Story Telling Vs Reading Stories
There is more to telling stories than meets the eye.
I spend a good deal of time and effort finding and recommending books for you guys to read with your kids and parents and teachers around the world are likewise encouraged to read stories to their children and classrooms to enrich the imagination and introduce literacy.
There is so much more to explore through storytelling than simply reading the words aloud off the page of a good book!
Of course, reading is essential to literacy development but storytelling delights and encourages children to listen to the music of words in different ways.
Why Tell a story as opposed to Reading one?
Both reading and telling are great ways to communicate stories to children but the differences between the two are quite considerable for both the parent/teacher and the children listening.
When reading stories, the reader must always be focused on the printed words while occasionally looking at the audience.
In contrast, telling a story gives the teller freedom to speak directly to the children, remaining in eye contact while having the opportunity to watch for their reactions to the story.
It is the teller who makes the story come to life through the sound of their voice and personality combined.
The storytelling becomes almost a personal experience for all involved.
3 Basic rules of children’s stories
- There are three essential elements involved in storytelling;
- the story
- the storyteller
- the audience
- The story itself should be a narrative short enough to be told in one sitting.
- It can be a fiction or non-fiction but more importantly something that the teller is interested in and enjoys.
There really are no limits to what type of story can be told.
Before the written word, storytelling was the only way a person could relate events to other people.
Traditions were passed down from one generation to the next with the use of oral stories.
Even today, libraries are filled with books containing the different folk tales from cultures all over the world.
If it were not for storytelling, these may have been lost and never recorded.
Linking the story to your audience
Linking the story to the audience is up to the storyteller.
The best stories are personal stories because they come from within the teller and I find that my memory (and imaginative additions) is much clearer and provides a wider base for everything from descriptive surroundings to sub-plots and hidden lessons.
However, an experienced teller can learn any story and make it their own (and reading and practicing the tips and hints in the free storytelling technique course will set you on the right path).
The beginner may feel more comfortable with a traditional well known story like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, or Little Red Riding Hood.
Personal stories however, usually hold the greatest interest for a teller and have the potential to produce the inner most enthusiasm while reciting remembered events – plus : The audience will enjoy the story just as much as the teller enjoys telling it.
Some people are natural born storytellers, but anyone who is willing to practice and devote time and study can become a good one.
There are certain characteristics that a natural storyteller may possess that gives them an advantage.
A creative imagination and a flair for drama will help bring a story to life so the children will be able to visualize in their own minds the characters and setting of the story.
It is also better to be prepared for the sometimes unexpected tidbits the children will want to add to the story themselves. Including their ideas and engaging with the audience will truly make for a successful storytelling session.
There is clearly more to telling children’s stories than one at first thinks and indeed the same can be said of reading stories, but you have to start somewhere right?
I want you to be able to feel confident to tell stories to your children from your memory or made up from your incredible imagination that speak directly to the third piece of the storytelling : your audience!
The great thing is that generally we know our audience quite well which gets us off to a great start and I hope that in coming weeks you’ll start to gain some ideas and confidence and a structure around how you can formulate and tell your own stories to your kids.


Lay the foundation for literacy development by providing your baby with visual stimulation.
Hover over each Learning Benefit below for a detailed explanation.
What you need:
- empty plastic bottles (shampoo, baby powder)
- washcloths with interesting designs
- baby socks
- fabric paint
- magazine pictures
- contact paper
What to do:
Try these creative and easy ways to provide visual stimulation for your baby.
- Changing-table toys. Collect a variety of items such as a small, clean, empty baby powder container or empty lotion bottle, which an older baby will enjoy holding during changing time. Let your baby select an item, and, as she holds it, name it for her. As baby gets older, she will begin to associate the shapes of the bottles and print designs with the name of the item.
- Washcloth books. Collect several washcloths that have interesting designs on them and sew them together at one end to make a fabric book. Cuddle with your baby and "read" the book together. Describe and point to what you see. Your baby can use the book in her crib, in her car seat, and, of course, in the bath.
- Sock puppets to wear. Babies love to kick up their feet and grab their toes. Use brightly colored fabric paint or fabric markers to paint bright colors and funny faces on the front of your baby's socks. Sew small yarn pom-poms onto the ends of the socks.
- Highchair visuals. Cut out a variety of interesting pictures from a magazine to affix to the highchair tray — pictures of children eating and favorite food items are especially appealing. Cover the tray with clear contact paper. While your baby eats, point to and describe the pictures. Eventually baby will be able to point to the pictures herself and use words to identify what's in them!


The Federal School was a mail-order correspondence art school in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the turn of the 20th century. It was known later as Art Instruction, Incorporated, and is known today as Art Instruction Schools. The school has remained accredited by the Distance Education Training Council, and the correspondence course provides 24 college credits (Art Instruction Schools, 2005). This article gives a history of the Federal School, the way art was taught there, and its Master Course in commercial art. It also addresses the larger context of art and industrial education in the United States that was socially engineered with intelligence testing and admissions tracking. In this way, racial, ethnic, and gender stereotypes were held in place in broadly defined social policy, which influenced the Federal School.
My approach to this article emerged from an interest in early forms of distance education as correspondence courses. Though these courses opened opportunities for many who had no access to art schools, they also reinforced several racial and gender role stereotypes. My aim was to see if these issues could be positioned among the histories of art education. An examination of selected archives and histories1 revealed the structures set forth by the scientizing of education and mass media, which held institutional racism and sexism firmly in place within the technocracy of mass media educational structures in the first quarter of the 1 9th century.
The first section of this article provides a cultural orientation to the Federal School's early years. Next, the scientific orientation and the social stereotypes embedded in the Federal School Master Course are discussed as they appeared in lessons on drawing, cartooning, and lectures called "chalk talks" in which the speaker drew an illustration as he or she told a story. These activities were based on "biological methods," which echo theories of Darwinian evolution and social science (Bartholomew, 1914). From there, the discussion broadens to the hierarchical configuration of schools, vocational schools, and professional programs, which held in place racial, ethnic, and gender stereotypes. Finally, the article provides a summary of the Federal School's cultural and social context that was socially engineered according to stereotypes of race, gender, and ethnicity.
Social and Cultural Lenses
Religion and science were at odds in the social and cultural issues of the United States in the early 20th century. This conflict suffused three overlapping cultural movements that built momentum over the 1 9th century: the postmillennialism of evangelical Protestants (Moorhead, 1984), the romantic idealism of Hegel and Kant (Efland, 1990; Cremin, 1988), and strains of social science in educational systems of the United States (Dennis, 1995).
Postmillennial beliefs pervaded much of Protestant Christianity in the 19th century. These Protestant groups believed that the close of the first millennium would bring Armageddon2 and the second coming of Christ. In direct and latent response to these beliefs, religious and social movements of clergy, social scientists, and high government officials took responsibility to eradicate social ills in the United States. Generally, these decision makers were Anglo-Americans who were preoccupied with perfection achieved through the observance of moral social values of Protestant cultures, which they regarded as the bedrock of civilized living. As far as they knew, the Christianizing of outsiders, particularly people of color, was to turn them from what was called their "savagery" and "depravity," to educate them in Anglo-Protestant ways (Moorhead, 1984; Susman, 1984).
The second strain of thought was romantic idealism from Hegelian philosophy, in which knowledge and the course of history were driven by a Zeitgeist (that is, "time-spirit" or spirit of the times), which inspired an individual's "self-activity." William Torey Harris in his Psychohgic Foundations of Education (1898) adapted these ideas for classifications of knowledge by subjects. …


« Back to Education
Read.Talk.Play: Early Literacy at EPL
Edmonton Public LibraryGo to Website
Kathleen Pine, Manager, Youth Services Division, Edmonton Public Librar, firstname.lastname@example.org
Early literacy is everything that children know about reading and writing before they can read and write. Research on infant brain development tells us that a child's experience in the first three years of life directly impacts later development and learning. How could the library communicate the importance of early literacy development to parents and caregivers in Edmonton?
On March 1, 2010, we launched our Read.Talk.Play.: Early Literacy at EPL initiative with the release of a new website featuring early literacy content. The site included information on what early literacy is, tips for how to develop early literacy skills, and videos that demonstrated how to include early literacy activities in everyday life. We also released a booklist of 100 Great Books to Read Together to encourage parents, caregivers, and children to explore books and read together. We created a “Welcome Baby” package of a free rhyme book with early literacy content, a free board book, a personalized nameplate, a library bag, and a library card. We reworked our preschool programming training so that our programs would include early literacy content. We developed Early Literacy Information Sessions to share early literacy tips and information with parents and caregivers. All of these initiatives are united under the Read.Talk.Play. logo and brand.
Read.Talk.Play.: Early Literacy at EPL has significantly contributed to the communication of the importance of early literacy to parents and caregivers in Edmonton. From 2009 to 2010, attendance at EPL’s preschool programs increased by approximately 25%. The number of library cards issued for children up to 24 months increased 22% from 2009 to 2010. Early Literacy Videos have been promoted through the library website, on Facebook and on Twitter. Over 300 parents have attended our Early Literacy Parent Information Sessions. Thousands of 100 Great Books to Read Together booklets have been distributed both in the library and in the community. Read.Talk.Play.: Early Literacy at EPL has been highlighted on Global Edmonton, Shaw TV Edmonton, and in the Edmonton Journal. EPL is committed to the future success of this literacy initiative.


