When: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, now through Nov. 2
Where: Gilb Museum of Arcadia Heritage, 380 W. Huntington Drive, Arcadia
Information: 626-574-5440; http://museum.ci.arcadia.ca.us
In May of 1942, Riyo Sato was forced by the U.S. government to leave her Palo Alto home for internment at the Santa Anita Japanese Assembly Center on the grounds of Santa Anita Park in Arcadia. She was among more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast who were placed in war relocation camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II.
An artist, Sato documented what she saw, and now her family has decided it is time to share this piece of their history. “Life Interrupted: Personal Sketches Behind Barbed Wire, Santa Anita, Summer 1942, Riyo Sato (1913-2009)” opened last week at the Gilb Museum of Arcadia Heritage.
“It’s really important for us to talk more about what happened. I don’t think it’s as controversial as it might have been 20 years ago, so I think it’s a good time to start talking about it,” said Dana Dunn, curator for the Gilb Museum.
Dunn’s previous exhibit on the Santa Anita Assembly Center in 2009 drew visitors from throughout Southern California and was one of the venue’s most seen shows. Dunn noted the interest in the topic and has since added a section on the camp to the museum’s permanent display on local history, but she wanted to show the more personal side of the experience.
“(The internees) weren’t allowed to bring cameras with them, so all of the photographs that everybody sees from the camp, they’re taken by the U.S. government,” Dunn explained. “That’s a completely different cultural view of what was going on there. If the Japanese-Americans had had cameras with them, I think it would tell a different story.”
Sato didn’t have a camera, but she had the power of the pencil. She held a degree in art education from the California College of the Arts in Oakland and kept her skills sharp by sketching life at the Assembly Center. Sato died in 2009 and her family held on to the drawings. Realizing the importance of the works, Sato’s niece, Pam Hashimoto of Arizona, contacted Dunn offering to loan them to the museum for an exhibit. This is the first time the pieces have been publicly displayed.
“(Sato) never thought these were going to be shown in an exhibit setting. She’s an artist and it was just a natural thing for her to do, to sit and sketch,” Dunn said. “The sketches are on onionskin paper and just pencil sketches of scenes that she was actually viewing when she was in the camp in Santa Anita.”
“Life Interrupted” features more than 20 sketches, along with information on the Assembly Center, a biography and photos of Sato. Her drawings record everyday life in the camp, such as people looking through the fence at trains, visiting the dentist office, making reconnaissance nets for the military and waiting in line to eat. There are also scenes of the grounds and housing, as well as two figure drawings.
Dunn’s favorite sketches are of a woman pulling a child in a wagon and a little girl sitting by a building.
Sato and her family were later moved to the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming where she taught art at the camp’s school. After the war, she attended the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, earning a master’s degree in design and art education. Sato taught art to junior and high school students for 30 years. She also traveled extensively and the exhibit includes a slideshow of her journeys around the globe.
“She continued on with her life and she found a way to take an unpleasant situation and turn it into something beautiful,” Dunn said. “I’m hoping that through this we get to know more people in the community that have a story and they’ll continue to share with us at the museum.”


William Smith was born at Churchill, Oxfordshire in 1769. The son of the village blacksmith, Smith was the eldest of five children.
After elementary education at the village school, where he developed a liking for geometry and drawing, he decided to teach himself the skills of surveying, possibly because there were an increasing number of openings for that profession.
At the age of 18 he was employed by Edward Webb, a surveyor in Stow-on-the-Wold, and subsequently, in 1791, he set up in business on his own.
As a boy, Smith had developed an interest in the exposures of rock and the fossils which were to be found locally. As an adult, his surveys of land for canals and for the sources of building stone and coal in other parts of England led to a great increase in his knowledge and awareness of various geological features.
As he travelled, he found the strata he was familiar with in the south of England were repeated in other areas, with some outcrops stretching right across the country.
Coal miners were already aware of the occurrences of regular successions of workable coal seams. But on a larger scale, Smith began to recognise that sedimentary rocks could be identified by the fossils they contained, and that these rocks were always arranged in the same order.
Smith's discovery that beds of similar lithology can be distinguished by the assemblage of fossils in them was a concept virtually unrecognised by geologists of that period. Working on this principle, Smith was able to draw up a table of successive strata which could be applied in any other locality—an early version of the geological column.
Learn more about Smith's Mapping of England and Wales


Third Grade Teacher: Educational Requirements and Job Description
Learn about the education and preparation needed to become a third grade school teacher. Get a quick view of the requirements as well as details about degree programs, job duties and licensure requirements to find out if this is the career for you.
Third grade teachers create a positive learning environment by teaching classes and creating curricula for elementary school children. Those who want to become third grade teachers should complete undergraduate degree programs in elementary education or childhood education. In addition to the bachelor' degree, a state teaching license is required. State boards of education oversee the teaching licensure process.
|Required Education||Bachelor's degree|
|Other Requirements||Certification or license|
|Projected Job Growth (2012-2022)*||12%|
|Median Salary (2013)*||$53,590 annually|
Source: *U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Education Requirements to Become a Third Grade Teacher
A degree program in elementary education qualifies graduates to work with children up to the sixth grade level. Prospective elementary education students must have strong interpersonal skills. Many education degree programs include a student-teaching component to help graduates with the process of obtaining a state teaching license.
Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education
Students enrolled in a bachelor's degree program in elementary education have the option of choosing a major area of study. Common areas of emphasis include science and math. A second major area, such as English as a second language or gifted education, may also be chosen. Students receive instruction on the principles and theories of elementary education through core coursework.
Core elementary education courses cover topics like human development, education foundations, diverse classroom management, reading instruction and curriculum development. During the program, candidates sharpen their critical thinking, decision-making, communication and student evaluation skills.
A teaching license is required of all elementary school teachers who work in the public school system. Requirements for a teaching license vary from state to state. Most states require the teacher candidate to have both an education degree that meets certain subject-area course requirements and a completed period of supervised teaching. Many undergraduate degree programs in education include a supervised teaching component so that graduates can easily transition into the state licensing process.
Education degree programs are also structured in such a way as to meet any course requirements set forth by the state. This coordination between various education degree programs and the states in which they are located clarifies the process for students who may otherwise be uncertain about how to proceed.
The typical day of a third grade teacher includes a myriad of teaching responsibilities. Some of these duties include keeping class attendance, ensuring that all students are progressing according to schedule, giving lectures and keeping the class occupied by providing activities and lessons. Outside of class they are required to meet with parents to discuss student performance and, in some cases, counsel students who are not performing well academically.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), a 12% increase in the employment of elementary school teachers was expected for the 2012-2022 period (www.bls.gov). This employment figure includes teachers from kindergarten through fifth grade. The BLS stated that the median annual salary of an elementary school teacher, in May 2013, was $53,590.
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I have also had a lot of people ask me about Aboriginal Art, so I thought
this may be of interest to some of you also.
There are many different types and styles depending on where the art comes
from, as there are hundreds of different tribes / language groups in
The most important aspects are,
Way of communicating the dreamtime stories
Different art mediums, ie cave walls, sand, body, bark, rock art
All from birds eye view, dot painting or xray art.
Also the modern Aboriginal artists
There are many good books, but you may find it hard to locate them in the USA??
Aboriginal Art and Spirituality by Rosemary Cromlin is very good
I have produced an Aboriginal Education Resource Worksheet File of
photocopy masters for teachers. It is aimed at upper primary through to
lower secondary. It was put together with Aboriginal students, parents and
community members.I spent the last 3 previous years working as an
Aboriginal Education Specialist teacher, but I'm now back in Art Education.
It includes a lot of Aboriginal reference material, like dreamtime,tribal
groups,didgeridoo, Noongar words, Aboriginal Art, word sleuths, design
worksheets, traditional Aboriginal Art etc. This may be of interest to
some of you. They are practical worksheets for students. If you are
interested, please email me at denise.au
Don't Forget that the journey is just as important as the destination
Don't Forget that the journey is just as important as the destination !!


