Using simple, easy-to-follow instructions, supported throughout with clear diagrams and examples of children's work, Paul Johnson demonstrates how scores of different book forms can be made from a single sheet of paper.

Accessible and hands-on yet grounded in research, this book addresses the "whats," "whys," and "how-tos" of integrating literacy instruction and the arts in grades K-8. Even teachers without any arts background will gain the skills they need to bring music, drama, visual arts, and dance into their classrooms. Provided are a wealth of specific resources and activities that other teachers have successfully used to build students' oral language, concepts of print, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and writing, while also promoting creativity and self-expression. Special features include reproducible worksheets and checklists for developing, evaluating, and implementing arts-related lesson plans.

In The Power of Pictures book and companion DVD, Beth Olshansky introduces teachers to her innovative art-based approach to literacy instruction. Widely practiced in classrooms across the country, the model has been proven by research to improve literacy achievement with a wide range of learners, especially those who struggle with verbal skills. At the heart of her approach is the Artists/Writers Workshop. Through study of quality picture books and hands-on art experiences, students learn to visualize, “paint pictures with words,” and ultimately create their own extraordinary artistic and literary work. The book and DVD explain how any teacher can successfully use this process to enable all students, particularly low performers, to make dramatic gains in both reading and writing.

A Reason to Read is the culminating work of the ArtsLiteracy Project, an ambitious and wide-ranging collaborative that aims to promote literacy through rich and sustained instruction in the arts. At the heart of the book is the “Performance Cycle,” a flexible framework for curriculum and lesson planning that can be adapted to all content areas and age groups. Each of the book’s main chapters delineates and explores a particular component of the cycle. A practical, readable, and inspiring book, A Reason to Read will be of immeasurable help to school teachers, education leaders, and all who have a stake in promoting literacy and the arts in today’s schools.

The Handbook of Research on Teaching Literacy Through the Communicative and Visual Arts, Volume II brings together state-of-the-art research and practice on the evolving view of literacy as encompassing not only reading, writing, speaking, and listening, but also the multiple ways through which learners gain access to knowledge and skills. It forefronts as central to literacy education the visual, communicative, and performative arts, and the extent to which all of the technologies that have vastly expanded the meanings and uses of literacy originate and evolve through the skills and interests of the young. A project of the International Reading Association, published and distributed by Routledge/Taylor & Francis. Visit http://www.reading.org for more information about Internationl Reading Associationbooks, membership, and other services.

This practical resource emphasizes the special contribution that visual art, drama, music, and dance can make to student literacy and understanding of content area reading assignments. Focusing on those areas where students tend to struggle, this book helps K—5 teachers provide an age-appropriate curriculum that is accessible to an increasingly diverse student population but does not ignore other important aspects of healthy human development. Without detracting from the rigor of a demanding curriculum, Brouillette demonstrates how arts integration allows students to engage with concepts on their own developmental level. Each chapter focuses on a skill set that is fundamental to literacy development, suggests age-appropriate arts integration activities that will build that skill, and offers guidance for fostering a sense of community. “A thoughtful look into issues surrounding arts integration as a viable strategy for increasing students’ achievement and access to higher education and career pathways.” —Kristen Greer-Paglia, CEO, P.S. ARTS “An excellent guide to teachers aspiring to integrate the arts into their curriculum, it is both a delightful and useful read!” —Liora Bresler, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana

This book explores the many dialogues that exist between the arts and literacy. It shows how the arts are inherently multimodal and therefore interface regularly with literate practice in learning and teaching contexts. It asks the questions: What does literacy look like in the arts? And what does it mean to be arts literate? It explores what is important to know and do in the arts and also what literacies are engaged in, through the journey to becoming an artist. The arts for the purpose of this volume include five art forms: Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music and Visual Arts. The book provides a more productive exploration of the arts-literacy relationship. It acknowledges that both the arts and literacy are open-textured concepts and notes how they accommodate each other, learn about, and from each other and can potentially make education ‘better’. It is when the two stretch each other that we see an educationally productive dialogic relationship emerge.