This project will support the construction of a primary school with the aim of providing accessibility and quality basic education in the rural Mbororo Indigenous Community in Kedjom-Ketinguh in the North West Region of Cameroon. Education for children is an acute problem in many rural communities in Sub-Sahara Africa and particularly the Mbororo Indigenous People of Kedjom-Ketinguh. The Mbororo Indigenous People of Kedjom-Ketinguh lack a school that can offer elementary education for their children. Additionally, these people suffer from social marginalization and extreme poverty. Illiteracy is very high and children are forced into child labour and girl child forced into early marriages as a way to escape from hardship and family burden. Poverty is rife and this abandoned and vulnerable community does not have the necessary means for the construction of a school in educating their children and promoting long term community development and survival of their ethnicity. BAPESU feels also that to help in solving the problem of illiteracy and lack of children's basic education it is by building a school for the people. This school will be operated and managed by the community.
With the construction of the school some 300 children will be enrolled for basic education yearly. The school will give the poor children the opportunity in life to acquire education, empowering them throughout life (one of the eight millennium goals). Education is a lifelong gift that empowers people to ultimately improve socio-economic conditions for their families, communities and generations.
This project will construct a primary school: six classrooms, teacher's office, a pupil’s library, basic sanitary installations, the provision of desks and didactic material. The local community has already provided land for the construction of the school and the local people will help in providing some local manpower in the construction.
The project will have huge and long term invaluable impact on the target population. For generations to come, children will grow up attending class each day in the classrooms provided. The benefits will ripple on and on as an entire Mbororo community is educated and parents pass on the gift of learning and literacy to their children. Education is a basic human need and is a key to sustaining democracies, improving health, increasing per capita income, and conserving environmental resources. Education lowers infant mortality, increases longevity, reinforces democratization and political stability, decreases poverty, reduces inequality, and lowers crime rates. Educated women have fewer and healthier children and are more likely to send their children to school. The individual and social impacts of these gains are essential to community strong growth. Please do give in your kind donation to put smiles on poor children's face and change their lives.
Location: Tubah, Cameroon


For Moms Who Are Teachers
- Grades: 3–5
“Every child should have at least one parent who’s a teacher,” my son, Dante, said recently. He meant that every child should have a parent who enjoys reading and books and who spends time teaching his or her child to ride a bike, play soccer, and memorize multiplication facts.
I’m writing this post on Mother’s Day for those of us who are both moms and teachers. Being both a mom and a teacher gives our children an advantage in school. To find out how, keep reading. . . .
With my daughter, Julia, on Parents' Weekend.
As moms who are teachers, our knowledge about teaching and learning can support our own children in school. We have the motivation and know-how to help our children experience success in school.
It’s true, our knowledge of child development comes in handy when our children reach school age. We also have the advantage of knowing children’s literature, state standards, and curriculum. Depending on the grade we teach, we teacher-moms are able to support our children as they learn to read, study algebra, and create science projects. We likely know what teachers are looking for in homework, poster design, or book critiques.
Here are qualities of teacher-moms that also characterize conscientious parents:
Many times I’ve come home after a long day at school just in time to help my own children with their homework. If you’re a teacher-mom, you know the feeling. You’re exhausted, but you help your son finish his math assignment or you revise your daughter’s science lab report. As teachers we know how important it is to build consistent homework habits.
We know the importance of attending Parents' Night and share the nervous feelings our children’s teachers experience in a roomful of parents. We’re on time for parent conferences and take notes, so we can assist our children. We support our children’s schools, just as we support the school where we teach.
Whether it’s a trip to a science or children’s museum or a neighborhood park or nature center, teacher-moms understand how enriching experiences enhance a child’s education.
Summer at Home
As teachers, our school year matches that of our children. Most of us are able to be at home with our children over summer vacation, a time for reading books together and going to a beach or pool. Both teachers and their children are fortunate to have summers together.
As teacher-moms, let’s feel good about the many ways we support our children as students.
Finding Balance as a Teacher-Mom
When my children were younger and all three were at home, there wasn’t time for much other than being a mom and a teacher. Unfolded laundry and dirty dishes had to wait. Now that my children are grown, my professional life could easily take over my personal time. I have to remind myself to close my laptop and chat with my husband about his day. Finding balance has been tricky for me and maybe for you, too.
On a Personal Note
Next weekend my daughter and youngest child, Julia, will graduate from college. In September she’ll enter a master’s program in elementary education. I stayed out of her decision-making process because I didn’t want to influence her. Secretly, I’m thrilled. I can’t wait to see the books she'll read in her courses, and hear her talk about what she's learning from her professors. I’m looking forward to Julia entering a profession I care about so passionately. Maybe one day Julia will be a teacher-mom, too.
Please write in with your comments about how you combine being a mom and a teacher. How’s homework time at your house? Do you have a balance between your personal and professional life?


Concentration In Science - Elementary
The Elementary Science Concentration is a new program designed to provide future elementary education teachers opportunities to engage in meaningful learning experiences that will enhance content knowledge of science as well as prepare them for their future science classrooms. To learn more about this program please visit the additional links on this page or download our informational Powerpoint. Be sure to check out the testimonials from current students in this program and view our gallery!
These classes get me excited to teach my future science students.” ~ Beth Wantz
“This science concentration is so great because I am able to take experiments done in class to my future classroom. The experimentation is such a great and fun addition to class.” ~ Rachel Fendrick
“Opened opportunities to informal science experiences (ideas for other jobs). Multiple ideas for experiments I can actually use in my class!” ~ Katherine White
“The new science concentration has allowed me to explore science concepts in fun and creative ways. We spend time practicing experiments to use in the classroom rather than on lesson plans.” ~ Anonymous
“The science concentration helped me find my place in the school of education.” ~ KC Hart
“Insightful, informative, but fun at the same time!” ~Anonymous
SCIE 3216 - Teaching Science in the Elementary School
SCIE 3270 - Physical Science for Grades K-6
SCIE 3280 - Life and Environmental Science Grades K-6
SCIE 3290 - Earth Systems Science Grades K-6
SCIE 3336 - Science and Methods in Informal Settings and Field Experience
BIOL 1050 - General Biology
CHEM 1020 - General Descriptive Chemistry
GEOL 1550 - Oceanography
PHYS 1050 - Physics and the Environment
The Science Education Concentrations are administered by the Department of Mathematics, Science, and Instructional Technology Education (MSITE). Although students who use the concentrations are advised in other departments, MSITE is ready to assist students with questions about the concentrations (firstname.lastname@example.org or 252-328-9355).
Yes! Earning the science concentration will almost certainly make your more marketable as it separates you from the majority of elementary education majors. With science a tested area, principals welcome the opportunity to hire someone with expertise in this subject.
The key to adding middle grades science to your elementary licensure is to successfully take the Praxis II test in middle grades science. You should also take additional coursework to get to 24 hours of science or perhaps you simply want to take the 24-hour concentration designed for middle grades majors.
Because some of the courses are designed specifically for elementary science concentrators, they are offered just one time per year. So it takes some planning to ensure you can take those at an appropriate time. The other two courses (SCIE 3216 and the Foundations Curriculum science course) provide many options. So the upside is that the course are designed for elementary teachers and the downside is that it takes more careful planning to complete the concentration that some others.
If you still have two or three semesters to take courses (not counting the internship semester), you could still take the specialized elementary science courses. Two of them are offered in the fall semester and the other two in the spring semester.
Dr. Ron Preston email@example.com
Director of Students Department of Mathematics, Science, and Instructional Technology Education
East Carolina University Mail Stop 566 Greenville, NC 27858 Phone:252-328-9355


