy.
Parents As Literacy Supporters (PALS)
PALS helps family members and caregivers support their preschool- or kindergarten-aged children’s early literacy development. Each PALS session focuses on learning through play, and includes time for parents and caregivers to talk with a facilitator, and time for adults and children to learn, play and have fun together.


The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, which was passed by the Indian Parliament on 4 August 2009, describes the modalities of the provision of free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 14 under Article 21A of the Indian Constitution. The Act came into force on 1 April 2010 and India became one of the 135 countries which have made education a fundamental right of every child.
The Act is the enabling legislation to notify the 86th Constitutional Amendment passed by Parliament in December 2002 that specified the need for a legislation to describe the mode of implementation of education as a fundamental right. This necessitated the drafting of a separate Education Bill. The rough draft of the bill was composed in year 2005. It received much opposition due to its mandatory provision to provide 25 per cent reservation for disadvantaged children in private schools.
The sub-committee of the Central Advisory Board of Education which prepared the draft Bill held this provision as a significant prerequisite for creating a democratic and egalitarian society. The Indian Law Commission had initially proposed 50 per cent reservation for disadvantaged students in private schools.
After the bill was approved by the Cabinet on 2 July 2009, the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha passed the bill on 20 July 2009 and 4 August 2009 respectively. It was notified as law on 3 Sept 2009 as The Children's Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act after it received Presidential assent. The law came into effect in the whole of India except the state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1 April 2010 through a speech by the Prime Minister. It was the first time in the history of India that a law was brought into force by a speech by the Prime Minister.
In his speech, Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh, stated: "We are committed to ensuring that all children, irrespective of gender and social category, have access to education. (We are committed to) an education that enables them to acquire the skills, knowledge, values and attitudes necessary to become responsible and active citizens of India."
Besides making education a fundamental right of every child between the ages of 6 to 14, the Act specifies minimum norms in government schools. It requires the reservation of 25 per cent of places in private schools for children from poor families, prohibits unrecognized schools from practice, and makes provisions for no donation or capitation fees and no interview of the child or parent for admission. The Act also provides that no child shall be held back, expelled, or required to pass a board examination until the completion of elementary education. There is also a provision for special training of school drop-outs to bring them up to par with students of the same age.
Under the Act, the Right to Education of persons with disabilities until 18 years of age has also been made a fundamental right. The Act provides for the establishment of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, and State Commissions for supervising proper implementation of the act, looking after complaints and protection of Child Rights. Other provisions regarding improvement of school infrastructure, teacher-student ratio and faculty are made in the Act. There must be at least one teacher for 30 students and there must be involvement of students' parents in school's administration.
It is estimated that the implementation of the Act would cost ? 1.78 trillion or 1.78 lakh crore for the initial five years. The cost would be shared in the ratio of 65 to 35 between the Central Government and the states, and a ratio of 90 to 10 for the north-eastern states. However, the task of implementing and enforcing the law will be in the hands of state governments.
Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal termed the Act a "national enterprise that would help shape India's future". The legislation would not only ensure every child's right to education, but puts the obligation on the government to impart it. The law would not interfere with the various state governments attempts to provide elementary education. On the medium of instruction, there is a provision to provide elementary education, as far as possible, in the mother tongue of the child. The law would ensure that the child got free, compulsory and quality education by qualified teachers.
As the curriculum would be less rigorous, it would ensure all-round development of children. On infrastructure, there is a provision for establishing recognition authority in every State under which all schools would have to fulfill the minimum requirement of infrastructure within three years. Otherwise, they would lose recognition. Similarly appointment of teachers had to be approved by the academic committee.
The law has come as a boon to India and is expected to be a big boost to children's education as out of every 100 children attending elementary school only 12 reached the graduation level compared to the global average of 27. In Europe it was 50-70 students reaching college from the elementary level. The HRD Ministry expects that the law would increase India's average to 15 by 2012 and to 30-35 by 2020.


Bugs are a lot easier to play with when they're made of paper. Now your child can explore color mixing and design while folding together a painted piece of paper and then using a marker to outline a unique bug when it’s dry. Most bugs are symmetrical – or the same on both sides, making this activity even better for exploring color mixing and the anatomy of bugs! Experiment with different shapes and sizes for a whole collection of different bugs!
What You Do:
- Start by folding a sheet of white paper in half and picking one side to work on. Along with teaching color mixing, the project demonstrates the concept of symmetry.
- Your child can squeeze a couple of drops of her favorite colors of tempera paint into small cups – one for each color. She can also add a few drops of water to thin the paint out.
- Offer your child an eyedropper to use to squeeze up a small amount of paint and then drip it onto the half of the paper she chose to work on. She can keep dripping paint until the half of the paper is covered.
- Next, fold the paper onto itself and lightly press, smoothing out the paint around the paper.
- Now open the paper and reveal a symmetrical squishy mess of paint. She can see how the colors blended and mixed together.
- Once the paper has dried, offer your child a black marker and invite her to find a crazy bug to outline within the mix of colors. Bugs are symmetrical with antennae, patterns and designs, and sometimes wings!
Encourage her to take her time and concentrate while outlining her special and colorful bug. She can use a real bug as inspiration or make up her own!Her finished symmetrical bug can be displayed in her room, reminding her how exciting and interesting bugs can be!
Sarah Lipoff has a K-12 Art Education degree and enjoys working with kids of all ages.