Reading/Language and Literacy Courses
The degree requirements outlined in this catalog are intended to be used for students entering Wheelock in the 2014-15 academic year.
Examines cognitive, social and language understandings that older readers draw on to make sense of different kinds of texts. Focuses on metacognitive processes, vocabulary and background know ledge in later reading comprehension. Develops assessment strategies for identifying readers’ strengths and vulnerabilities through small group or tutorial intervention.
Teaching Literacy to English Language Learners
Addresses factors affecting literacy development and instruction of ELLs learning to read and write in English. Develops skills in assessing components of learners’ reading and writing competence; teaching early, later and advanced reading skills; lesson planning; progress monitoring. Participants implement an assessment and tutoring project with an ELL student.
RDG 535/ EDU 335
Reading Theory and Practice
Consolidates professional background in theory and practice of teaching reading in grades Pre-K- 8. Addresses core concepts and instructional practices for phonological and phonemic awareness, emergent literacy, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, and reading assessment. Builds upon the professional knowledge developed in EDU 327, EDU 337 or RDG 537. Prerequisite: EDU 327 or EDU 337 or RDG 537.
Analyzes stages of reading development in grades Pre K-8. Focuses on phonological awareness, print concepts, word identification, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. Participants administer literacy assessments to children, interpret assessment data, and plan engaging, small group instruction.
Multicultural Children’s Literature
Introduces broad range of multicultural literature. Focuses on criteria for making appropriate book selections. Examines literary theme and genre. Explores strategies for using children’s literature to promote literacy development.
African American Children’s Literature
Examines children’s literature written by and about African Americans. Explores the literature’s cultural and historical context. Discusses strategies for using the literature effectively with children to enhance their literacy development.
Developing Young Writers
Introduces current research and theories about children’s writing development. Examines instructional practices for fostering writing abilities in a variety of genres including poetry, narrative, and exposition.
Multisensory Approaches for Teaching Literacy
Provides theoretical constructs in multisensory literacy approaches to aid the reading specialist, special educator, or classroom teacher meet the complex challenges in instructing students with language-based learning differences. Includes introduction to the Wilson Language Program and the Lindamood-Bell Lips and Visualizing and Verbalizing programs. Prerequisites: RDG 537 or permission of the instructor.
Assessment of Reading and Writing
Surveys traditional and innovative approaches to assessing reading, writing, and oral language: teacher checklists, standardized tests, rubrics, portfolios, and work samples. Utilizes case studies of children ages 4-10. Develops skill at making instructional decisions based on assessment data.
Literacy Across the Curriculum
Examines reading comprehension, writing, and vocabulary skills critical for success in academic content areas. Investigates the impact of text difficulty, background knowledge, and understanding of text structure on comprehension of nonfiction text. Develops skill at teaching vocabulary, metacognitive, and study skills in the context of theme-based units.
Individualized Instruction in Literacy
Develops skill at diagnosing literacy needs through formal and informal assessments and planning research-based instruction. Twice-weekly tutorial sessions with struggling emergent readers in an off-campus laboratory setting. Emphasizes importance of readers’ cultural and linguistic backgrounds. (Requires permission of the instructor).
Diagnosis and Correction of Reading Problems
Extends competencies developed in RDG 622 in closely mentored, twice-weekly tutorials with struggling readers in upper elementary grades. Emphasizes design of instruction based on careful diagnosis of literacy needs. Develops literacy leadership skills. Prerequisite: RDG 622; permission of the instructor.
Teacher of Reading Practicum
150-hour supervised practicum in the role of teacher of reading, incorporating assessment, small group work, resource development, coaching and professional development, and outreach to parents. Seminar provides opportunities for critical reflection on practice and explores multiple roles of reading specialists. Prerequisites: RDG 622; requires permission of the instructor. Required of and restricted to students enrolled in the Teacher of Reading licensure program.


This was written by cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia and author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?” His next book, “When Can You Trust The Experts? How to tell good science from bad in education,” will be published in July. This appeared on his Science and Education blog.
By Daniel Willingham
I was just at a reading conference and gave a talk on reading comprehension strategies.
I’ve written about them before (article here). The next paragraph provides just a brief summary of what I’ve written. The lists below
that the point of reading is communication. And that if they can successfully say written words aloud but cannot understand what they’ve read, that’s a problem. Evidence for this point of view include data that kids don’t benefit much from reading comprehension instruction after 7th grade, likely because they’ve all drawn this conclusion, and that increased practice with reading comprehension strategies doesn’t bring any improved benefit. It’s a one-time increment.
Comprehension monitoring: Readers are taught to become of when they do not understand, for example by formulating exactly what is causing them difficulty.
Listening actively: Students learn to think critically as they listen and to appreciate that listening involves understanding a message from the speaker.
Graphic organizer: Students learn how to make graphic representations of texts, for example, story maps.
Question answering: After students read a text, the teacher poses questions that emphasize the information that students should have obtained from the text.
Question generation: Students are taught to generate their own questions, to be posed during reading, that integrate large units of meaning.
Summarization: Students are taught techniques of summarization, e.g., deleting redundant information and choosing a topic sentence for the main idea.
Mental imagery: Students are instructed to create a mental visual image based on the test.
Cooperative learning: Students enact comprehension strategies — for example, prediction and summarization — in small groups, rather than with the teacher.
Story structure: Students are taught the typical structure of a story and how to create a story map.
Multiple strategy instruction: Multiple strategies are taught, often summarization, prediction, question generation, and clarification of confusing words or passages.
Prior knowledge: Students are encouraged to apply what they know from their own lives to the text, or to consider the themes of the text before reading it.
Vocabulary-comprehension relationship : Students are encouraged to use background knowledge (as well as textual clues) to make educated guesses about the meaning of unfamiliar words.
How much time is devoted to reading comprehension strategy instruction? I can’t find good (or poor) data on this question, and I doubt it exists. There is so much variation among districts (and probably even classrooms) on this issue, it’s hard to draw a conclusion with much confidence. Any time I talk about reading, a lot of teachers, coaches, and administrators tell me that enormous amounts of time go to reading comprehension strategy instruction in their district—but I’m sure the people who make sure to mention this to me are not a random sample.
Whatever the proportion of time, much of it is wasted, at least if educators think it’s improving comprehension, because the one-time boost to comprehension can be had for perhaps five or ten sessions of 20 or 30 minutes each.
Some reading comprehension strategies might be useful for other reasons. For example, a teacher might want her class create a graphic organizer as a way of understanding how an author builds narrative arc
The wasted time obviously represents a significant opportunity cost. But has anyone ever considered that implementing these strategies make reading REALLY BORING? Everyone agrees that one of our long-term goals in reading instruction is to get kids to love reading. We hope that more kids will spend more time reading and less time playing video games, watching TV, etc.
How can you get lost in a narrative world if you think you’re supposed to be posing questions to yourself all the time? How can a child get really absorbed in a book about ants or meteorology if she thinks that reading means pausing every now and then to anticipate what will happen next, or to question the author’s purpose?
To me, reading comprehension strategies seem to take a process that could bring joy, and turn it into work.
Follow The Answer Sheet every day by bookmarking www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet.


FTCE Elementary Education K-6 Exam Study Guide
A student of elementary level requires a teacher who is all rounder and has knowledge of nearly about everything. An educator needs to be an extremely patient personality to deal with the students of elementary level. This personality is tested by Florida Department of Education board. This board conducts Florida Teacher Certification Examination to give certification to the candidate. Candidate has to pass FTCE Elementary Education Exam. After getting this certification candidate can practice in Florida State as an elementary educator. FLDOE offers two types of certification- professional and temporary certification. Professional certification is valid for the period of five academic years. Temporary certification is valid for three academic years.
Eligibility for FTCE Elementary Education Exam
To appear for FTCE Elementary Education Exam candidate needs to fulfill the eligibility conditions listed by the board. Candidate needs to have bachelor degree and specialization in the field when applying for professional certification. For temporary certification candidate needs to have 2.5 GPA in addition to bachelor degree. Candidate must submit finger prints reports to the board. This finger print report is the proof of no criminal track record against candidate. Candidate should keep in mind that professional certification is renewable but temporary certification is not.
Format of FTCE Elementary Education Exam
FTCE Elementary Education Exam covers wide range of syllabus and curriculum of the important headings. Candidate should study these topics well to score fair in FTCE Elementary Education Exam. Syllabus of FTCE Elementary Education Exam is:-
- • Reading process
- • Literal and Literature analysis
- • Writing process
- • Communication
- • Library as a medium
- • History
- • Geography
- • Civic and political science
- • Economics
- • Physical education and health
- • Visual and performing arts
- • Matter
- • Energy
- • Geology
- • Life sciences
- • Geometry
- • Algebra
Candidate should study these topics well and good. FTCE Elementary Education Exam is composed of 120 multiple choice questions of different format. It is advisable for the candidate to practice sample papers and questions before encountering the actual exam. The total duration for completion of exam is 150 minutes.
Study Guide And Test Preparation For FTCE Elementary Ed K-6 Exam
A Complete FTCE Elementary Ed K-6 Exam Study Guide that includes sample questions, test tips and a complete study plan prepared by a team of expert and dedicated researchers. Cost-effective and qualified exam help from a committed exam preparation company.