We are always working on crafts. I love making fun things with the boys, but I have another rationale for doing these items. Most crafts involve working on fine motor skills while being creative. Although NHL has received Occupational Therapy over the years, we need to practice to reinforce items at home. Doing these skills also helped JSL to stay on top of his game.
The photos above were taken a few summers ago when working on a project with the kids. It reminded me of a post that I wrote for another project about working on fine motor development with young children.
It is no secret that I love to do arts and crafts. As a teacher, I used to make sure that there was always some way for children to express themselves artistically. Rewind to when my oldest was a toddler. We were having NHL evaluated for Occupation Therapy based on some fine motor delays. Suddenly, I was being asked why my child had no idea how to use scissors.
You mean I was supposed to introduce my child to scissors before this point? I am not kidding. I had never thought to use them with my young first born child when he was a toddler. We did plenty of activities with crayons, markers, Play-Doh, and beyond. Yet, all of my child friendly scissors were far, far away from NHL. I think I was a bit too worried about the trouble he could get into, if they were near him.
We quickly changed this. I bought a Play-Doh set that included an extruder, scissors, and other items that would assist NHL with more fine motor skills. At daycare and at home, we would make a lot of holiday themed activities. Small scissors were also purchased to help NHL to become more familiar with them. It is not the easiest thing to help a child learn to hold and use scissors properly. Their small hands can be awkward when first learning the motions needed for cutting. Luckily, there are now videos online to give assistance to families. We made a lot of projects to work on cutting.
Toddlers need to have plenty of fine motor activities. When my youngest, JSL, was a toddler, he used Play-Doh scissors early on. Regular scissors came soon after thanks to watching big brother use them. An easy activity to do with your child is making a collage. Collect a few magazines. Allow your child to cut pictures that they like. Let them use glue sticks to secure their pictures onto a larger piece of paper. The smile on their face when they are finished with their masterpiece will be priceless.
As your child gets more comfortable using scissors, the possibilities are endless. During the fall, you can trace leaves with construction paper, cut them out, and decorate them to use around your home. Take your child’s hand, trace it, then make a turkey to get into the spirit of Thanksgiving. Have your child be a coupon cutting helper. Show them the dotted lines on the coupons to cut. Not only will they be working on a skill, you can start using them to save for more arts and crafts projects.
What activities do you like to do with your children to promote or work on fine motor skill development?
Disclosure: Parts of this post were previously published on a project I worked on. The text is mostly the same, but I placed a new introduction to go along with a topic that continues to be important for families.


Toys can help children develop important skills
Dec. 17, 2003
KALAMAZOO--When shopping for toys for your child or someone else's, pay attention to what could help the child developmentally. That's the advice of Dr. Regena Fails-Nelson, a Western Michigan University associate professor of teaching, learning and leadership and an authority on early childhood development.
"We generally support toys and materials that allow children to learn and practice emerging developmental skills, such as fine motor skills, through art activities and materials, like paint, crayons, glue and clay," she says. "Cognitive development can be aided through puzzles, sorting toys, blocks, and construction toys, like Legos, and dramatic play props, such as kitchen sets and costumes."
Other toys can stimulate language and reading development, such as the new LeapFrog products or video and computer software products. But there's no substitute for interaction with parents and other adults when working on those skills, Fails-Nelson says. "Language and literacy development is best learned through shared book reading with an adult. These products are an alternative when an adult can't be around to work directly with the child, but it should not be a total substitute for parental interaction. These items should be used carefully in moderation."
Parents and other adults should take cues from the child and avoid "drilling" information into them. "Play for young children is the way they learn best," she says. "We must take our cues from them about what interests them at a particular moment and engage them in it." One last word of advice: avoid toys that are gender and culturally biased or promote violent behavior.
Media contact: Gail Towns, 269 387-8400, firstname.lastname@example.org


The material culture of early childhood in the 21st century is characterized by an emphasis on biological age and related levels of cognitive and motor skill development. All types of objects, including diapers, toys, food products, and clothing, are divided into categories based on the age-appropriateness of a particular object. Descriptions of these categories commonly explain how each object functions to enable a child to attain a particular skill or reach a developmental milestone. Appeals to medical and developmental science are common. Foods are marketed along an age grade that progress a child through various stages of development (e.g., Newborn, Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, One Year etc.), with each stage requiring different nutritional needs to promote appropriate development. They also emphasize the physiological development of children in each stage and what an infant is capable of eating in these earliest periods of development. A secondary concern in products is their "naturalness" or an emphasis on not containing ingredients that might be harmful to proper development and health. It is far rarer to have food marketed for things that we as adults find valuable- taste and appeal for example- which tend to be highly individualized. Scholarship on childhood has shown that emphases on biological development are particular to contemporary western cultures and tends to reinforce ideas that childhood is a "natural" or "universal" experience regardless of time period or cultural context. Individual children, however, may experience their own developmental trajectories. Anthropological research with children from different cultures has shown that developmental sequences vary widely as different cultural settings place particular demands on the mental and physical development of young children.
"Gerber Organic," Gerber, http://www.gerber.com (accessed January 1, 2010). Annotated by Jane Eva Baxter.
How to Cite This Source
"Food [Objects]," in Children and Youth in History, Item #390, http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/390 (accessed May 24, 2016).


You reported (Study backs teaching of synthetic phonics, 16 June) that a study by Marlynne Grant has reinforced the argument for using synthetic phonics in teaching children to read. It would be useful to know more about the tests used. A major study supporting this system in Scotland came up with a similar result when 12-year-olds were tested on their phonic ability. However, when their ability to understand what they read was tested they were – on average – only a few months ahead, and that gain was falling.
The argument is not against using phonics. It is concerned with the overemphasis of this aspect of teaching children to read. Individuals have different requirements. A child I was hearing a few weeks ago was having problems with left/right direction – she is left-eye dominant. Moreover, teaching children to read of course includes encouraging them to read for information, for fun, for insight.
Teaching children to read English is complex and often is affected by context. How you should pronounce live (short I? long I?) or use (soft S? hard S?) are examples. Where does phonics fit with the pronunciation of pear, pare, pair? There are many, many more examples: Gove, love, move among them.
Professor Norman Thomas
St Albans, Hertfordshire
• The Guardian's enthusiastic report about the efficacy of phonics is an example of "cold fusion" journalistic practice: Ppresenting research reports to the public before the scientific community has reviewed them. I provide one brief "peer review" here. Neither the study (thanks to the Guardian for providing a link to the preliminary report) nor the Guardian's article point out that the study only confirms what we already know: intensive phonics instruction helps children do better on tests in which they are asked to pronounce words out loud, and on tests of spelling.
Not mentioned is the consistent finding that intensive phonics instruction makes no significant contribution to performance on tests in which children have to understand what they read. Real reading ability is the result of actual reading, especially of books that readers find interesting. Good readers eventually acquire nearly all the rules of phonics and spelling, as a result of reading.
Professor emeritus, University of Southern California


South Sudan: An education system in crisis
More than half a million children have fled their homes in South Sudan since conflict first broke out in December 2013. Most have stopped going to school and aid groups have warned of the long-term consequences of a continued disruption to education.
In Mingkaman, Awerial County, in Lakes State for example, many displaced children are out of school. They are among about 92,000 people who have settled in Mingkaman – the largest concentration of internally displaced people in South Sudan. Most fled here following fighting in neighbouring Jonglei State.
Humanitarian organizations are running emergency education programmes comprising life, psychosocial, literacy and numeracy skills.
Crowded classrooms, few teachers
In Awerial County, the international NGO Plan International has set up seven temporary learning spaces in four primary schools.
“While each [learning] space is designed to support 50 children in each session, they are crowded with over 200 children per session,” said Gyan Adhikari, Plan International’s South Sudan Country Director.
“Overcrowding and a lack of learning materials and teachers are big challenges in Awerial and in most parts of the country.”
Volunteer teachers are playing a key role in these emergency education centres.
Parach Mach is a volunteer who teaches English at the Mingkaman 1 Primary School. “The classes are congested. Even writing on the blackboard is a problem,” he said. “Some of the children are traumatised and they do not concentrate in class. Some are aggressive too.”
This is an increasingly common observation. According to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), many children have been separated from their parents and families. Many more have witnessed atrocities. An estimated 9,000 children have been recruited into armed groups.
Asked why he volunteers his teaching services Parach speaks of his hope for his country. “I do it to help the people. I may one day teach someone who will become important in South Sudan,” he said.
So far, about 110,000 children have been reached with emergency education. Aid groups are looking to tackle the teacher shortage, including by providing incentives to volunteer teachers. But these efforts are hampered by a lack of funding.
Education is the second poorest funded cluster in South Sudan’s 2014 Crisis Response Plan. As of 31 May, the cluster was 33 per cent funded.
“If education is not reprioritized immediately there is an ample chance of a generation of children missing out on education,” warned Plan’s Adhikari. “This will be a loss for the new country’s plans for development and peace.”