Bridging Literature and Mathematics by Visualizing Mathematical Concepts (3-5)During interactive read-aloud sessions, students identify how an author conveys mathematical information about animals’ sizes and abilities. They then conduct research projects focusing on the same mathematical concepts.
Exploring Sets through Math-Related Book Pairs (K-2)After reading two math-related books, students investigate their home and school environments to find examples of objects that come in sets and then create their own books on sets.
Talking, Writing, and Reasoning: Making Thinking Visible with Math Journals (3-5)Students explore how their problem-solving strategies work by writing in math journals as they work in small groups to solve a math puzzle with multiple solutions.
What If We Changed the Book? Problem-Posing with Sixteen Cows (3-5)After reading a piece of math-related children’s literature aloud, students pose and solve new problems by asking what-if questions about the events in the story.
Authentic Writing Experiences and Math Problem-Solving Using Shopping Lists
Bringing Economic Vocabulary to Life Through Video Posters
Glogging About Natural Disasters
What’s Under the Slide? Making Inferences Using Microscopes
Making History Come Alive Through Poetry and Song
Chasing the Dream: Researching the Meaning of the American Dream
Blending the Past with Today’s Technology: Using Prezi to Prepare for Historical Fiction
What Did George Post Today? Learning About People of the American Revolution Through Facebook
Supporting Student Comprehension in Content Area Reading
Preparing Students for Success with Reading in the Content Areas
Reading with Purpose in the Content Areas
Science Books for Teens
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When I was a fifth-grade student my teacher, Mrs. Pezzapone, taught us that reading would reward us with new adventures and opportunities that we might never know without opening the pages of a book. She demonstrated her love of a good book by reading out loud with us; by encouraging us to check out as many library books as we could; and by giving us plenty of classroom time to read and discuss our favorite books. So what has happened to this simpler time of focusing on the basics – specifically literacy and math? Certainly teaching in today’s classroom is much more complex and demanding. Some suggest that the obstacles to reading in the classroom today are:
- No Accountability- No one gets fired if one third of the kindergarten class does not know their sounds and letters. Nobody loses a promotion or a year of seniority or a salary increase if one-third of the first grade kids can't read at the end of grade one. Teachers are only expected to operate on a "best efforts basis." They do not have to get results. This certainly wouldn’t work in the private sector. In business, if you repeatedly fail, you’re terminated.
- Limited Information-A second obstacle that children face in learning to read is that their teachers and parents are not well informed about effective versus ineffective reading programs. The child gets placed in a reading program that has no consistent measurement for success. The child fails because the program failed. Teachers rarely learn how to teach explicit, systematic phonics instruction. Most colleges and universities do not like these methods despite their continued success. They continue to rely on their beliefs about reading rather than empirical research. Teachers are not taught the methods and therefore cannot implement them placing another reading obstacle in front of the at-risk student.
- Labeling-Children are too quickly labeled as “learning-disabled" and then are not expected to succeed to normal standards. Many suggest that school districts are taking the easy way out instead of implementing better programs with a proven track record. Labeling the student places the problem firmly inside the child's head and allows teachers, administrators, and parents to avoid the responsibility to teach them well.
I know that there are many amazing, invested teachers like Mrs. Pezzapone. I also know that many of them do not have the tools they need to help our children succeed at school. How unfair and unrealistic. We are asking our teachers to do a job and then we withhold the means for reaching the goal. This does not always translate into throwing more money at education – it does mean that we need to give our educators the best literacy methods, programs, materials, and ongoing training available.
Tell us what you think. What do you need in your classroom to effectively teach and remove the obstacles to reading?