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Paintings in the Swedish Tradition
Aune, associate professor of art education, Department of Art and Design, uses the inspiration of Swedish patterns and motifs to reinterpret folk art and keep a tradition alive.
“When I was in art school, nature and decorative art were frowned upon,” she said. “Barbed wire and dead birds were considered serious, nitty-gritty art. That wasn’t me. I paint what I love. This collection honors my mother, as well as Swedish culture, and the art itself gives me the inner strength to buck the trends.” Aune does face opposition. Her work isn’t the postmodern conceptual art that is so often popular with American and Swedish audiences.
Undaunted in her quest for a fresh perspective, Aune traveled to Sweden to collect fabrics and textiles. These patterns formed the stimulus for this new body of work. Currently in Sweden, old textiles have little value. For less than a dollar, she purchased elaborate handmade weavings from an old woman on the street. The patterns hearken back to 18th-century work and Aune saw their potential, not only for her art, but also as anthropological artifacts.
In the States, at IKEA, a store that sells products designed in Sweden, Aune found few products that used traditional Swedish patterns. The ones she found, she purchased and incorporated as mixed media into her paintings. Knackebrod, a large, unleavened circular rye cracker, popular in Sweden, also played a role in her work. Patterns off the elaborately decorated packaging were used repeatedly in the series. One of Aune’s panel paintings, Dalarna Altar, uses a knackebrod image of two Swedish immigrants holding hands. “Knackebrod means Sweden to me,” she said. “It’s peasant food from poor soil of the cold north.”
Aune’s mother, Ilene, died of cancer 13 years ago, when Aune was a new mother. It is obvious to the viewer that there is strong emotion behind her brush strokes. Aune says that the paintings honor her mother, because they come from a maternal aspect of Swedish culture. The backgrounds in Aune’s paintings were found on clothing, folk costumes, kitchenware, cushions, linens, pillowcases, and other items of domestic adornment found in the Swedish home.
On the surface, Aune’s paintings seems purely decorative. “Dekorglädje” from the title of the exhibition, literally means decoration happiness. But as the viewer goes deeper, the layers have meaning. Aune explores the concept of domestic ethnography. Her patterns refer to historic feminine spaces and the differences in women’s lives.
“It’s humbling in a way,” she said. “The women who created this art were not doing it to make a name for themselves. It wasn’t ‘me, me, me,’ like it is today. They worked together, as medieval artisans did, to demonstrate pride and identity.” Each Swedish province used its own distinctive colors and patterns in decorative work. In Dalarna, a province in central Sweden, fabrics display a dark red background and a foreground of blue and yellow stylized flowers. “I use traditional Dalarna patterns as backgrounds for many of my paintings,” she said.
Aune uses words like music, beauty, hope, and happiness when she describes the paintings. When she talks about her work, images of peasant art through centuries and across oceans beckon. Like Bartok and Smetana who used village folk tunes in their compositions, and like Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm who collected fairytales from elders in the German countryside, Aune’s work listens attentively to the past. Its roots are from Swedish peasant society and American immigrants. “I haven’t completed the investigation yet,” she said. “This is a new body of work, and there is more of it coming. I’m still in the process of discovery. It’s important for me to respect this tradition and bring it forward into the 21st century.”
— Cheryl Reitan with Tom Gadbois
UMD Homepage 2007
Did you find what you were looking for? YES NO


Rosa Lee Carter
Rosa Lee Carter was born in Bluemont, Virginia. She earned her BA in elementary education from Storer College in West Virginia. She began her long teaching career in Loudoun at Powell's Grove in 1927. She then taught at Grant School in Middleburg, Virginia in the 1930's. Her first impression of teaching school was not a pleasant one. She noted that the disparities between black and white schools were to be a great challenge. She taught in adverse conditions, such as cold overcrowded classrooms, no water, leaky roofs and a lack of funds for books and necessities.
To create an atmosphere in her classroom that would be “helpful to living and learning,” Rosa Carter asked parents to donate furniture and books for a library corner. A bookcase and chairs were made from orange crates. They were painted by the children. A small table was donated by a parent and the books were given by members of the Community League (PTA). The children enjoyed reading in the library corner.
For many years, the two-room Grant School had overcrowded conditions. Rosa worked with the Community League to convince the School Board to rent the basement of Shiloh Baptist Church. The students in grades one and two were housed in the church basement until Benjamin Banneker School was built in 1948. Miss Carter taught at Banneker until she retired in 1978, after working tirelessly for 47 years. She then served an additional twenty years as a volunteer first grade teaching assistant at Middleburg Elementary.
Miss Carter was also active in her church and her community. She is still remembered by all as a kind, and gentle woman who through her courage, perseverance and her relentless pursuit of excellence, made a difference for so many young people in Loudoun County.


According to Americans for Arts, art education for children and youth includes many benefits. Learning about and participating in art throughout childhood can increase critical-thinking skills and enhance children’s ability to follow-through with goals throughout life. Since art is something that is enjoyed by people of all nations and backgrounds, exposure can help children move across socio-economic boundaries to develop diverse friendships throughout life.
A great teacher goes a long way to creating interest in art among elementary, middle and high school students, but quality art supplies can help keep students motivated to create their best projects. Here are five creative supplies that could enhance student learning in various environments.
For use at home or in school, a desk top easel of any type helps elementary-aged children feel like true artists. Easels from Melissa & Doug are especially colorful and are designed to catch the attention of young artists. Two ways to make art let children expand their imaginations and provides the youngest artists with multiple options when attention spans run short.
Light boxes are appropriate for use in upper elementary, middle grade, and high school art rooms. These tools make it easy for kids to transfer images onto fabric or other specialty projects, opening art education to kids of all craft skills. Many students lose interest in art because they find it difficult to perfect drawing skills, but light boxes allow everyone to move on to painting, wood work, stitching, or other forms of art.
The Kopykake Kobra K5000 art projector takes the idea behind a light box to a new level. With the projector, you can cast an image from almost any page or item onto the art surface you are working on.
Images from pages, books, and 3-dimensional objects can be projected onto an art canvas, sketchbook, or other surface on the work table. You can use the projector to teach students about sketching and drawing by providing them with templates to copy. Practice makes perfect, and the projector offers the same practice that early-elementary handwriting books do.
The project can also be used in middle and high school classrooms to boost student productivity on painting projects, murals, or drama sets.
When you think about art supplies, you probably don’t consider chairs and stools. Uncomfortable students are fidgety students, and they aren’t paying full attention to the lesson or project. Make sure your school art room is outfitted with stools, tables, or chairs that are ergonomically appropriate for the age and size of the children using the space.
As with any subject, all the learning can’t be accomplished at school. Parents or teachers that provide art learning kits for in-home use encourage students to bring the creativity and imagination of art class to the rest of their lives. Art kits usually include the basic tools and art supplies needed to create one or more projects in a specific niche, such as woodwork, painting, or sketching.
- Sara S.


Math and a Music Education
Library Home || Full Table of Contents || Suggest a Link || Library Help
|Ivars Peterson (Mathland)|
|Peterson discusses explorations into math and music by Pythagoras, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Leonhard Euler, Johann Sebastian Bach, Frederic Chopin, and twentieth-century composers, and cites a Nature journal article about a study suggesting that a weekly, structured music program can boost reading and math skills in early elementary school.|
|Levels:||Elementary, Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12)|
|Math Ed Topics:||Interdisciplinary/Thematic Studies, Psychological Research|
© 1994- Drexel University. All rights reserved.
The Math Forum is a research and educational enterprise of the Drexel University School of Education.


LTS Education is closely monitoring the progress of both the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness of College & Careers Consortium (PARCC).
As we learn more about question types and rigor for both consortia, LTS Education will continue to transform our content to fully align to the Smarter Balanced and PARCC exams. Our content and development team is working daily to create new material aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and integrate a variety of item formats that these technology-based assessments will deliver.
Our new content will include more complex literary and inferential passages with evidence-based selected response questions requiring close reading, more conceptual and multi-step mathematics problems, as well as new item types such as drag-and-drop and gridded response formats. We are committed to building other question formats as the CCSS consortia release them for public review.
By closely mirroring the PARCC & Smarter Balanced exams in both content and delivery, LTS web-based curriculum and assessments can provide valid preparation and learning experiences so that students will be prepared for either the PARCC or Smarter Balanced assessments, and for the increased rigor that the Common Core standards require.
LTS Education’s value for students and teachers
Rigorous expectations… more complex texts… higher order thinking skills….deeper, more critical understanding… these are the kind of descriptors we consistently hear about the Common Core State Standards.
While teachers and students are certainly feeling the pressure to rise to these ambitious expectations, LTS Education offers confidence and support as you refocus for the shift to Common Core State Standards and the new assessments.
Allow our Common Core resources to help you ease the transition. Equipped with a self-paced, self-directed adaptive learning program like Stride Academy, every student can be successful in mastering Common Core standards — even those who are several grade levels behind on foundational skills. Best of all, they’ll have fun and stay motivated while receiving differentiated instruction and skills practice.
LTS Education offers an array of Common Core resources for teachers who are making the instructional transition in their classrooms, while anticipating the PARCC and Smarter Balanced assessments.
Our Common Core-aligned Tools for Teachers include:
- Common Core-aligned Math and ELA online skills practice automatically differentiated for individual learners by our Stride adaptive engine.
- Math and ELA video lessons created by experienced teachers to address clear learning targets and foundational knowledge outlined by the Common Core. Lessons integrate engaging tasks and activities, thought-provoking and realistic problems and scenarios.
- Common Core-aligned Math and ELA printable study guide pages appropriate for individual student practice or as classroom lesson plans.
- Online formative assessments (four per academic year in Math and ELA) to assist in building strong standards outlined by the Common Core and monitoring progress on CCSS skills from one assessment to the next.
- Online diagnostic assessments (pre- and post-tests in Math and ELA) to identify mastery or non-mastery of specific CCSS skills at grade level and help teachers know which students to group together for optimal instructional impact.
- A custom online quiz builder, allowing teachers to select from our entire database of Common Core standards in Math & ELA to reinforce weekly lesson plans and unit plans, or create interim assessments.
- Real-time data reports with detail on specific Common Core standards to inform instructional decisions for individual students and the classroom as a whole.
At any given time, teachers and administrators can know exactly where their students are performing on CCSS.
Every one of us is in a learning mode.
We recognize that everyone participating in the shift to the Common Core State Standards is in a learning mode. LTS will remain alert and nimble to ensure that we maintain our fidelity to this bold move in American education.