Your Name and Title:
Susan Jacques Pierson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor Education
School, Library, or Organization Name:
Genevieve Paulin (Cabrini student)
Country from Which You Will Present:
The United States of America
Language in Which You Will Present:
Target Audience (such as primary school teachers, high school administrators, students, etc.):
K-12 teachers,college professors, and students interested in building and sustaining global partnerships.
In addition, anyone interested in helping us!
Short Session Description (one line):
The presenter will share the story of an ongoing partnership between Cabrini College and orphans and
vulnerable children in Swaziland, sustained through face to face visits and the use of educational
Full Session Description (one paragraph minimum):
Teaching, learning and global partnerships are enriched through face to face collaboration
and the use of computer technology. Creating culturally -relevant, engaging, personalized
digital tools for orphaned and vulnerable English Language Learners in Swaziland is a
powerful means of working toward educational equity and advancing social justice.
Those who attend the Building Bridges to Swaziland Continues will learn more about an ongoing project
that enables pre-service teachers and their professor to create materials that support English language
learning in Swaziland, Southern Africa. Personalized, culturally-relevant materials including video digital
media are authored at Cabrini College, in response to the expressed needs of
our partner teachers in Africa. The materials are shared with children living at a mission via
flash drives. Tentative results from the past two years of work indicate that participation in
the Bridges to Swaziland project results in increased self-efficacy and commitment to
social justice on the part of college students involved. It also results in improved academic
achievement and motivation on the part of the children in Swaziland. Further, it increases the
computer literacy of the children's teachers and promotes friendship and cross-cultural understanding
across the miles. Participants in this session will have opportunities to learn more about the partnership,
view sample materials, ask questions about the process and explore how similar initiatives could help
support literacy development of underserved English Language Learners in other areas. We are currently
working to bring tablet computers (iPads) to OVC (orphans and vulnerable children) at Cabrini Ministries in
St. Philip's Mission, Swaziland. We will discuss that initiative and the technology "tricks" we
have learned that make it possible to deliver engaging learning materials and digital tools in a remote area
without reliable Internet access. One of the Cabrini students involved in this project died suddenly this
past summer. I attached a sample project she made and a photo of the Swazi children clustered around
an iPad when I visited their school.
Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session:
I didn't notice before I accepted your proposal that you need to edit and add the required conference tags to the tag field of your proposal. Refer to the call for proposals for the tag names. Pick at least one. It's very important that you do this.
I changed it to Teachers2012
It seems my presentation is still in the accepted category


Sections / Articles
Early Learning Literacy Walkthroughs
By Corinne Eisenhart and Elisabeth Grinder-McLean
November 2013, Volume 37, Issue 3
Oral language provides the foundation for students to read and write—but many of America’s students enter kindergarten with language delays or deficits. To address the achievement gap, principals need to be aware of the importance of language experiences in early learning classrooms. Teachers of young children should provide child-focused learning environments that build language skills. Use this walkthrough template to support teachers as they establish language-rich early learning environments.
What Principals Should Know
Frequent, brief visits to classrooms help principals better understand the dynamics of an effective early learning curriculum. When conducting early learning walkthroughs, principals should reflect on these questions: What are the children doing? What is the teacher doing? How does the classroom environment encourage language and literacy development?
Early Learning Walkthrough Template
When conducting early learning walkthroughs, consider using the Literacy Walkthrough Template for Early Learning Classrooms. The guide includes three foci:
- Focus on Learning. This targets children’s actions. What are the children doing?
- Focus on Teaching. This directs attention to instruction. What is the teacher doing?
- Focus on Classroom Environment. This provides the look-fors when considering the learning environment.
A principal might focus his or her attention on learning during one visit and the classroom environment on another visit. This walkthrough instrument is designed to support and supervise teachers, not to evaluate them. After completing the classroom visit, use the walkthrough tool to guide conversations with teachers about building and refining their instructional skills to enhance children’s language and literacy skills.
Principals who recognize the facets of an interactive, language-rich classroom can help teachers put students on the road to literacy.
Download the walkthrough template here.
Corinne Eisenhart, a former elementary school principal, is an associate professor of educational leadership at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania.
Elisabeth Grinder-McLean is an early childhood specialist at the Goodling Institute for Research and Family Literacy at the Pennsylvania State University.
Adapted from Early Learning Walkthroughs, Principal, November/December 2013.
Copyright © 2013. National Association of Elementary School Principals. No part of the articles in NAESP magazines, newsletters, or website may be reproduced in any medium without the permission of the National Association of Elementary School Principals. For more information, view NAESP's reprint policy


Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum
Teacher professional development and classroom resources across the curriculum
Reading & Writing in the Disciplines
This course provides teachers and literacy coaches with an overview of disciplinary literacy, essential concepts related to proficient reading and writing, and general instructional practices that support literacy development indicated by the Common Core and NGSS.
Through fieldwork and lab work, archaeologists have been piecing together what happened to bring about the collapse of Copán, once a thriving center of Maya civilization. In this activity, you'll be following in the steps of the archaeologists who studied Copán, looking for clues to how it collapsed. You'll be trying to answer two questions:
1. Why did Copán collapse?
2. Was the end a gradual decline or a rapid fall?


in the collection
New Study Disputes National Reading Panel Findings
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
EDUCATION POLICY STUDIES LABORATORY
Education Policy Analysis Archives
from the Education Policy Analysis Archives (EPAA) of the Education Policy Studies Laboratory (EPSL) at Arizona State University
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, May 7, 2003
Professor Gregory Camilli
Graduate School of Education
732-932-7496 ex. 8350
Professor Alex Molnar, Director
Education Policy Studies Laboratory
Find this document on the web at:
STUDY FINDS NATIONAL READING PANEL'S CENTRAL FINDINGS
MISDIRECT INSTRUCTIONAL POLICIES
TEMPE, Ariz.- A critique of the National Reading Panel (NRP) report Teaching Children to Read to be published May 8, 2003, in the
peer-reviewed journal Education Policy Analysis Archives finds that the NRP's conclusion that systematic phonics instruction is more effective
than other methods of teaching children to read is likely to misdirect policy makers.
Professor Gregory Camilli's study focuses on a research methodology known as meta-analysis, which the NRP used in reaching their
conclusion. His study was conducted as an attempt to verify whether an independent team of researchers would arrive at conclusions consistent with those in Teaching Children to Read.
Reconstruction of NRP's Central Findings
Camilli asserts that as in other types of scientific investigation, replicability is a key criterion for judging the credibility of the NRP's meta-analytic findings. Replicability also informs how seriously policy makers should consider applying its findings, Camilli emphasizes.
In the new study, Camilli finds that programs using systematic phonics instruction outperformed programs using less systematic phonics, but the effect was just half of the NRP's estimate. Moreover, the systematic phonics effect was smaller than the effect for individual tutoring, and students benefited from systematic language activities as much as systematic phonics instruction. Camilli notes that the NRP did not find the language effect because "they didn't look for it."
The study concludes that there is reason to believe these effects are additive, and that systematic phonics instruction combined with
language activities and individual tutoring may triple the effect of phonics alone.
Effect of NRP's Results
Camilli maintains that if the NRP results are taken to mean that effective reading instruction should focus on phonics to the exclusion of other factors that affect how children learn to read, then instructional policies are likely to be misdirected. He interprets the new study's results as evidence that a balance of systematic phonics,
tutoring, and language activities is best for teaching children to read.
Study Finds National Reading Panel's Central Findings Misdirect Instructional Policies
Education Policy Analysis Archives (EPAA)
May 7, 2003
INDEX OF THE EGGPLANT


This CIERA sponsored book is based on the premise that high-quality texts of all kinds are essential to good teaching in elementary classrooms.
Experts on a variety of text-related topics were asked to summarize existing research and then apply it to literacy development in an "ideal" classroom. The most comprehensive and up-to-date book in its field, it moves progressively from an examination of discrete literacy processes and forms to a holistic overview and assessment of the classroom literacy environment. Content coverage in this outstanding new book includes:
*Literacy Processes--Part I examines basic reading processes (instruction, comprehension, word recognition, fluency, and motivation) as they relate to text features.
*Forms of Texts--Part II examines the wide variety of text types (fiction, nonfiction, leveled, local, and electronic) that comprise an effective classroom literacy program. Discussions include the nature of these texts, their qualities and quantities, how they fit into an instructional plan, and how a teacher might assess their effectiveness.
*Text Selection--Part III examines special issues (linguistic diversity and teachers as censors) related to the selection of classroom texts.
*Personal Applications--The final, hands-on chapter synthesizes the book's ideas and offers practical tools (checklists and inventories) whereby teachers can self-assess the literacy environment of their own classrooms.
This book is suitable for anyone (graduate students, in-service reading specialists and curriculum directors, college faculty, and researchers) who deal directly with issues of classroom literacy.