2011 Really Good U: The Common Core Standards and Reading
The Common Core Standards (CCS) have very specific goals and expectations for mastery within their framework. For reading, they are broken down into two main grade-level groupings – K-5 and 6-12. One of the key components of the standards in relation to reading, and one that has been the topic of much discussion is the fact that as students progress through school, the texts become more complex and more challenging. This causes concern for a variety of reasons, but to further understand how the CCS will impact the elementary teacher it is important to take a look at the layout and wording of the standards themselves.
In the Kindergarten-5 Grade Levels, reading is broken down into three main areas: Literature, Informational, and Foundational. Literature address, among other things, varying view points, understanding key details, recalling specific information from within a text, and comparing and contrasting themes, events and characters. Informational Text pinpoints the specific expectations associated with non-fiction work and how it pertains to real-world application. Foundational Skills are the meat and potatoes of the reading process. They begin with basic phonics skills and stress mastery at each level.
Within each of the key reading areas, the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) emphasizes the ideal that “students advancing through the grades are expected to meet each year’s grade-specific standards and retain or further develop skills and understandings mastered in preceding grades.” This ideal may be attainable with sufficient time and materials designed to not only meet, but exceed the basic introduction to the standard. For the classroom teacher this means being hyper-vigilant about each lesson’s connection to specific standards in the CCS outline.
One of the biggest changes that educators will see is the emphasis on the Informational Text component of the standards. These standards have traditionally been lumped into basic reading standards without having a stand-alone feature. Newspaper and magazines are jumping on the bandwagon touting their products as ideal “real world” informational texts. The New York Times recently published a piece extolling the virtues of their multimedia offerings and other publishers are sure to follow. While the efforts of these publishers of Informational Text to make their products known to the education community can be helpful, teachers must also look at the appropriateness of using such pieces in their lessons.
The Reading CCS may not be far off from many of the standards that your state has already rolled out, but the detail with which the CCS is written leaves very little wiggle room in terms of spontaneous learning. What concerns do you, as a classroom teacher, have about incorporating the Reading CCS into your lessons? How different are they from they standards that your lessons are already aligned to? What will or have you done differently to achieve the ideal expectations that the CCSSI emphasizes? Share with us.


Basic information you need to know before teaching phonics
- Grades: PreK–K, 1–2, 3–5
As an educator, you have probably already heard of phonics. But chances are that no one has ever sat down with you to explain exactly what phonics instruction is. That's where we come in — with the help of phonics expert Wiley Blevins, we have compiled the basic information that you need to know before teaching phonics.
What is phonics?
Phonics involves the relationship between sounds and their spellings. The goal of phonics instruction is to teach students the most common sound-spelling relationships so that they can decode, or sound out, words. This decoding ability is a crucial element in reading success.
Why is phonics instruction important?
Most poor readers tend to rely so heavily on one reading strategy, such as the use of context and picture clues, that they exclude other strategies that might be more appropriate. To become skilled, fluent readers, children need to have a repertoire of strategies to draw on. These strategies include using a knowledge of sound-spelling relationships — in other words, an understanding of phonics. In addition, research has shown that skilled readers attend to almost every word in a sentence and process the letters that compose each of these words.
Therefore, phonics instruction plays a key role in helping students comprehend text. It helps the student map sounds onto spellings, thus enabling them to decode words. Decoding words aids in the development of word recognition, which in turn increases reading fluency. Reading fluency improves reading comprehension because as students are no longer struggling with decoding words, they can concentrate on making meaning from the text.
In addition, phonics instruction improves spelling ability because it emphasizes spelling patterns that become familiar from reading. Studies show that half of all English words can be spelled with phonics rules that relate to one letter to one sound.
How should you structure phonics instruction?
Phonics instruction should be explicit rather than implicit. Implicit instruction relies on readers "discovering" clues about sound-spelling relationships; good readers can do this, but poor readers are not likely to do so. Explicit instruction is the most effective type of phonics instruction, especially for children at risk for reading difficulties.
A good phonics lesson begins with an explicit explanation of the sound-spelling being taught along with guided opportunities for students to blend, or sound out, words using the new sound-spelling. These exercises should be followed by guided and independent reading practice in text that contains words with the new sound-spelling. This portion of phonics instruction is key. Therefore, phonics instruction should focus on applying learned sound-spelling relationships to actual reading, with smaller amounts of time spent on the initial task of learning phonics rules. That way, you can plan phonics lessons that are appropriate for all students, even if some have higher levels of phonics mastery than others.
How is phonics different from phonemic awareness?
Phonics involves the relationship between sounds and written symbols, whereas phonemic awareness involves sounds in spoken words. Therefore, phonics instruction focuses on teaching sound-spelling relationships and is associated with print. Most phonemic awareness tasks are oral.
Despite these different focuses, phonics instruction and phonemic awareness instruction are connected. In fact, phonemic awareness is necessary for phonics instruction to be effective. Before students can use a knowledge of sound-spelling relationships to decode written words, they must understand that words (whether written or spoken) are made up of sounds. Phonemic awareness is the understanding that a word is made up of a series of discrete sounds. Without this insight, phonics instruction will not make sense to students.