New student enrichment periods called "personalized learning time," but officially termed Response to Instruction and Intervention or RTI2, has been added to help students transition to the tougher Common Core Standards.
The program was created to identify weaknesses beginning as early as kindergarten. In Tennessee, 36 districts have adopted some form of it, including the Dickson County Schools District.
Traditionally, schools directed struggling students out of classrooms into special education, an unwanted outcome.
Dickson County began planning for RTI2 in 2010. The district's former literacy coordinator, Evonne Dunn, and Director of Elementary Education for Dickson County Schools, Ernestine Adams, added a daily intervention, Power Learning Block or PLB, into each of the school district's elementary schools.
During PLB, students are grouped by skill and provided intervention, remediation, or enrichment.
In the county's middle schools, the daily intervention period is called Focus Time. Creek Wood High School calls their time Power Lunch and Dickson County High School refers to their units as Cougar Paws Time.
Dr. Mary Collins, the school district's new RTI2 Coordinator, said during those times students will be screened and from there educators will develop a plan of action.
"We use a skills-based universal screener three times a year in order to determine which students are most in need of intervention," said Collins. "From the screening results, we target interventions and instruction in order to meet the specific students' needs."
Dickson County students who have mastered any given skill will be given added "enrichment". Tier II students who performing "below average" will receive 30 minutes of remediation and students performing "well below average" will get 45 minutes of intervention.
Aligning with Common Core standards, assessments of math, literacy and writing, will be measured three times throughout the year.
"We put some effective components in place last year and feel that we have seen dividends already in regard to closing achievement gaps with our subgroups," said Adams. "Over the course of the last four years, we have added instructional coaches to support instruction for all students, interventions to target specific skill deficits, and interventionists to work specifically with our most needy students."


Learning Language Arts through Literature - Blue Book Common Sense Reading Program
|Publisher: Common Sense Press
Review last updated: 2009
|Instant KeyPublishers InfoPricing|
Learning Language Arts through
Literature - Blue Book
The Learning Language Arts Through Literature series begins with this complete beginning phonics and language arts program, a successful blending of integrated language with phonics instruction. Based on Ruth Beechick's ideas about teaching young children, this program integrates instruction for phonics, reading, spelling, handwriting, grammar and higher order thinking skills. It teaches with a great deal of hands-on activity and incorporates real books along with the program's readers.
The program comes in a boxed set including The Blue Book teacher manual, The Blue Book student activity book, three sets of beginning readers, and a materials packet. Consumable student activity books may be purchased separately for additional students.
The teacher manual outlines daily lesson plans. Some preparation time is required. You will need to collect materials like glue, crayons, markers, popsicle sticks, and old catalogs or magazines. You will, occasionally, need books from the library, for which you will need to plan ahead.
Many types of activities are built into the lessons so that students learn through all of their senses. This approach is especially good for Wiggly Willys. Students work with color-coded letters, phonograms, and words as well as with specially designed letter dice. Right after students learn the first few letters and sounds, they are introduced to the first readers to experience the fun of actually reading. Along with instruction, parents/teachers read stories to the student from storybooks pulled from the student activity book and from popular children's books that can be easily found at the library. Many of the included stories are fanciful, including some Aesop's Fables and other tales. The content is wholesome, but not overtly Christian.
Spelling and grammar instruction is truly integrated within the lessons rather than being treated as two more isolated subjects as we find in most programs. Handwriting receives more isolated attention as students receive instruction in letter formation and practice. The style of handwriting is unusual: it is a straight up and down manuscript style, but it has an unusual "calligraphy/slant print" look because most horizontal lines and curves are drawn on a slant. This style is used throughout the handwriting lessons, but not on the movable-letter cards or in the readers. This is neither good nor bad, just different. You can select another handwriting style to teach, but you will need to reconstruct the handwriting worksheets to do so.
The phonics coverage begins with letters and sounds and continues through long- and short-vowels, and consonant blends. However, you will need to continue with The Red Book for the next level to complete coverage of all phonograms.
The program impresses me as being one of the most interesting from a child's point of view, but it is likely to require more preparation and presentation time by the parent/teacher than many other programs.
- Suitable for: one-on-one or group
Audience: grade 1
Need for parent/teacher instruction: high
Prep time needed: high
Need for Teacher's Manual: essential
Religious perspective: secular but "Christian friendly"
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Separating twins in kindergarten — a common practice in schools across the country — can be traumatic for children and is often against the wishes of both the children and their parents, according to a new study by California State University, Northridge education professor Lynn Melby Gordon.
Gordon’s study, “Twins and Kindergarten Separation: Divergent Beliefs of Principals, Teachers, Parents, and Twins,” was published last week in the journal Educational Policy and is the first to explore the separation of twins in kindergarten by directly comparing and examining the beliefs of elementary school principals, kindergarten teachers, parents and twins.
“To put it simply, my research does not support the mandatory school-separation policies for all twins that are so prevalent in school districts across the country,” said Gordon, a professor in CSUN’s Department of Elementary Education and parent of twins herself. “School leaders should know that when a pair of twins has a genuine preference to stay together in school, it does not necessarily indicate a pathological co-dependence, a lack of individuality or an inability to make friends with other children. It is, more likely, simply indicative of a healthy, supportive relationship.”
As part of her research, Gordon surveyed principals, kindergarten teachers and preschool- and kindergarten-age twins and their parents about separating twins when they begin their formal educational experience in kindergarten.
She found that principals are much more likely to believe that twins should be separated in kindergarten than the young twins themselves, their parents and even kindergarten teachers. While a majority, 71 percent, of the principals she surveyed said they felt twins should be separated in kindergarten, only 49 percent of the teachers, 38 percent of the parents and 19 percent of the preschool and kindergarten twins agreed.
“A troubling finding from the group of principals surveyed is that over half of separation-favoring principals believe that twins do better academically when they are placed in separate classes, and almost one quarter erroneously believe that twins do better academically when they are placed in separate classes,” Gordon said. “The presumptions are not supported by the existing body of twin research. Instead, studies tend to show either no difference in the academic achievement of twins placed together versus apart or that academic achievement tends to be better when the twins are placed together.”
She found that 81 percent of preschool and kindergarten twins want to stay together in kindergarten, but about 58 percent of twins are separated into different classes. Female identical twins are most likely to report wanting to stay together in the same class in kindergarten.
Gordon said that most parents favor joint placement of twins in kindergarten.
“Perhaps not surprisingly, 95 percent of parents believe they know their kids best, and believe that schools should try to honor their class placement requests for twins,” she said.
She noted that kindergarten teachers would not mind having a set of twins in their class.
Three percent of all twins who are placed in separate classes are very traumatized by kindergarten separation, and an additional 17 percent are somewhat traumatized, according to parents. In the meantime, 69 percent of principals believe that separation is probably a little traumatic, and six percent believe that separating twins is very traumatic.
Gordon said there are instances when twins are likely to benefit from class separation.
“For example, when twins display pronounced behavior problems with one another at home or in preschool, parents recognize this to be a clear and practical reason to separate those individuals at least for a few hours a day while they are in school,” she said. “But the study’s primary conclusion is that, unless there is a compelling reason to separate twins, it is often best to keep them together, at least in kindergarten.”


I Celebrate Chinese New Year describes three traditional holidays and festivals including Chinese New Year, the Dragon Boat Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. Although these festivals began in China hundreds of years ago, they are now celebrated all over the world by both Chinese people and people of all nationalities.
I Celebrate Chinese New Year also offers a unique perspective on these traditional Chinese holidays and festivals because it is made up of interviews and illustrations collected from Chinese Americans and Chinese Citizens. You too can celebrate the Chinese New Year, Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn Moon Festival by reading this book and completing the activities.
Sarah Beltz will graduate in 2010 from Bloomsburg University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education with a concentration in Language Arts. In the summer of 2008, Beltz traveled to China as part of the Pennsylvania State System of Education Honors Study Aboard Program. During the trip, Beltz visited the Shandong Province, Beijing, the Yunnan Province, and Shanghai. After returning to the United States from China, Beltz began to conduct interviews and gather research to create the book, I Celebrate Chinese New Year. The book was one component of a larger honors independent study project designed to create and evaluate educational resources to teach Elementary students about China and Chinese culture. Beltz will present this project at the 2009 National Collegiate Honors Conference in Washington D.C. Beltz hopes to one day share her project and I Celebrate Chinese New Year with other elementary teachers the students in her own classroom.
Comience a crear su propio libro hoy desde 3.99 US $.