The Opportunity to Succeed: Inclusion in Music Education
"The Opportunity to Succeed” is a DVD for current and future band directors featuring several “documentary style” case studies that will inform and inspire our audience about the challenges, strategies, and life long benefits of an inclusionary learning environment for both special needs and typically developing students.
“The Opportunity to Succeed” was inspired by and includes an account of Patrick Henry Hughes and his full inclusion into the University of Louisville Marching Band. Patrick Hughes is a gifted musician who was born without eyesight and does not have the ability to fully extend his arms or legs. Patrick's dream was to be a part of the University of Louisville’s Pep Band but found that a prerequisite to perform with the pep unit was being a member of the marching band. This seemingly insurmountable requirement was overcome by Patrick’s determination and the collaborative efforts of Patrick’s father and The University of Louisville’s Marching Band Director, Dr. Greg Byrne.
Patrick's success as a fully active member of the marching band received much national attention and helped raise ability awareness as his story was featured on ESPN, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and in national publications such as Sports Illustrated. Patrick Henry continues to write and perform music as well as reach out to inspire a wider world with his message of perseverance and dedication. http://www.patrickhenryhughes.com/
Dr. Greg Byrne has gone on to make the study and practice of inclusion of the special-needs musician a major focus of his academic career. Dr. Byrne travels the country speaking about and researching stories of inclusion. Dr. Byrne has recorded many of these stories as a documentary video. He has profiled successful programs at the middle school, high school, and collegiate level and we are proud to include his work in “The Opportunity to Succeed”.
"When band directors open their minds and programs to include musicians with special needs amazing things happen...reaching out to one person has the potential to benefit so many.” Dr. Greg Byrne “The Opportunity to Succeed” uncovers a constant in each of the successful “real world” examples profiled on the DVD. Band directors, teachers, administrators and parents, found ways to implement three key components of inclusion; accommodation, differentiation, and innovation.
“The Opportunity to Succeed” explores each of these keys as they came into play in each scenario. “The Opportunity to Succeed”also explores the legal side of special needs educational legislation and defines the line where the requirement of law and the willingness of the institution is drawn. “The Opportunity to Succeed”compares the duties and responsibilities demanded of educators from elementary, middle, high, and collegiate institutions. “The Opportunity to Succeed” DVD features a downloadable, printable, PDF in which the producers have collected and compared the salient features of past and current disability education legislation and present it in an easily digestible form. In this PDF we explore the merits and responsibilities found in acts such as: Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, The EAHCA Act of 1975, The IDEA Act of 1990, The ADA Act of 1990, and the American’s with Disabilities Amendments Act that became effective on January 1, 2009.


Art History and Theory
Art historians ask questions and seek answers about artists, patrons, audiences, art worlds, the artistic objects themselves, and when, how and why those works were created. In a sense, art historians “excavate” history in art through their research. Art historians are scholars who thus specialize in the reading and interpretation of art works as historic and cultural documents, examining works of art within their historic and cultural contexts.
The arts are among the oldest forms of human record-keeping and human discourse – meaningful communication that expresses and shapes cultural ideas and practices. Artists are scholars, who inherit this tradition of discourse, with an ancestry and heritage dating back to early humans. Trained artists must therefore study both visual art practices and art history in order to be successful in their area of specialization, achieve the level of training expected of professionals in any field, and, in short, to call themselves “artists.” Art history also provides artists with the ability to place their own work and contributions within a larger cultural and historic perspective.
Critical theory helps art historians and artists to develop more penetrating lines of investigation. Theory guides these professionals to think along deeper and more complex lines about a subject and provides insights.
The Western Art department provides both Art and Art History students with a broad foundation in western and non-western art history and in theory, emphasizing the development of solid research, writing and presentation skills.
If you're interested in Western's Art Education Licensure Program, we invite you to take the next steps towards becoming a part of the Mountaineer family.
Share your interest with friends and family:
- Get more information about the program.
- Schedule a campus visit so you can meet professors, see the beautiful Gunnison Valley, and find out if Western is the perfect school for you.
- Start the online application process - apply online now.
- Find scholarships, grants, or financial aid that match your interests and situation.


Tin Whistle & Music Theory is probably the most DIFFICULT of Fine Arts subjects for me. Sometimes I even find myself hoping the boys have forgotten that their tin whistles are in their backpacks. I keep telling myself it doesn’t have to be that way. I don’t want it to be that way. I want to be an encouragement despite my immaturity.
So I try to surround myself with more positive thoughts like how BEAUTIFUL the tin whistle can sound. This piece is performed by Ryan Duns of Fordham University. He has also uploaded several videos as an on-line video course for learning to play the Irish tin whistle.
And for tutors who are teaching Music Theory to 4- and 5-year-olds, you can feel encouraged as you watch a tutor Teach Rhythm to Abecedarians. For those who are not tutoring, the video is worth watching just to make your heart smile. A photo from Teaching Rhythm to Abecedarians:
For instructions on how to make one, visit The Making of a Gigantic Music Staff.
Making Music Fun contains sheet music, composer & music theory worksheets, and practice charts, but there are a ton more music theory worksheets and activities listed below…
Now, my absolute favorite help of all time has been a set of videos from a Classical Conversations tutor of the Blanchette Trio. You can view the videos by visiting Blanchette Trio on Facebook. A SPECIAL REQUEST: Please do not share direct links to these youtube videos via a blog post, Pinterest, or other social media website, as they are private videos that should only be accessed via the Blanchette Trio Facebook page or CC Connected. And my other special request is… please like Blanchette Trio on Facebook as a way to say “Thank you!” for the effort and time that was put into making them!
Finally, you’ll also want to check out these Tin Whistle Lesson Plans from Adventures of Bear.
Way Too Many Tin Whistle & Music Theory Resources: Weeks 7-12
Free Tin Whistle & Music Theory Notebooking Pages
Free Musical Symbol and Notes Printable Cards
Free Math & Music Learning Printable Activity
Music Theory and Tin Whistle Notebook Sheets in our Fine Arts Notebook Printable
Tin Whistle Tablature
For instructional videos on how to teach tin whistle, please visit (and like!) the Blanchette Trio Facebook Page.
Tin Whistle Sleeping Bags
Tin Whistle Lesson Plans
Simple Dot-to-Dot and other music theory worksheets
Turkey Color-by-Note Page
Pumpkin Color-by-Note Page
Sticker Notes on the Staff
Sorted List of Music Theory Links (to games, worksheets, etc.)
Free Music Theory Grammar Lapbook
Another Free Music Lapbook with Additional Worksheets
Music Note Race Classroom Kinesthetic Game
Ships are Sailing with the Tin whistle by Ryan Duns of Fordham University
Ryan Duns on-line video course for learning to play the Irish tin whistle.
Free Pathways to Harmony Music Theory Workbooks: Contains activity books that teach notes and rhythm and much, much more. Direct links:
Pathways to Harmony Notes Chapter
Pathways to Harmony Rhythm Chapter
Music Symbols Cut-and-Paste
Making Music Fun Music Theory Worksheets
Color in my Piano: Tons of free downloads and ideas for music theory practice and review:
Music Theory Games from Color in My Piano
Music Theory printables – flashcards, etc. from Color in My Piano.
Codemaker Note-naming Activity
Mystery Message Game (recognition of rhythm and pitch)
Opus Music Theory Worksheets
Fun Music Co. Music Theory Worksheets
Links to On-line Music Education Games
Susan Paradis Music Theory Games: This site is a gold mine of games for fun music theory practice at home and in the classroom (…and if you have a child learning to play piano, too)! Here are a few of the games available:
Skittles Note Game
Fish Flash Cards
Round about Rhythm
Round about Rhythm Cards
Round about Rhythm Card Backs
Ladybug Board Game (Note Identification)
Rhythm Memory Game
Rhythm Memory Game Back
Fly Swatter Note Game
Whole & Half Rest Memory Device
Do you have any great music theory or tin whistle resources that should be added to this list? Please let us know in the comments, or email me directly at brandyferrell @yahoo.com, and I’ll be glad to add them to the list!
(My word of encouragement: Although it’s taken me over three years to get to this point, I’m happy to share that Tin Whistle no longer frightens me. )


History TOPIC ID 45
Every group of Americans had its own distinctive musical traditions.
Native American Music: Music played an extremely important role in Native American rituals and ceremonies. In contrast to African and European musical traditions, Native American musics tended to use only a limited number of pitches and made little use of harmony. Choral singing, often accompanied by rattles was common. Also common was a responsorial technique in which a performer and a chorus sing back and forth to each other.
The question of Native American influence on contemporary American music has not received the study it deserves. There has been a tendency to underestimate the influence of Indian music. But it seems likely that Native American music had a special impact on cowboy songs and country music.
English Musical Culture: English folk tunes have left a lasting legacy on American popular music. Such songs as "Yankee Doodle," "My Country 'Tis of Thee, and the "Star Spangled Banner" derive from English folk tunes.
The Puritans felt very uneasy about certain kinds of music. The Puritans prohibited certain kinds of music, such as instrumental and theater music, and carefully scrutinized the kinds of music performed even in church. The kinds of music that grew out of the Puritan tradition, such as hymns, tended to have a leaner, more austere sound than their European counterparts.
African American Musical Traditions: African Americans contributed richly to an evolving American music. It is on the sea islands off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina, where many African Americans lived apart from southern whites, that one can find forms of African and African American music that are close to their original forms, including hollers and work songs, that coordinated work activities.
Africa has one of the most complex rhythmic musical cultures in the world and one of the distinctive features of African American music lies in its use of rhythmic syncopation and a strong beat. Yet rather than singing on the beat, singers tended to sing or embellish around the beat. Early African American music was characterized by a remarkable rhythmic subtlety, distinctive vocal styles, and the creation of the banjo, a distinctly African American instrument that derives from African instruments.
Scottish and Irish Musical Traditions: Scottish and Irish immigrants brought a great store of songs to America (including Auld Lang Syne, the song we sing at New Year's).
Stephen Foster, the most popular American composer of the mid-nineteenth century, wrote many of his popular songs in an Irish idiom, emphasizing lyricism and pentatonic scale (five note scale). His 1854 song, Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair, is filled with nostalgic yearnings for home which typifies Irish and Scottish songs of this period.
German Musical Cultures: Germans came to the United States with highly developed musical skills. German immigrants were very important in formal music education and in establishing classical music institutions. Many German songs, such as O Tannenbaum, became very popular. German men's choruses were "Americanized" in the United States in the form of school glee clubs and barbershop quartets.
One kind of Central European music that became very popular in the mid-nineteenth century was the polka, which made the waltz seem very old fashioned
L atin American Musical Cultures: Especially in the 20th century, Latin American musics have had a very strong influence on American popular music. Latin American musics themselves were formed out of a blend of various ethnic groups' musics including Spanish and African influences in the Caribbean and Indian and Spanish musics in Mexico. Such musical forms as the tango came from Argentina, the cha cha and mambo from Cuba, and reggae from Jamaica.
Hawaiian Music: Hawaiian music was particularly influential in spreading a taste for the steel guitar, which eventually gave us the electric guitar


