The Literacy of Play and Innovation provides a portrait of what innovative education looks like from a literacy perspective. Through an in-depth case study of a "maker" school’s innovative design—in particular, of four early childhood educator’s classrooms—this book demonstrates that children’s inspiration, curiosity, and creativity is a direct result of the school environment. Presenting a unique, data-driven model of literacy, play, and innovation taking the maker movement beyond STEM education, this book helps readers understand literacy learning through making and the creative approaches embedded in early literacy classroom practices.

Building on her award-winning research (featured in Playing Their Way into Literacies) which emphasizes that play is an early literacy, Wohlwend has developed a curricular framework for children ages 3 to 8. The Literacy Playshop curriculum engages children in creating their own multimedia productions, positioning them as media makers rather than passive recipients of media messages. The goal is to teach young children to critically interpret the daily messages they receive in popular entertainment that increasingly blur toys, stories, and advertising. The first half of this practical resource features case studies that show how six early childhood teachers working together in teacher study groups developed and implemented play-based literacy learning and media production. The second half of the book provides a Literacy Playshop framework with professional development and classroom activities, discussion questions, and technology try-it sections. This user-friendly book will inspire and support teachers in designing their own Literacy Playshops.

This textbook offers a foundation for how literacy and arts integration interconnect to advance innovation, accessibility, and equitable classroom learning contexts for K-8 students. Balancing research-backed theory and classroom practice, this book helps readers understand the multiple perspectives, frameworks, and models necessary in the design of learning environments for diverse learners, including sociocultural theories of literacy, new and digital literacies, multiliteracies, culturally responsive pedagogy, critical pedagogy, and art. Written by an author team with decades of experience in teaching literacy, writing, and arts integration across a variety of learning environments, each chapter includes a basis of conceptual framing and research backed by functional case studies and practical classroom practices, as well as discussion questions. Written as a text for foundational literacy, arts integration, and education courses, Innovation, Literacy, and Arts Integration in Multicultural Classrooms offers an engaging, practical resource for both pre-service and in-service elementary and middle grade teachers and teacher educators.

How do we save play in a standard-driven educational environment? This edited collection, Play and Literacy: Play & Culture Studies provides a direct answer and solutions to this question. Researchers and theorists have argued for decades that play is the best way to learn language and literacy for children. This book provides theoretical and historical foundation of connection between play and literacy, applied research studies as well as practical strategies to connect play and literacy in early childhood and in teacher education. This book features chapters on the history of play and literacy research, book-play paradigm, play in digital writing, book-based play activities, play-based reader responses, classroom dynamics affecting literacy learning in play, and using play with adults in teacher education such as drama-based instruction. Variety of chapters addressing the strong connection between play and literacy will satisfy the readers who seek to understand the relationship between play and literacy and implement ways to use play to support language and literacy.

This volume brings together studies, research syntheses, and critical commentaries that examine play-literacy relationships from cognitive, ecological, and cultural perspectives. The cognitive view focuses on mental processes that appear to link play and literacy activities; the ecological stance examines opportunities to engage in literacy-related play in specific environments; and the social-cultural position stresses the interface between the literacy and play cultures of home, community, and the school. Examining play from these diverse perspectives provides a multidimensional view that deepens understanding and opens up new avenues for research and educational practice. Each set of chapters is followed by a critical review by a distinguished play scholar. These commentaries' focus is to hold research on play and literacy up to scrutiny in terms of scientific significance, methodology, and utility for practice. A Foreword by Margaret Meek situates these studies in the context of current trends in literacy learning and instruction. Earlier studies on the role of play in early literacy acquisition provided considerable information about the types of reading and writing activities that children engage in during play and how this literacy play is affected by variables such as props, peers, and adults. However, they did not deal extensively, as this book does, with the functional significance of play in the literacy development of individual children. This volume pushes the study of play and literacy into new areas. It is indispensable reading for researchers and graduate students in the fields of early childhood education and early literacy development.

This is a bank of ideas designed to help teachers to develop the writing of primary-school pupils. It is concerned mainly with the compositional aspects of writing, rather than spelling, handwriting and punctuation, and consists of five main sections, dealing with writing stories and poems, writing for information, writing from reading, writing from personal experience, and redrafting and proof-reading.

Now in its sixth edition, Merryl Goldberg’s popular volume Arts Integration presents a comprehensive guide to integrating the arts throughout the K-12 curriculum, blending contemporary theory with classroom practice. Beyond teaching about arts education as a subject in and of itself, the text explains how teachers may integrate the arts—literary, media, visual, and performing—throughout the subject curriculum, offering a wealth of strategies, techniques, and examples. Promoting ways to develop children’s creativity and critical thinking while also developing communications skills and fostering collaboration and community activism, Arts Integration explores assessment and the arts, engaging English Language Learners, and using the arts to teach academic skills in science, math, history, and more. This text is ideal as a primer on arts integration and a foundational support for teaching, learning, and assessment, especially within the context of multicultural and multilingual classrooms. In-depth discussions of the role of arts integration in meeting the goals of Title I programs, including academic achievement, student engagement, school climate, and parental involvement, are woven throughout the text, as is the role of the arts in nurturing Creative Youth Development work and its importance to the community. This revised and updated sixth edition combines a social justice emphasis with templates for developing lesson plans and units, updated coverage on STEAM education, along with brand new examples, case studies, and research. An expanded range of eResources is also available for this edition, including links to further resources readings, additional imagery and videos, and sample lesson plans.