(National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 1997; Olson and Goldstein, 1997) covers several areas:
Use of native-language assessments. Assessments can be developed in languages other than English, a strategy under active investigation. New York state, for example, will offer three of its four core subject Regents examinations in five languages in addition to English (Spanish, Haitian-Creole, Russian, Chinese, and Korean); the English exam must be taken in English.
A number of technical difficulties arise in attempting to create a comparable test in another language. Difficulties include "problems of regional and dialect difference, nonequivalence of vocabulary difficulty between the two languages, problems of incomplete language development and lack of literacy development in students' primary languages, and the extreme difficulty of defining a 'bilingual' equating sample (each new definition of a bilingual sample will demand a new statistical equating). Minimally, back-translation should be done to determine equivalent meaning, and ideally, psychometric validation should be undertaken as well" (National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 1997:121).
Results of a recent NAEP field test of mathematics items illustrates the challenge of using native-language assessments (Anderson et al., 1996). "Spanish-language items were translations of English-version items. This research found substantial psychometric discrepancies in students' performance on the same test items across both languages, leading to the conclusion that the Spanish and English versions of many test items were not measuring the same underlying mathematical knowledge. This result may be attributable to a lack of equivalence between original and translated versions of test items and needs further investigation" (National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 1997:122).
Implementation of non-English-language achievement tests as part of assessment systems needs to be accompanied by research establishing the validity and reliability of such assessments and their comparability to scores on related assessments in English.
Decreasing the English-language load through modification of items or instructions. This is difficult to do and research thus far is limited. "While some experts recommend reducing nonessential details and simplifying grammatical structures (Short, 1991), others claim that simplifying the


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|1st - 2nd||3rd - 4th|
|5th - 6th||7th - 8th|
|9th - 10th||11th - 12th|
Whole-to-Parts Phonics Instruction: Teaching Letter-Sound Correspondences
|Grades||K – 2|
|Lesson Plan Type||Standard Lesson|
|Estimated Time||Two 30-minute sessions|
MATERIALS AND TECHNOLOGY
|1.||Make sure that students are familiar with the concept of initial and final word sounds, and that students can identify and name letters necessary for building words in the /-ill/ family.
|2.||Prepare the following materials in advance:


The PSAT (Preliminary SAT), qualifies you for the National Merit Scholarship. It is also a wonderful test to help you practice for the SAT.
The PSAT measures:
- Critical reading skills
- Math problem-solving skills
- Writing skills
Why Take the PSAT?
- Receive feedback on your strengths and weaknesses on skills necessary for college study.
- See how your performance on an admissions test might compare with that of others applying to college.
- Enter the completion for scholarships from National Merit Scholarships (grade 11).
- Help prepare for the SAT.
- Receive information from colleges when you check "yes" to the Student Search Service.
The SAT tests the subject matter learned by students in high school and how well they apply that knowledge, through critical thinking, mathematics and writing.
- Three sections test critical reading (70 minutes total)
- Three sections test mathematics (70 Minutes total)
- Three sections test writing (60 minutes total)
- One variable (unscored) section tests critical reading, mathematics, or writing (25 minutes total)
Why Take The SAT?
- All colleges accept the SAT as an objective measurement of students' college readiness.
- Taking the SAT gives students access to scholarship opportunities
- Many colleges require the SAT or ACT as an entrance requirement.
The ACT tests what students have learned in high school courses in English, Mathematics and Science.
- English: 45 minutes
- Math: 60 minutes
- Reading: 35 minutes
- Science: 35 minutes
- Optional Writing: 30 minutes
Why Take The ACT?
- Taking the ACT gives students access to scholarship opportunities.
- There is no penalty for guessing on the ACT.
- Many colleges require the ACT or the SAT as an entrance requirement.
SAT II- Subject Tests
Some colleges will require that you take SAT II Subject Tests.
- Subject tests are a way for students to show their thorough knowledge of a certain subject, as well as their academic interest and determination to succeed.
- For more information or to register click here
The MVHS Counseling and Career website provides links to other websites as a convenience for our students, staff, and others who may visit our pages. Our school does not sanction or guarantee the accuracy or propriety of any information, offered services or products contained in any website linked directly or indirectly to our site.


NI lagging behind in OECD literacy and numeracy study
- 8 October 2013
- From the section Northern Ireland
Adult literacy and numeracy skills in Northern Ireland are broadly similar to counterparts in England and the Republic of Ireland, but well below countries like Japan, Finland and the Netherlands.
A major study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) puts Northern Ireland 19th out of 24 both in numeracy and literacy.
The average score for Northern Ireland was significantly below the OECD average.
A total of 3,761 people aged between 16 and 65 were surveyed in Northern Ireland for the international report.
Each person had to answer a background questionnaire and complete a set of assessments.
The report suggested that since 1996, overall literacy levels in Northern Ireland had significantly improved.
While Northern Ireland's literacy and numeracy levels were better than France, Italy and Spain and broadly similar to England and the Republic of Ireland, the top performing countries of Japan, Finland and the Netherlands were some way ahead.
A report based on the survey's findings for the Department of Employment and Learning concluded that "fewer Northern Ireland adults are performing at the lowest literacy levels".
It added: "The results show that literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills are well-rewarded in the Northern Ireland labour market with those individuals who have the highest skills earning the most.
"Nevertheless, despite these improvements, working-age adult competencies have some way to go to match the best performing countries in literacy, numeracy and problem solving."
This landmark study from the OECD set out to measure the level of skills within the adult population - testing actual ability in literacy, numeracy and digital skills, rather than looking at qualifications.
It involved 166,000 adults taking tests in 24 education systems, representing populations of 724 million people. From the UK, adults in England and Northern Ireland participated.
The study looked at the level of skills across the adult population, between the ages of 16 and 65.


Many pediatric occupational and physical therapists work with children who exhibit decreased sensory processing such as decreased body awareness, motor planning and proprioception. These difficulties of sensing where a child is in space can interfere with motor skill development, peer interaction and safety. We are all familiar with therapy sessions that focus on proprioceptive input, following motor commands and activities that encourage the children to learn where their body is in space. One additional activity to consider is fully exploring the environment where the functional skills are to be learned.
Let's take this goal for example: Johnny will negotiate the classroom without bumping into stationary objects 100% of the time. As stated previously, therapy may consist of body awareness activities, proprioceptive input (heavy work activities) and motor planning skills. If it is pull out therapy all of this takes place outside of the true environment. If it is push in therapy perhaps skills are practiced in during recess, physical education or sometimes in the classroom. BUT do you remember to explore and practice skills in the actual environment?
Remember to not only practice activities but how about really exploring the area where "Johnny" is having difficulties. When the classroom is empty, go inside and have Johnny walk in and around the desks and chairs. Johnny can crawl under desks, kneel down and sit in different locations in the classroom. Add in games or activities to keep it novel. Provide verbal cues as Johnny walks by items ie. this desk is wide or this aisle is narrow. This exploration allows Johnny to develop a motor map of his surroundings with him in it. He can develop a better sense of how big desks are, how tall are the chairs, how wide is the carpet and how far is the bathroom.
This can apply to different areas of the school or home. How about the cafeteria? Let a child explore it to help define a motor map for in between cafeteria tables, on the cafeteria line and around garbage cans. At home, if furniture is changed around allow time to just explore the new areas and obstacles without adding in the stressors of different goals. Now when you do start to add in the actual functional tasks that needs to be accomplished, Johnny should have a much better idea of what you are expecting of him.
In summary, keep it simple sometimes and start out with just simply exploring the surroundings without adding in any other functional tasks to help build a strong foundation.