|Presenters: Cindy Gillean & Jacque Garcia
Workshop Time: 8:30 am - 3:30 pm
One Day Institute - $175 ($150 for Texas ASCD members)
Please contact our office at 512.477.8200 to schedule this institute at your location.
Riveting Exploration in Science
Summary: This one-day session will take participants through an examination of what hands-on, minds-on science should look like, and sound like, and what this can do for students, Grade 4-8th, using standard based strategies to connect across all contents. Participants will develop an overall understanding of what you, as the expert, want your students to come away with at the end of the lesson. These inquiry based lessons will guide participants in determining what student to know and be able to do. This structure will guide student in investigation and question strategies to get the most out of every lesson. This session will feature performance expectations, graphics, and other metacognitive aids that can be used by teachers and students alike to guide and assess growth in the use of language through science activities. Through the Connection of literacy we will show how teachers can use practical classroom techniques for combining science and language literacy at different grade levels.
Riveting exploration in Science, uses tools to make every classroom engaging for students,while building foundational structures across all content. This session will use research based instructional strategies, formative assessment processes, current best practices in science, all connected to literacy. Participants will have opportunities to experience hands-on, minds-on science lessons, from pre to post preparation. Participants will take away some great tools and tips to use with students, as soon as you return to your classroom.
- Examine levels of complexity of student driven questions.
- Improve student writing by supporting students to deepen student understanding.
Students will use investigated data to formulate and write a conclusion support to support their findings. This session will allow teachers to give the ‘power’ of learning back to the students
About the presenters:
Cindy Gillean has over 25 years of teaching formal and informal science education at K-12 and developing programs and curricula for a Texas and South Carolina school district, teacher certification courses at the regional service centers, summer science camps for students and teachers, and hands-on science education across the state. She has her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Texas Tech University with a psychology minor and a master degree in General Science K-12 education from Texas Women’s University. Co-presenter Jacque Garcia and Cindy were in the same cohort for their masters, which really has strengthened our bond, and understanding of the importance of active learning. Having worked as a classroom teacher and as a curriculum coordinator in Highland Park ISD, she has a deep understanding of curriculum, instruction and assessment. Cindy currently is the district K-12 Science and Social Studies coordinator. Her true passion is helping teachers and students build on a natural curiosity about science and the world we live in, so as to inspire generations to come.
Jacque Garcia has been working in the field of science education for almost 20 years. Jacque is a firm believer that we owe each of our students an understanding, and an appreciation of our world. It is with this understanding and appreciation, that we teach future generations to protect and preserve something so wonderful and so sacred. As a former 5th and 6th grade science classroom teacher, and now as a science curriculum coordinator in Eagle Mountain-Saginaw it was and will continue to be her mission to provide students with an inquiry so indescribable that it leads to them asking questions, and exploring their curiosities about complex phenomena in life. Jacque wants all students and educators to be challenged and become so involved in their learning that they are merely engaged in life. Through the instruction of students, professional development of adults, collaboration in the writing of curriculum and assessments, and teacher leadership Jacque is well respected in the field of science education. Jacque holds a Bachelor and Master’s Degree from Texas Woman’s University with emphasis in science education.
Who Should Attend: Grades 4-8 Science Teachers, Science Coordinators, Instructional Specialists & Administrators


ERIC Number: ED465163
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 2000-Jul
Reference Count: N/A
Image to Word--Word to Image: Literally A Vision. PREL Briefing Paper.
"Image to Word--Word to Image" is a professional development workshop which is part of the Pacific Center for the Arts and Humanities in Education (PCAHE) at the Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL). The program combines the cultural reality of the islands with educational research to create a vision in which visual arts and language arts are taught through one integrated curriculum. Image to Word seeks to do the following: improve language-arts skills such as listening, speaking, writing, and reading through art; focus on language and arts skills in narrative, expository and ethnographic areas; offer a spiral curriculum that allows teacher to tie standards to learning activities and apply them to appropriate grade levels; offer a culturally and ethnographically based approach; examine quality children's literature and discuss fine art or cultural artifacts; and offer children an opportunity to create their own books using words and images from their own cultures. (Contains 20 references, and 6 color and 4 black and white student-created drawings.) (PM)
Descriptors: Art Activities, Childrens Literature, Cultural Context, Cultural Images, Elementary Education, Imagery, Integrated Curriculum, Language Arts, Professional Development, Program Descriptions, Teacher Workshops, Visual Arts
For full text: http://www.prel.org/products/Products/HTML/Discipline/ImagetoWord.htm.
Publication Type: Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Sponsor: Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC.
Authoring Institution: Pacific Resources for Education and Learning, Honolulu, HI.
Identifiers: Verbal Skills Curriculum


As part of the TQP curriculum reform, a series of online modules were developed. The module series was designed to teach ELEM, MIDG, SPED pre-baccalaureate pre- service candidates ten particular instructional practices found to increase student achievement. They are not the only strategies that are effective or that a prospective teacher should learn to incorporate in instruction.
The ten instructional strategies discussed in the module series constitute a starting place; over time pre-service candidates are expected to learn additional effective instructional strategies. Pre-service candidates receive instruction on those additional strategies from professors in certain courses throughout their program. It is important to note that instructional strategies are not the only means of raising student achievement. An effective teacher must have good classroom management, an effective curriculum, and appropriate professional dispositions. For now, however, the TQP curriculum reform focused primarily on effective instructional strategies.
Pre-service candidates learn about a common framework for instructional practices that highlights 10 effective evidence- based strategies for increasing student achievement. They explore the framework in introductory courses, methods courses, senior courses, and internship. Pre-service candidates have the opportunity to see it, understand it, explain it, plan it, and do it as they experience the connections with partnering school districts as their teachers incorporate the same framework. To ensure consistency of implementation in the pre-baccalaureate programs, pre-service candidates complete a series of online Instructional Strategy Lessons for Educators Series (ISLES) modules that focus on the framework at every step.
As the ISLES modules continue to be integrated into courses, iterative refinements will occur as needed. ELL will be emphasized with greater clarity. Updates will be made to the ISLES 3 templates and rubrics to reflect the revisions made in the edTPA handbooks. The ISLES Faculty Guide will be updated with additional resources provided for faculty integration of ISLES into course content. Comparative data will be analyzed linking ISLES 3 work with edTPA scores.The following materials have been developed for the reform in elementary, middle grades, and special education:
Cuthrell, K., & Fogarty, L. (2013). Rolling out edTPA: Lessons learned as theory, research, and practice intersect. Presentation.
Cuthrell, K., Stapleton, J., Bullock, A. A., Lys, D. B., Smith, J. J., and Fogarty, E. (2014). Mapping the journey of reform and assessment for an elementary education teacher preparation program. Journal of Curriculum and Instruction, 8(1), 67-85. doi: 10.3776/joci.2014.v8n1p67-85.
Cuthrell, K., Steadman, S. C., Wilhite, K., Stapleton, J., and Hodge, E. (2014). Moving beyond a pilot: Expanding video grand rounds across teacher education. Presentation at AERA.
Smith, J., Stapleton, J., and Cuthrell, K. (2013). Revision teacher education with 21st century reform efforts. Presentation.


