Teaching Language and Literature in Elementary Classrooms

The goal of Teaching Language and Literature in Elementary Classrooms: A Resource Book for Professional Development, Second Edition is to help the beginning teacher create a classroom environment that integrates literacy development with learning in all areas of the curriculum. Theoretically based, well organized, and practical, this text identifies the major components of an integrated language program and describes and illustrates skills teachers need to implement this kind of program in their own classrooms. It is uniquely designed as a handbook for beginning educators that serves both as a text and as a professional resource to be carried into the first year of teaching.

The narratives in this text, and the accompanying instruction for preparing to teach, are included for every elementary instructional level. A consistent chapter format is used to help readers move from a direct experience of a classroom narrative, to step-by-step descriptions they can follow to implement these activities in their own classrooms. A rich array of interactive pedagogical features is provided.

New in the Second Edition: This edition retains the purposes of the first edition, but adds ideas and information gathered over the years from new classroom observations. It also incorporates the results of the author's extensive reviews of educational research, continuous reading in all the genres of children's literature, and correspondence with faculty and students who used the first edition of this text. In response to these varied and helpful experiences, the Second Edition features:

*Strategies for dealing with problems of disruption in the classroom;

*Expanded discussions related to diversity and special needs;

*Increased attention to methods of evaluation and mandated testing programs;

*Reorganization of chapter sections to make them more useful to readers;

*A new chapter on play and the fine arts;

*Integration of electronic teaching technology into all chapters;

*Extensive in-text annotations of children's literature, discussions of new titles in children's literature, cultural literatures, book clubs, series books, and the influence of books published internationally;

*Updated reports of research and best practice studies;

*New classroom observations; and

*New appendices, designed to provide information and resources for instructional support.