A Case Study of Literacy Development Through Whole Language in a Tenth-Grade Language Arts Classroom
Flora, Sharon Ashman
MetadataShow full item record
The Problem: The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe and document the perceptions of twenty-two tenth-grade English students and their two language arts teachers as they implemented Atwell's whole language reading/writing workshop approach toward the development of true literacy, which was defined in this study as the ability to use critical thinking skills to solve problems. Procedures: The researcher was a participant observer in the classroom approximately twice a week, one hour a day for an 18 week period. In this case study, theory was grounded in the contextual descriptions that the students and teachers revealed through interviews, portfolios, journals, and observations of their learning to be readers and writers. Relationships between whole language and active learning were examined through changing teacher roles, changing student roles, and changing student concepts. Findings: Finds of this study showed that the Atwell readinglwriting model is a successful vehicle for literacy development. Teachers and students adopted new roles enabling them to become more effective problem solvers. There was a collaborative effort between student and teacher to choose meaningful content, benchmarks for success, and evidence of student self-reflection. This pedagogy combined curriculum, instruction and assessment in an integrated way to support students in their active construction of knowledge and meaning as they used self-regulated, creative and critical thinking. Conclusions: The conclusions of this study were that students have to be active participants in a constructive learning environment to produce authentic products; teachers must perceive of themselves as facilitators rather than controllers of learning; students must perceive that they have been given the trust to make appropriate choices about their literacy development; and each student must be able to reflect upon and to develop his or her individual literacy. Recommendations: The model was applied with success in this one classroom providing clear evidence that there are implications for future studies: (a) Whole language helps students learn. (b) Authenticity is an essential aspect of whole language. (c) Whole language and authentic assessment involve student interaction. (d) Teacher evaluation should be focused on learning instead of assigning grades.
viii, 209 leaves. Advisor: James L. Romig
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be reckoned liberal which train and educate the faculties of man as man.
Now, the only conception of a liberal education that will satisfy these new conditions, the only conception of an education capable of becoming national and universal, at the same time that it is liberal, is that of a training of the national mind through the mother-tongue as the chief, and other tongues as the subordinate instruments, in the elements of all those branches of knowledge which, used in their rudiments as elements of general training, will develop, in their higher stages, into the objects of professional pursuits. Is there any other distinction than this between general and professional? In the infancy of knowledge, all callings, trades, and professions, are mysteries, whose secrets are carefully guarded from the uninitiated. Every mechanic belongs to his trade-guild, and has his trade-secrets. When Philip of Burgundy destroyed the little town of Dinant, in the Low Countries, the art of making copper vessels became, for the time being, a lost art. With the progress of general intelligence mystery falls away from simpler occupations, but still attaches to
- Nothing seems to me more thoroughly unrepublican and illiberal than the ground taken, by some who profess to be preeminently the advocates of liberal learning, against the promotion of higher education by grants from the state. Let the state promote the advancement of elementary education, they say, but for higher institutions to handle government moneys is only to touch pitch, and therewith be defiled. The distinction represents a remnant of aristocratic feeling, and springs from the idea that it is the duty of the educated, as a higher class, to take a paternal care for the masses; not the duty of the people, as a self-governing community, to give itself a liberal education. One cannot well see a higher function to be performed by the people, acting as a body, than to promote, by public action, its own higher education. If a line is to be drawn, beyond which its action should not reach, where shall it be drawn? Shall the people be allowed to promote the teaching of the three R's, and the four rules of arithmetic, but be forbidden to meddle with any thing beyond them? And in whose hands is the higher education to remain, in a country which has no established church? Is its progress forever to remain at the fitful mercy of an unenlightened and unsystematic private charity? The question as to the right means and methods of governmental action is undoubtedly a grave one, but no educational waste of state or national resources is ever likely to equal the waste arising from the capricious absurdity of private endowments. We have, indeed, of late, been startled by revelations of government corruption, but they have but a poor notion of the capacities of republicanism who are scared by them into that meanest of all political theories, the doctrine that the sole function of a government is merely to enact the part of head constable. A far juster view is that propounded by one of the best of England's teachers. "As the condition of social, and, to some extent, political independence," says the Rev. Mark Pattison, "is necessary to prevent material interests from stifling and absorbing studies, so the condition of sympathy with the general mind is necessary both to sustain the required activity and to make the university a proper seminary for the education of the national youth. The nation does not hire a number of learned men to teach its children: it itself educates them, through an organ into which its own best intellect, its scientific genius, is regularly drafted. This education is, in short, nothing but the free action of life and society, localized, economized, and brought to bear."—("Oxford Essays for 1855," p. 259.)


As educators, we are in urgent need of a newly conceived language and literacy curriculum….We need rich visions of classroom possibilities, and that is just what Janet Evans and her colleagues offer in abundance.
Anne Haas Dyson, Michigan State University
When it comes to new and different literacies, children are ahead of the curve. Their daily engagement with popular culture and technology is changing the very nature of what it means to be literate and raising questions for teachers.
How are children shaped by these literacies and how do they shape the popular culture around them?
What's the best way to help young readers capitalize on their cultural and technological knowledge to make sense of the all the messages they take in?
Literacy Moves On tackles 21st century literacy, and demonstrates how you can bridge the gap between children's interests and your curriculum. With an emphasis on celebrating children's development of new and different literacies and their participation in the dynamic and rapidly changing world around them, Janet Evans and a group of internationally known literacy experts:
- examine and demystify some of the influences on contemporary literacy, including popular culture; new technologies; and critical literacy
- enhance your awareness of how these influences connect to the emergence of children's literacy abilities and the development of their critical literacy skills
- show, through special "Implications for Practice" sections, how you can link children's individual, out-of-school interests with the demands of your school's curriculum.
Popular culture and technology are second nature to kids—but not always to their teachers. Read Literacy Moves On and plug your established best-practice teaching into Digital-Age ideas of literacy development. You'll give students the skills they need to not only participate in their increasingly complex world, but to make personalized meaning in it.
Introduction: The Changing Nature of Literacy in the Twenty-First Century
I. "New" Literacies and Children's Ways of Using Them
II. Focusing on Texts with a Critical Eye: Critical Literacy in the Elementary School
- Multimodal Texts: What They Are and How Children Use Them, Eve Bearne
- Moving Stories: Digital Editing in the Nursery, Jackie Marsh
- Children Reading and Interpreting Stories in Print, Film, and Computer Games, Margaret Mackey
- The Dagger of Doom and the Mighty Handbag: Exploring Identity in Children's On-Screen Writing, Guy Merchant
III. Bridging the Gap Between Children's Personal Interests and Teachers' School-Based Curriculum Demands
- Creating Opportunities for Critical Literacy with Young Children: Using Everyday Issues and Everyday Text, Vivian Vasquez
- Beanie Babies: An Opportunity to Promote Literacy Development or a Money-Spinner for the Business Tycoons?, Janet Evans
- Children Reread and Rewrite Their Neighborhood: Critical Literacies and Identity Work, Barbara Comber & Helen Nixon
- Curiosity Kits: Linking Reading and Play in the Middle Years, Ros Fisher
- Writing About Heroes and Villains: Fusing Children's Knowledge About Fantasy Texts with School-Based Literacy Requirements, Elaine Millard
- Getting It Right for Children: Making Meaningful Connections Between Culture, Community, and School, Dominic Scott
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Understanding difficulties in literacy development : issues and concepts
- Los Angeles : Sage ; Milton Keynes, U.K. : Open University, 2009.
- Physical description
- viii, 268 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.
LB1050.5 .U53 2009
- Unknown LB1050.5 .U53 2009
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- PART ONE: WHAT IS LITERACY? WHAT ARE 'DIFFICULTIES IN LITERACY'? Literacy: In search of a paradigm - Naz Rassool Globalisation, literacy and society: Redesigning pedagogy and assessment - David Johnson and Gunther Kress The historical construction of dylsexia: Implications for Higher Education - Janet Soler PART TWO: ISSUES AND CONCEPTS IN PUBLIC READING DEBATES Literacy as a complex activity: Deconstructing the simple view of reading - Morag Stuart, Rhona Stainthorp, Maggie Snowling The irrelevancy - and danger - of the 'simple view' of reading to meaningful standards - Victoria Purcell-Gates Ehri's model of phases of learning to read: A brief critique - John R Beech Siblings bridging literacies in multilingual contexts - Ann Williams and Eve Gregory Boys' underachievement: Issues, challenges and possible ways forward - Joe Burns and Paul Bracey Re-counting 'Illiteracy': Literacy skills in the sociology of social inequality - Geoff Payne PART THREE: LITERACY CURRICULUM POLICY CONTEXTS Research and the National Literacy Strategy - Roger Beard Literacy policy and policy literacy: A tale of phonics in early reading in England - Kathy Hall 'To be or not to be?': The politics of teaching phonics in England and New Zealand - Janet Soler and Roger Openshaw Powerful literacies: The policy context - Mary Hamilton, Catherine Macrae and Lyn Tett PART FOUR: COMMUNITY, FAMILY, SOCIETY AND INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY The self-concept and its relationship to educational achievement - Robert Burden The self-concept and dyslexia - David Pollak PART FIVE: SOCIAL JUSTICE, EQUITY ISSUES AND LEARNING DISABILITIES Special education's changing identity: Paradoxes and dilemmas in views of culture and space - Alfredo J Artiles The cultural work of learning disabilities - Ray McDermott, Shelley Goldman and Herve Varenne.
- (source: Nielsen Book Data)
- Publisher's Summary
- Based on current research, debates and concerns, this Reader adopts a cross disciplinary approach to understanding and working with those who experience difficulties with literacy. It provides a broad view of difficulties in literacy and related educational and curriculum learning issues across a range of ages, phases and settings. The Reader first considers questions of literacy, before going on to look at literacy development in relation to: issues and concepts in public reading debates; literacy curriculum policy contexts; community, family, society and individual identity; and, social justice and equity issues and learning disabilities. This Reader is relevant to all postgraduate students of Literacy, as well as educators, professionals and policy makers.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
- Publication date
- edited by Janet Soler, Felicity Fletcher-Campbell and Gavin Reid.


Oral Counting | Missing Number | Number Identification | Quantity Discrimination
aimsweb Test of Early Numeracy (TEN) assessments can be purchased as part of an aimsweb subscription.
From the early 1990’s to the present, increased attention has been placed on effective assessment and teaching practices for reading. One of the key aspects to arise from this movement has been a focus on the prevention of reading difficulties before they occur. For this to happen, educators needed tools to help them make decisions about students at-risk for failure in reading.
A similar movement is taking place in the assessment and teaching of mathematics. Currently, educators can use Mathematics Concepts and Applications (M-CAP) or Mathematics Computation (M-COMP) to monitor the progress of children in mathematics after they are doing formal mathematics. However, this does not occur until the first and second grades. Thus students may be failing to acquire critical mathematical knowledge that will form the basis of later understanding. Educators need tools to identify these at-risk children before problems occur.
What tools then exist to help us identify children at-risk for later failure in mathematics and what early numeracy skills should they be based upon? Because children come to school with a number of informal math skills such as counting, ability to identify numbers, discriminate between quantities, and formulate mental number lines, measures of early mathematics can be based upon these early informal math skills.
When educators are interested in making decisions with General Outcome Measurement so they can make accurate meaningful statements about student early numeracy growth and development, they use Early Numeracy General Outcome Measurements. Based on research examining the development of children’s informal mathematical knowledge, each measure requires the student to demonstrate a skill that provides a foundation for the latter acquisition of formal mathematics taught in school.
Students orally count, identify numbers, identify the bigger number from a pair, and identify the missing number from a number line. Each task is one minute and designed to represent a critical early numeracy skill for kindergarten and first grade students.
The four aimsweb TEN assessments are used to identify students at risk and monitor the progress monitor of all students in Kindergarten and early Grade 1 as they move on the pathway to good math skills.