Making the Most of Opportunities:
Close-Up Views of a SAGE Program
A Report of the Collaborative Action Research Project of the
SAGE Program at Webster Stanley Elementary School 1999-2000
The Webster Stanley SAGE Action Research Project
In January, 1999, six teachers and a UW Oshkosh professor began a journey to study and document the SAGE (Student
Achievement Guarantee in Education) Program in action at Webster Stanley Elementary School in Oshkosh, Wisconsin
through collaborative action research. The following executive summaries give a glimpse of our year-long efforts to provide
close-up views of several SAGE classrooms, with teachers telling their own stories of different aspects of their teaching they
chose to investigate.
Teacher-Researchers (for details, click on each teacher-researcher's name)
Ava McCall, the UW Oshkosh professor, focused on providing an in-depth portrayal of the program, especially how the kindergarten, first-grade, second-grade and other support teachers used the opportunities provided by the SAGE Program to meet students' needs and enhance their learning.
Suzanne Doemel, the Reading Resource teacher, focused on: What factors facilitate metacognition of word attack strategies by beginning readers? In other words, after students learn different word attack strategies, what helps them consciously select these strategies when they encounter a word they do not know?
Lisa Bucholtz, a first-grade teacher chose: How can I promote literacy development in my students when they are not in direct instruction with me? What kinds of activities can students do independently or at home to encourage them to become good readers?
Michelle Klett, another first-grade teacher in a team-taught classroom selected: How can I promote children's growth in writing? What kinds of activities and structures are most beneficial to assisting children become good writers?
Sharon Wagner, one of the second-grade teachers who also team taught focused on: What does it take to team teach successfully? What factors are most important in the development of team teaching?
Lisa Weiss, another second-grade teacher chose: How can I foster the development of a caring classroom community so all students can learn?
Lauren Flanagan, one of the kindergarten teachers selected: How do half-day and full-day kindergarten programs limit and benefit children's learning?
The Webster Stanley SAGE Action Research Team from left to right: Lisa Weiss, Lisa Bucholtz, Ava McCall, Michelle Klett, Sharon Wagner, Lauren Flanagan, and Suzanne Doemel.
For more information about the SAGE program at Webster Stanley Elementary School, contact Patti Vickman, Webster Stanley principal, at firstname.lastname@example.org or 920-424-0460.
For more information about the Webster Stanley Action Research Project contact Ava McCall, UW Oshkosh professor, at
email@example.com or 920-424-2477.


Stephen Addiss; Mary Erickson. Art History and Education: Disciplines in Art Education. University of Illinois Press. 1993. 220pp.
Dennis Atkinson. Art in Education: Identity and Practice. Springer. 2002. 206pp.
Charles M. Dorn. Mind in Art: Cognitive Foundations in Art Education. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1999. 275pp.
Arthur Efland. Art and Cognition: Integrating the Visual Arts in the Curriculum. Teachers College Press. 2002. 201pp.
Arthur Efland. A History of Art Education: Intellectual and Social Currents in Teaching the Visual Arts. Teachers College Press. 1990. 305pp.
Tom Hardy (editor). Art Education in a Postmodern World: Collected Essays. Intellect Books. 2006. 166pp.
Hamid Irbouh. Art in the Service of Colonialism: French Art Education in Morocco, 1912-1956. I. B. Tauris. 2005. 280pp.
Albert William Levi; Ralph A. Smith. Art Education: A Critical Necessity. University of Illinois Press. 1991. 254pp.
Stuart MacDonald. The History and Philosophy of Art Education. James Clarke & Co.. 2004. 432pp.
Harold Pearse (editor). From Drawing to Visual Culture: A History of Art Education in Canada. McGill-Queen's University Press. 2006. 304pp.
Mervyn Romans (editor). Histories of Art and Design Education: Collected Essays. Intellect Books. 2005. 224pp.
Peter Smith. The History of American Art Education: Learning about Art in American Schools. Greenwood Publishing Group. 1996. 252pp.
Ralph A. Smith. Culture and the Arts in Education: Critical Essays on Shaping Human Experience. Teachers College Press. 2006. 177pp.
Do you know something we don't?
Submit a correction or make a comment about this profile
Copyright ©2009 Soylent Communications


Pringle’s preferred subjects were found in his local area, from scenes of streets and tenement buildings to portraits of his friends and family. Although the identity of the sitter in this portrait is unknown, he is most likely a boy from the east-end of Glasgow, where Pringle ran a shop. Smartly dressed in his Sunday best, the boy’s expression suggests discomfort at his role as subject of the portrait. This may have led to the painting being known as 'A Reluctant Subject'. Pringle’s use of square brushstrokes shows the influence of French Neo-Impressionism, although his art education was gained primarily through taking classes at Glasgow School of Art and visiting exhibitions in Scotland. He did travel abroad once, to Normandy in 1910, the year this portrait was painted.


Careers and Employment Outlook The common careers in the music field are performing, teaching, working in the music industry (recording, engineering, composing, radio, television, etc.) and music therapy. A Bachelor’s degree and other credentials are required to work in music education and music therapy. The Bachelor’s degree is also the recommended minimum for performing musicians. For those wanting to pursue graduate degrees, a Master of Music, Doctor of Musical Arts, of Doctorate of Philosophy is highly suggested for students who desire careers as conductors or college professors.The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that the median hourly earnings in May 2006 for musicians and singers were $19.73 but may vary according to the frequency of contracts and performances. Music directors and composers earned a median annual income of $39,750 during this same period (www.bls.gov). To help music majors navigate entry into a new career there are a number of professional organizations such as the American Federation of Musicians, which provides legal and organizational resources for self-employed musicians (www.afm.org).


At the beginning of the year, kindergarten student Thalia expresses excitement about learning to read, but remains unclear about the specific skills needed to read. When asked what reading entails, she responds, "You look at the pictures, maybe you'll know what the words say." This video follows Thalia's progress over the year as she engages in a variety of reading and writing activities that develop her awareness of letters, sounds, and words -- the details of reading and writing. Her English-language teacher, Jim St. Clair, uses poems, songs, predictable books, reports on classroom activities, and student journals to build on her emergent literacy skills and to promote a love of reading and writing.
Factors that contribute to Thalia's literacy development:
- Language-based activities
- Integration of language and literacy in daily routines
- Instruction based on student interests and needs
- Variety of texts appropriate to kindergarten
- Flexible grouping
- Parent involvement
- Collaboration between teachers
"[Thalia] has a very strong interest in learning to read. I think it's really a goal for her."
Jim St. Clair, kindergarten teacher.


The personal learning network for educators
Students who are taught reading comprehension strategies aremore successful readers. Whilesome students may eventually learn some of these strategies on their own, theycan be taught quite effectively in the early elementary grades. Here are ten reading comprehensionstrategies from Ellin Keene’s book AssessingComprehension Thinking Strategies to consider.
1. Think out loud. Good readers monitor their thinking while reading.
2. Use schema. Consciously connect the text to preexisting knowledge and experiencesand consider how it helps their understanding of the text.
3. Inferring. Use experience and information from the text to draw conclusions, makeconnections, predictions, and form opinions.
4. Ask questions about the text before, during, and afterreading.
5. Make decisions about what is important in the text(elements and themes). Be able tosummarize the main points.
6. Set a purpose for reading to make it meaningful.
7. Monitor comprehension. Make sure students have strategies in place if they find thetext too difficult.
8. Visualize what is being read. Make brain movies! Tune into the sensory and emotional images of the text to enhance thevisualization. Use thisinformation to help make inferences and draw conclusions.
9. Synthesizing and retelling. Keeping track of their impressions while reading andidentifying the underlying meaning of the text. Connect the text to information from other sources. Extending that information beyond thetext to form opinions and read critically.
10. Text structure. Understanding the elements of a story and how stories are put togetherhelps students analyze and think critically about meaning.
Even learning just one or two of these metacognitivestrategies has been shown to make a difference in reading performance. Which strategies do your studentsalready use? Which ones will theylearn next?


Effective reading strategies can range from questioning and visualizing to pre-reading and decoding. Reading strategies are used to help students become effective readers. To see improvement in a student’s reading ability these skills need to be mastered. Decoding is one of the most important foundational skills. Many times if there is a comprehension problem, at the root of that difficulty is a decoding problem. Teaching students proven decoding strategies provides them with a strong foundation to ensure reading success.
Decoding is the process of translating print into speech by rapidly matching a letter or combination of letters (graphemes) to their sounds (phonemes) and recognizing the patterns that make syllables and words. There is an area in the brain that deals with language processing and does this process automatically. Statistically speaking, about 30 percent of students do not access this part of their brain automatically and therefore must be taught decoding strategies very explicitly and systematically. This means that we start with the simplest sound/letter concept and build to the more complex. This method of phonics instruction has been proven to be the most effective in helping students gain decoding skills.
Decoding is important because it is the foundation on which all other reading instruction builds. If students cannot decode words their reading will lack fluency, their vocabulary will be limited and their reading comprehension will suffer. Teaching higher-level reading strategies to students stuck at the word level is ineffective and frustrating.
Explicit, systematic and multi-sensory phonics instruction produces effective decoding skills. Phonics can be taught both implicitly or explicitly. Implicit phonics begins with a whole word and then looks at beginning sounds, ending sounds and context clues. Explicit phonics does the reverse by building from a single letter to a word. Because of poor results with implicit phonics, phonics instruction has been given a negative connotation—phonics is not really effective unless it is taught explicitly and systematically. Phonics taught any other way could be compared to an alphabet soup of sounds. The way it is taught is what determines the level of success, particularly for those with learning disabilities such as dyslexia.
Presenting phonics and instructing it in a logical sequence, in which one concept builds upon the next, is another essential component of teaching phonics and decoding. This systematic approach helps students to master skills quickly and move to the next concept seamlessly. Teaching phonics using a multi-sensory approach reaches all learning styles in a classroom and gives those struggling readers the visual and hands-on instruction they need. When phonics is taught according to these guidelines, students will be able to find decoding success and it will quickly become an automatic process for them.
Automatic recognition of individual words leads to fluent reading of strings of words, which in turn leads to full comprehension—the goal of reading instruction. When this process is automatic and efficient then additional reading strategies can be taught to help the students understand more from what they read and have a successful and fulfilling experience with text. As a teacher or parent what more could you want?
Having the right resources for teaching is crucial for improving reading instruction. To help give you the tools you need, Reading Horizons has created a free online reading workshop as well as a list of reading strategies.


