Series Preface to Classroom Insights Acknowledgments About the Authors Introduction 1. English Language Arts in the Early Years of School: Priorities and Consequences 2. Do Young Children Find Informational Books Hard to Understand? 3. Are Young Children Really Interested in Informational Books? 4. What Should I Consider When Selecting Informational Books? 5. How Can I Use Shared Informational Book Reading in my Classroom to Build Children's Reading Skills and Background Knowledge? 6. How Can I Incoporate Writing With Informational Books? 7. How Can Parents Use Informational Books to Support Children's Learning? References for Children's Books References for Research Sources Index
Description
Dr. Helen Patrick is a Professor of Educational Psychology in Purdue University's College of Education. Her teaching and research focus on promoting positive classroom environments that promote students' learning, understanding, and motivation. She has worked in numerous elementary schools in Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana. For the past seven years she has worked with teachers and children in ethnically-diverse kindergartens, focusing on ways to successfully integrate teaching "big ideas" of science with reading and writing activities. Read more about this Scientific Literacy Project, funded by the US Department of Education, at http://www.purduescientificliteracyproject.org/. Dr. Panayota (Youli) Mantzicopoulos is Professor of Educational Psychology in Purdue University's College of Education. Her interests include early personal-social development and learning in diverse environments. Her research has examined the effectiveness of early grade-retention practices, the development of self-competence beliefs, early teacher-child relationships, and shared-reading of informational texts as a context for learning both at home and school. Her most recent work has been associated with the Scientific Literacy Project (http://www.purduescientificliteracyproject.org/) where she has focused on the integration of informational texts with science inquiry activities and on investigating the development of children's socially derived meanings about science. Visit her at https://collaborate.education.purdue.edu/edst/youli/default.aspx