At first glance, Minnesota students posted pretty dismal results on the Minnesota Comprehenvise Assessments, the results of which were released to the public today.
Math was down a little. Reading was down a lot as the result of a tougher, new test. And minority students didn't post the kind of gains to start to reverse the state's stubborn achievement gap.
But there was one notable exception that warrants mentioning - science.
All Minnesota students taking the science exam posted gains. Those students include every minority group, students who receive free and reduced price lunches, students learning English, and students enrolled in special education.
Statewide, 60 percent of fifth graders were proficient in science, 44 percent of eighth graders and 53 percent of all high school students taking the science exam. On average, those numbers refect a one to two point increase compared to the 2011-2012 school year.
In fact, fifth graders were equally as proficient in science as they were in reading last school year. In the past, statewide science scores lagged behing reading scores.
And while that could change as students get a better grasp of the new reading standards, science education advocates say this year's scores shouldn't be dismissed.
"I've worked in the science education field for quite some time, and what this shows me is that Minnesota science teachers are not just paying attention to what needs to be taught, but how to teach it well," said Patty Born Selly, executive director of the National Center for STEM Elementary Education at St. Catherine University.
In 2009, the state revised its science standards to add a new emphasis on engineering.
Over the past three years, schools focused exclusively on science, technology, engineering and mathmatics (STEM) have increased from 32 to 145 in Minnesota, according to the Minnesota Department of Education.


North Salt Lake, UT (PRWEB) October 17, 2013
Beginning this year, teachers and literacy coaches in the Colonial School District of New Castle, Delaware, will use Reading Horizons reading instruction strategies in all K–1 classrooms to improve students’ reading skills.
The district first used Reading Horizons strategies in reading intervention classrooms to help struggling students develop a strong foundation in phonics. Pleased by improvements it saw, the district eventually purchased components of Reading Horizons direct instruction materials to broaden the use of the strategies into mainstream classes and supplement the core curriculum.
Aligned to the Common Core State Standards, the Reading Horizons program features an explicit, sequential, systematic approach to reading instruction. Students learn to decode one-syllable and multi-syllabic words by analyzing them and applying simple markings. The highly interactive, multi-sensory design of the program accommodates the different ways students learn (by using visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic modalities), so each student can succeed—no matter the dominant learning style.
Matt Crismon, Certified Trainer for Reading Horizons, has helped the district’s teachers and literacy coaches learn the new strategies. He sees a lot of enthusiasm and excitement about this new addition to the curriculum. “By supplementing the core program with Reading Horizons, the district is helping teachers get the instructional support they need.” He adds, “educators really like our professional development because it is not a passive learning experience; it engages them. We show how to build and use strategies in the classroom so teachers will be able to provide students with the foundational skills crucial for reading success.”
The district’s literacy coaches have attended a couple of two-day workshops, and three of the literacy coaches have even gone on to become certified trainers in the Reading Horizons methodology. After the training, literacy coaches can help ensure that teachers fully understand how to teach the strategies and use the materials.
Reading Horizons is also helping the district meet its goal of providing greater differentiated instruction for its students. Because of the flexible program design, Reading Horizons can be taught whole class, one-on-one, or in small groups, so teachers can target instruction in specific skills to just those students who need it. The program is suitable for all levels of student skill and is especially helpful for students with language processing disorders and English Language Learners.
About Reading Horizons:
Founded in 1984, Reading Horizons provides teacher training, teacher’s manuals, and interactive software that empower teachers to effectively teach beginning readers, struggling readers, and English Language Learners. By learning the core of the Reading Horizons framework (The 42 Sounds of the Alphabet, Five Phonetic Skills, and Two Decoding Skills), students have all of the skills they need to read the vast majority of words in the English language. The Reading Horizons program is currently offered in over 10,000 schools across the country. Follow Reading Horizons at http://www.readinghorizons.com.


|Art Curriculum for Secondary Education|
|CLASS CODE:||ART 406||CREDITS: 3|
|DIVISION:||PERFORMING AND VISUAL ARTS|
|GENERAL EDUCATION:||This course does not fulfill a General Education requirement.|
|DESCRIPTION:||Skills and methods necessary to delvelop an art curiculum for the secondary classroom.|
|CONTENT AND TOPICS:||Lesson objectives, developing art curriculum and lesson plans, teaching methods, assessment strategies and understanding art content, classroom discipline, safety, materials management and program maintenance.|
|GOALS AND OBJECTIVES:||-- Write lesson objectives which describe how students will demonstrate learning.
-- Create meaningful art curriculum and lesson plans that demonstrate understanding of art content, teaching methods, and assessment strategies.
-- Teach effective lessons to peers.
-- Make interdisciplinary connections between art and other content areas.
-- Use a variety of assessment strategies.
-- Understand effective classroom management skills for art education including classroom discipline, materials management, safety, and program maintenance.
-- Create visual resources for the art classroom.
|PREREQUISITES:||Junior level status. Sec. Ed. 370|
|EFFECTIVE DATE:||August 2004|


Being motivated helps learning – a lot more than you’d think
One of my favourite books on talent is Daniel Coyle’s ‘The talent code’. And from that book, the above is my favourite picture. What does it mean?
The above graph is from an investigation by Gary McPherson et al. who studied primary school children taking up music lessons, interviewing and testing them in advance, trying to predict how fast they’d learn to master their instrument. Why did some students soar ahead, while others lagged far behind? Was it IQ? Aural sensitivity (whatever that is)? Math skills? Sense of rhythm? Sensorimotor skills? None of them seemed to explain the differences in performance. One thing, however, did.
That one thing was motivation, as measured by the question “How long do you expect to play this instrument? Through this year? Through primary school? Through high school? All your life?” These answers were subdivided into three categories, short-term commitment, medium-term commitment and long-term commitment. Next to that, McPherson measured how much each child practiced every week: low (20 minutes a week), medium (45 minutes a week) and high (90 minutes a week) [EWL: I’m not certain whether Coyle has reported these measures accurately, as future top pianists, for example, started out at between 60 minutes and 90 minutes a day, even at age 5] Anyway, the above grapth shows the measured relationship between musical progress, on a performance scale, motivation, and average weekly practice.
The stunning thing about these results is that practice in itself barely makes performance perfect in the low-motivation group, but that intensive practice seems to synergize with high motivation; if you have high motivation but practice briefly, you will already outshine hard-practicing students with low motivation, but if you combine high motivation and high practice, performance soars far above what you would expect from the rest of the data. For example, 20 minutes of practice with high motivation gives the same results as 45 minutes of practice with medium motivation, but if you’d (mathematically) expect motivation to double learning speed, 45 minutes of high motivation should give the same effect as 90 minutes of medium motivation. Not so: it gives far more, if we would extend the lines, it’d give the same effect as 360 minutes per week of medium-motivated practice. Motivation and practice time seem to feed off each other in quadratic or perhaps even exponential ways!
The conclusions that can be drawn from this are:
1) You spend less time learning while making more progress when you practice more per week; Spending 20 minutes per week learning something is very time-inefficient, in 1 year you have spent 1040 minutes for a level that you could have reached in less than a third of the time if you had practiced twice as much every week. So, try to concentrate your practice. There’s probably a practical limit for it, but that limit seems unlikely to be lower than 90 minutes a week.
2) Before you start learning something, check your motivation, and try to get it as high as possible; you’ll save lots of time, and make much faster progress.
Of course, McPherson’s research leaves at least one puzzling question (how can motivation be so powerful) and one pragmatic question (how can you upgrade your motivation?). The answer on the first question is, if we can believe research on monkey’s reported in “Principles of Learning and Memory” by Rainer H. Kluwe et al. (eds), that monkeys who don’t pay attention to a signal don’t learn anything from it, and that motivation may well work by energizing the mind to pay careful attention, instead of going “through the movements”. On how to enhance motivation, I unfortunately don’t know any ultimate psychological answers; I’ve recorded my insights so far in a post on growing a passion. Additional insights are however welcome, given the importance of motivation in learning, we may want to know as much about it as possible.
Edit: while the diagram is a scan from Coyle's book, the original version can be found in McPherson's paper "Commitment and Practice: Key Ingredients for Achievement During the Early Stages of Learning a Musical Instrument", Council for Research in Music Education, 147 (2001), 122-127. Thanks to reader Katharina for reminding me!