More New and Used
from Private Sellers
Note: Supplemental materials are not guaranteed with Rental or Used book purchases.
Questions About This Book?
What version or edition is this?
This is the 2nd edition with a publication date of 1/17/2013.
What is included with this book?
- The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any CDs, lab manuals, study guides, etc.
- The eBook copy of this book is not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically only the book itself is included.
English is central to the primary school curriculum, since it permeates all subject areas. Now fully updated, English 5-11provides comprehensive, up to date and creative guidance on teaching English in the primary school. Key areas covered include:- Communication, language and literacy Grammar and punctuation Talk for learning Synthetic phonics Drama Reading and writing Fiction and poetry Creativity Teaching in a multilingual classroom Spelling ICT Assessment Written by highly experienced authors and former government advisors with frontline teaching, school management and teacher training experience, each manageable chapter provides the busy teacher with indispensible advice and guidance as well as opportunities to reflect upon current practice in the classroom. This second edition reflects changes in government policy and gives greater attention to systematic synthetic phonics, assessment, drama and talk for writing, and is closely related to the changing curriculum for primary English. English 5-11will be an invaluable resource to all trainee and practising teachers interested in teaching English in an accessible, contemporary and dynamic way.


Welcome to this week’s Wordy Wednesday, that moment in the middle of the week when we embrace our inner word-nerd to bring you a set of pictures centered on a wonderfully wordy theme! Our theme this week: action verbs! And what better way to work on verbs than to get involved in the action! So, if you have what Miss Elizabeth refers to as a mature, respectful colorer, get out your special 64-box of sharp-tipped, perfectly-aligned, reverently-handled crayons (otherwise, dig deep into the junk closet for that shoebox full of label-less crayon nubbins), and get ready to breathe some color into these pictures (and sneak in some excellent language practice along the way!)
Verbs can be tricky for kids to master, thanks to the pesky way that they change based on context. Let’s take a look at the verb dance as an example. I dance. You dance. We dance. But He/She/It dances. Yesterday, I danced; tomorrow, I will dance; right now, I am dancing. It takes a kids bit of practice to learn to use these different verb tenses correctly, but verb tense conveys important information about who or what is performing the action and when that action takes place.
Then there are those even more pesky irregular verbs that don’t follow the rules: go becomes went, eat turns into ate, buy becomes bought.* These verbs are even more challenging for kids to master, whether they’re typically developing or have language difficulties. Irregular verbs appear in early children’s language development, with the child uttering correct phrases such as I eat. After a few months, children often begin to overregularize, using I eated instead of I ate.
The act of coloring is fantastic for fine motor skill development. If your child has a hard time coloring within the lines, try this trick: use regular white glue to outline the picture. When it dries, it will form a raised barrier to mark the edge of the picture. You can also use the opportunity to practice labeling colors, making requests, and sharing. We like to make only a couple of colors available at a time, so that the child needs to ask for additional colors. Throw in some extra language practice and have your child name the color – reading it from the label or make one up! (Miss Elizabeth LOVES the names of the Crayloa crayons – “purple mountain’s majesty,” “mac and cheese,” “dazzle dazzle rose” – great opportunities to flex those articulation skills!).
With less sophisticated language users, our coloring pages can be a fun way to work on simple expressive and receptive verb vocabulary. Ask the child what the character in the picture is doing (expressive language), or offer the child a few pictures and ask him or her to indicate a particular action (“Who is dancing?”, receptive language). Coloring the picture is the reward!
Happy Wednesday from Melanie and Elizabeth!
*These odd verbs are mostly holdovers from Old and Middle English, which in turn come from the Germanic roots of our language.


|A Gift to Biro-Bidjan:
From Despair to New Hope
Edward Millman (1907-1964)
from the portfolio A Gift
to Biro-Bidjan, 1937
|Born in Chicago, Edward
Millman attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and later became
the chief illustrator for the Chicago Evening American. Attracted by the
murals of Mexican artist Diego Rivera, he traveled to Mexico to enrich
his art education.
Millman became one of the most productive WPA muralists in Illinois during the Depression. He painted Early Pioneers, Social Consciousness, and Growth of Democracy in Illinois for the Decatur post office; Manufacture of Plowshares in Moline for the Moline post office; Blessing of Water for the Chicago Bureau of Water (located in City Hall); and The Contribution of Women to American Progress for Chicago’s Lucy Flower Technical High School. His works are included in the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
While Millman’s public murals of the late 1930s are complex compositions of epic and allegorical motifs that were inspired by the Mexican muralists, Shoemaker is a more reserved and restrained image.
The same year A Gift to Biro-Bidjan was produced, Millman worked on the murals for the Moline post office and the Chicago Bureau of Water. The Manufacture of Plowshares in Moline depicts laborers like in Shoemaker, but it is a more dramatic and dynamic scene where workers and machines almost struggle with each other. Blessing of Water is an allegorical poem of human survival. Like A Gift to Biro-Bidjan, it deals with despair and hope — on one side, the humans suffer because of drought; on the other side, the discovery of water leads to a celebration of life.
Millman applies different approaches in Shoemaker by considering the unique medium of the small-format graphic. The shoemaker is portrayed like a skilled worker of the “old country.” The woman in the background appears as a black silhouette, creating a somber atmosphere.
In this woodcut, Millman applies symbolism as he does in his murals, but in a more condensed manner: the pairs of shoes represent the eternal “wanderer.” Vincent Van Gogh painted worn shoes as a metaphor for the endless wanderings of the vagabond seeking, in vain, for a haven of rest. This is analogous to the “Wanderer” who carries a sack on his back in the woodcuts of Munch, Topchevsky and Bohrod.
The symbolic meaning of the “shoes” is linked to the overall concept of A Gift to Biro-Bidjan by repeating the continuous desire of Jews to find the path to a final, peaceful destination.
|Edward Millman (1907-1964), Blessing of the Water (detail), 1937, Mural, Bureau of Water, Chicago.|


Kerala was declared a Fully Literate State in 1991 and is the only state in India where over 90% of the people can read and write, thanks to the free and compulsory education provided to all children up to the age of 14 years. Apart from this, the Kerala government is taking every possible step to improve the quality and standard of education.
Education, in its broadest sense, refers to the ways in which people learn skills and gain knowledge and understanding about the world, and about themselves.A Literate is any person who is able to read and write on his own and Literacy is the ability to read and write or is the quality of being literate.
Kerala stands first among other Indian states in literacy.Recognizing the need for a literate population and provision of elementary education as a crucial input for nation building, the state government with the backing of the central government, launched a number of plans and programmes over the past years to encourage elementary education in Kerala.
Besides, a number of government organizations and voluntary associations under various schemes and services, conduct classes for the illiterate adults.The literacy rate in the urban areas is slightly greater than in the rural areas. As per the norms of National Literacy Mission, a literacy rate above 90 % shall be treated as complete literacy.It was on this basis that Kerala was declared a Fully Literate State.


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


Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum
Teacher professional development and classroom resources across the curriculum
Workshop 1 –
|Grade & Subjects:||Year 1 - Grade 8, Science and Social Studies;
Year 2 - Grade 7 - Science
|Demographics:||Middle school in an inner city setting|
|Classroom:||3 sections, 90 students total; 90% African-American and Hispanic|
|Science Teaching:||90 minute sessions on alternate days of the week|
|Curriculum:||Developed by teacher|
|Other:||Third year teaching middle grades, background in elementary education|
Things to ponder before and after Workshop 1:
AssignmentIn preparation for Workshop 2, please interview a few of your students (2 to 5 students). Have some boiling water available at the beginning of each interview. Say that you are boiling water, and you would like the interviewee to tell you what is in the bubbles that form at the bottom of the pot or beaker or flask. Then ask how he/she thinks that substance has formed.
Record the results of your first question for Assignment 1 on the enclosed chart.
Data Table – Assignment 1
|Substance in Bubbles|