ERIC Number: ED387797
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1995
Reference Count: N/A
"Madeline." A Literature Unit.
Intended as a an aid to elementary school teachers, this handbook presents a literature unit based on the children's book, "Madeline" (Ludwig Bemelmans). It begins with sample lesson plans, a unit planner, getting to know the book and author, and suggestions for using the unit activities. Next, a section offers unit activities focusing on language arts, including pocket chart patterns, story questions, character web, antonyms, rhyming words, and a Madeline pictionary. The next section contains unit activities that focus on related curriculum, including word problems, telling time to the half hour, Paris landmarks, your pet and Genevieve, shape book cover, and Madeline clip art. Finally, the handbook offers two culminating activities--readers' theater and French luncheon and videos. A bibliography and an index are included. (SR)
Descriptors: Class Activities, Curriculum Enrichment, Elementary Education, Fiction, Literature Appreciation, Student Projects, Units of Study
Teacher Created Materials, Inc., P.O. Box 1040, Huntington Beach, CA 92647 (TCM538: $6.95, plus $3.50 shipping/handling; orders of $35 or over, 10% shipping/handling).
Publication Type: Guides - Classroom - Teacher
Education Level: N/A
Audience: Teachers; Practitioners
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers: Madeline; Trade Books
Note: For other literature units in this series, see CS 215 036-039.


Discovering the Written Word
Most kindergartners are on the threshold of becoming readers. At this stage, children typically “read” by looking at the printed word, but they often rely on their memory of the story and on the pictures. Kindergarten teachers immerse children in the world of the printed word so that many read some simple books by the end of the year. At home, you can extend your child’s budding literacy skills by reading and writing together as much as possible, by encouraging your child to read, by playing language and letter games, and by introducing new words when talking together.
In just five years, the typical kindergartner has learned to understand all of the grammatical structures in her native language. She can listen to and tell complex stories. She can play with language by rhyming and listing words that begin with the same sound. Kindergartners begin to explore the relationships between listening and speaking and reading and writing. They learn which letters and sounds go together, recognize some common words, remember and create stories, and use all of these skills to read simple books and write simple messages.
Weaving language and literacy into everyday activities at home helps your kindergartner develop as a reader and writer. Simple projects like writing a grocery list together, making words with magnetic refrigerator letters, or just talking about what you see as you ride the bus can become important moments in your child’s literacy development. Learn more ways you can support and inspire your kindergartner as he inches towards literacy.
How to Help Your Kindergartner Learn to Read and Write
- Use new words when you talk to your child. You can help your child become a reader by introducing new words when you speak. Having a strong vocabulary and being able to understand complex language will help her understand stories she hears and will eventually read herself.
- Read many kinds of books to your child. When you vary book choices to include poetry and nonfiction, you show your child new words, ways to tell stories, and information about the world. Listening to different kinds of books will help him understand as he begins to read himself.
- Help your child read when he needs it. Kindergartners can “read” books with simple words and patterns by themselves&emdash;mostly by remembering the story and looking at the pictures. Offer your help in sounding out or reading the words only when your child really needs it.
- Make words with play letters. Playing with letters together is a way to help your kindergartner learn about the relationship between letters and sounds. Ask your child to spell some words with magnetic letters and then invite him to make up words for you to try.
- Help your child write what she thinks and feels. Encourage your child to express ideas and emotions by writing them down, and offer your help as needed. A birthday card, a letter, and even a grocery list are all ways of communicating thoughts and emotions.
Next: Learn about your kindergartner’s listening abilities.


All students in the Chandler Unified School District have the opportunity to participate in Band and Orchestra upon entering the 5th grade. Students in grades Kinder through 4th receive General Music Instruction. Students in 5th and 6th Grade may choose between General Music, Band, and Orchestra.
The Chandler School District believes instrumental music is a vital part of education in the schools, both on the elementary and secondary school levels.
An appreciation of instrumental music is developed through demonstrations of music literacy, performance, technical proficiency and musical expression, leading to the cultivation of the whole child. An education in instrumental music helps students gain powerful tools for understanding human experiences, both past and present. Students learn to respect different ways others have of thinking, working and expressing themselves. Students learn to make decisions in situations where there are no standard answers. Through instrumental music, students stimulate their natural creativity and learn to develop it to meet the needs of our complex and competitive society. As competence in music and other academics reinforce one another, the joy of learning becomes real, tangible and powerful.
"For today's students to succeed tomorrow, they need a comprehensive education that includes music taught by exemplary music educators."
--MENC: The National Association for Music Education