Are you tired of hearing your child’s pediatrician or dietitian preach about increasing fruits and vegetables? Replacing refined carbohydrates with whole grains? Why not just give them a multivitamin? Perhaps you don’t eat fruits and vegetables and do not buy whole grain pasta or bread products. Are you thinking that the idea of making changes in your family’s eating habits is too much to handle right now? Besides, aren’t fruits and vegetables more expensive? Well, read on and learn!
Cardiovascular disease and cancer are the leading causes of death in the United States. The cost for treatment of these diseases can put families in dept due to medical costs. Antioxidants, which are abundant in fruit, vegetables and whole grains, have been shown to reduce risks related to these diseases.
Is it worth paying an extra penny to include more of these foods in your diet? The answer is YES!
Food sources high in antioxidants:
- Vitamin C: Broccoli, oranges, watermelon, red bell peppers, kiwi, mango, pineapple, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes
- Vitamin E (easily destroyed by heat): Vegetable oil, salad dressing, seeds, nuts, and peanut butter
- Beta-Carotene: Apricots, broccoli, pumpkin, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrots
- Flavonoids: Whole grains, berries, black tea, celery, citrus fruits, green tea, olives, onion, oregano, purple grapes, purple grape juice, soybeans, and vegetables
Tips to include more antioxidants in your child’s diet:
- Make it a habit to include fruit with your child’s breakfast, give them a choice between different fruits to increase acceptance.
- Although fresh is best, if you find that fruits and vegetables age quickly in your home before use, buy canned or frozen instead to avoid waste.
- Always include a vegetable with lunch and dinner, even if your child chooses not to eat it. Someday, they will surprise you! If they are never offered these foods, they will likely not choose them as they grow and become more independent…so start now!!!
- Pasta sauce is a good source of antioxidants, dip bread sticks and pour onto meats/vegetables.
- Do not spend an arm and leg on supplements, spend it on food, whole food!! Your child is worth it!
About our Expert: Shannon Burkett, RD, LD, dietician at Dayton Children’s
Shannon is a gradute of Purdue University with a BA in elementary education and a graduate of Loyola University of Chicago with a DPD Dietetics and Nutrition. She completed a dietetic internship at Miami Valley Hospital and worked at WIC and long term care before coming to Dayton Children’s. Shannon has worked with the Hematology and Oncology population at Dayton Children’s for two years. She also has certificate in childhood and adolescent weight management through the American Dietetic Association. Her favorite hobby is cooking. She loves trying new recipes and creating meals from scratch. She says, ”There is just something that is so rewarding about eating a delicious healthy meal that I have created, without using prepacked, processed foods. It’s both good for my body and my family’s health!”


Does the Children Learning Reading Program Really Work?
If you're looking for a review of Children Learning Reading and to find out if it really works or not, then you've come to the right place! Want to know if it really works? Take a minute and watch this video below of a 3 year old reading books that learned to read using the Children Learning Reading program:
As you can see from the video above, the 3 year old was not only reading children's books, but was reading rather fluently. Most people would be impressed to see a small child read some simple words, and perhaps some simple sentences, but the 3 year old girl in the video was able to read entire children's books. And you can easily tell that she was not reading from memory because occasionally with certain unfamiliar words, she was clearly decoding the words through sounding out the phonemes, and then connecting the phonemes together to say the words.
Helping children learn to read effectively by developing phonemic awareness is what Children Learning Reading is really about. Through their effective step by step reading program, your small child learns to read first by learning about the most basic building blocks of English - the alphabet and their respective sounds or phonemes. Your child is then taught how to work with these phonemes to connect them together to sound out words, and through plenty of practice material provided by the Children Learning Reading program, you child develops very effective decoding and reading skills.
Children Learning Reading Review - How Does it Work?
Children Learning Reading is designed for parents with young children, typically between ages of 2 to 6, where the child has learned to speak clearly. Their reading program makes it clear that it is important that a small child must be able to speak clearly before starting the reading program. So while you might feel very motivated to try this program with a small baby, you should wait until your baby is old enough to speak clearly, and this is usually around 2 to 2.5 years of age. At the same time, this is what make this such a wonderful program, because it allows parents to actually teach and instill a love of reading in children as young as 2 and 3 years old. Learning to read at a young age has many benefits for brain and intellectual development of the child.
Children Learning Reading is designed to be taught to your child in two different stages, and so it comes with two main books of lesson plans and teaching methods and techniques. It also includes supplementary lesson story books, audio clips, and other important books. In total there are 50 lessons, where stage 1 contains 28 lessons, and stage 2 contains 22 lessons. In stage 1, your child is taught all the critical foundational skills that are required for reading fluently. Your child learns the alphabet letters and their respective sounds, and through a step by step process and lessons, you child learns to manipulate and work with all the different phonemes, and quickly learns to read simple words, sentences, and stories.
Very simple words and blending exercises are introduced very early on, and more complicated words, sentences, stories, and rhymes are slowly introduced with the lessons as your child progress. By the time you complete stage one lessons with your child, your child will have already developed superb reading skills that sometimes leave you even surprised and amazed.
While the Children Learning Reading program comes in two stages of lessons, by the time your child completes stage one, he or she will have developed some superb reading skills. The lessons in stage 2 are more advanced and the main focus of stage 2 is to teach your child phonemes made by letter combinations, or also known as digraphs. Stage 2 lessons further enhances your child's reading skills, and also presents plenty of practice material to help your child develop reading fluency.
One big plus of the Children Learning Reading program is that all the lessons are delivered in a simple, intuitive, and step-by-step manner. All you need to do is spend 10 minutes of your time each day going through the reading steps outlined in the lessons, and within 12 weeks, your child will have developed some superb reading skills.


SENCER E-Newsletter, December 2005, Volume 5, Issue 4
Mercer Education and Science Majors Connect During National Chemistry Week
Laura Blinderman and Helen Tanzini, Mercer County Community College, New Jersey
A group of 8 faculty from Mercer County Community College attended the 2005 SENCER Institute. The inclusion of the Education department chair in our group of math, technology, and science faculty led to a number of brainstorming sessions on strengthening interdisciplinary connections. The beautiful weather and stimulating intellectual environment combined to open our minds to new ideas and collaborations. One idea was put into action during National Chemistry Week (October 16 – 22). Mercer County Community College education, chemistry, and biology majors teamed up to bring interactive chemistry experiments to elementary schools in Mercer County. Our students led a series of 45
minute events with faculty present for support. Mercer students engaged children in grades 2- 5 in combining polyacrylate and water to make artificial snow, the science behind long chain molecules affectionately called "bouncy balls" (cornstarch, glue and borax), examining the ability of crushed Tums antacid and vinegar to inflate a balloon, and making glitter slime from polyvinyl alcohol. Over 750 children in 5 schools were guided by 32 Mercer students and faculty.
Making artificial snow is not the type of unsolved public issue that SENCER activities usually address. For a 3rd grader, the "aha" moment of realizing that the snow in movies is not real snow, but something produced by chemistry opens a new way of thinking about science and the power of chemistry to address problems. The young children who participated in the event were stimulated to think about chemistry. We know this from the questions they asked which included:
Can the inflated balloon make the flask underneath float?
Could enough vinegar and Tums make a human float?
Can the snow be blown around by a fan to create a snowstorm?
Can you come back every day with a new experiment?
The Mercer students handed out age-appropriate chemistry newsletters and complementary moles and quickly realized something important about teaching; that to describe how the furry animal is a symbol of amount of a substance containing the same number of chemical units as there are atoms in 12 grams of carbon-12 (6.023 X 1023) is beyond the limitations of a 45 minute interactive presentation in an elementary school!
Aspects of SENCER addressed by Chemistry Week activities include; promoting civic engagement in our students, allowing students to apply course work to real world situations, developing interconnectedness between the classroom and the local community, and connecting education and science majors in a joint project.
The integration of education majors with advanced Science majors is interesting to us, because these are two groups of students who would not normally mix in their science courses. Most education majors take the SENCER course, Biological Science Concepts, while science majors take the 4 credit comprehensive biology and chemistry courses. Scientific literacy is a prominent component of our newly revised general education policy. It is particularly important for elementary education majors to have positive science experiences because they are the science teachers in K – 6. They play a direct role in stimulating the scientists of the future and also in insuring that children who pursue non-science disciplines have positive science experiences. National Chemistry Week activities also give science majors a sneak peak at what it's like to teach. Some students find that they excel at bringing science to the lay community. It is our hope that some of our science majors will consider teaching as a profession as a result of their experiences in the classroom.
The Mercer event was spearheaded by SENCER alum Helen Tanzini (chemistry), and participated in by alumni Laura Blinderman (biology), Marianne Reynolds (education), and Bruce Chorba (Biology). National Chemistry week is sponsored by the Trenton Section of the American Chemical Society (Chemistry.org and American Chemical Society - Trenton Section )
Marianne Reynolds, Chair of the Education Department summarized the event by saying, "In the classrooms, the enthusiastic reaction of the children and my students' experience with lesson planning and teaching techniques produced a successful result. Not only were the children turned on to chemistry, but my future teachers now look forward to teaching science in their elementary classrooms, too."