Teaching New Literacies in Grades K-3: Resources for 21st-Century Classrooms

by Barbara Moss PhD, Diane Lapp EdD

Overview

Even the youngest readers and writers in today’s classrooms can benefit enormously from engagement with a wide range of traditional and nontraditional texts. This teacher-friendly handbook is packed with creative strategies for introducing K–3 students to fiction, poetry, and plays; informational texts; graphic novels; digital storytelling; Web-based and multimodal texts; hip-hop; advertisements; math problems; and many other types of texts. Prominent authorities explain the research base underlying the book’s 23 complete lessons and provide practical activities and assessments for promoting decoding, fluency, comprehension, and other key literacy skills. Snapshots of diverse classrooms bring the material to life; helpful reproducibles are included.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781606234976
Publisher:	Guilford Publications, Inc.
Publication date:	11/20/2009
Series:	Solving Problems in the Teaching of Literacy
Pages:	321
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Barbara Moss, PhD, is Professor of Literacy Education in the School of Teacher Education at San Diego State University. She has taught English and language arts in elementary, middle, and high school settings and has worked as a reading coach. Dr. Moss’s research focuses on the teaching of informational texts at the elementary and secondary levels. She regularly presents at local, state, national, and international conferences and has published numerous journal articles, columns, book chapters, and books. Dr. Moss has served as the Young Adult Literature column editor for Voices in the Middle, a publication of the National Council of Teachers of English.
 

Diane Lapp, EdD, is Distinguished Professor of Education in the Department of Teacher Education at San Diego State University. She has taught elementary, middle, and high school and serves as Director of Learning at Health Sciences High and Middle College. Her research and instruction focus on issues related to struggling readers and writers who live in economically deprived urban settings, and their families and teachers. Widely published, Dr. Lapp has received the Outstanding Teacher Educator of the Year Award from the International Literacy Association, among other honors, and is a member of both the International Reading Hall of Fame and the California Reading Hall of Fame.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction, Barbara Moss and Diane Lapp

I. Teaching the Genres: What Students Often Encounter

2. Teaching with Folk Literature in the Primary Grades, Terrell A. Young, Barbara A. Ward, and L. Beth Cameron

3. Every Story Has a Problem: How to Improve Student Narrative Writing in Grades K–3, Sue Dymock and Tom Nicholson

4. Poetry Power: First-Graders Tackle Two-Worders, Claudia Dybdahl and Tammy Black

5. Using Readers’ Theater to Engage Young Readers, Regina M. Rees

6. Junior Journalists: Reading and Writing News in the Primary Grades, Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher

7. Using Procedural Texts and Documents to Develop Functional Literacy in Students: The Key to Their Future in a World of Words, Martha D. Collins and Amy B. Horton

8. Going Beyond Opinion: Teaching Primary Children to Write Persuasively, Dana L. Grisham, Cheryl Wozniak, and Thomas DeVere Wolsey

9. Reading Biography: Evaluating Information across Texts, Barbara Moss and Diane Lapp

II. Teaching Other Genres: What Students Could Also Encounter

10. Using Comic Literature with Elementary Students, Chris Wilson

11. Using Primary-Source Documents and Digital Storytelling as a Catalyst for Writing Historical Fiction, Carol J. Fuhler

12. Self-Expressing through Hip-Hop as Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Nadjwa E. L. Norton

Chapter 13. Exploring High-Stakes Tests as a Genre, Charles Fuhrken and Nancy Roser

14. Reading a Science Experiment: Deciphering the Language of Scientists, Maria Grant

15. Reading + Mathematics = SUCCESS: Using Literacy Strategies to Enhance Problem-Solving Skills, Mary Lou DiPillo

16. Promoting Literacy through Visual Aids: Teaching Students to Read Graphs, Maps, Charts, and Tables

Paola Pilonieta, Karen Wood, and D. Bruce Taylor

17. Critically Reading Advertisements: Examining Visual Images and Persuasive Language, Lori Czop Assaf and Alina Adonyi

18. Reading Web-Based Electronic Texts: Using Think-Alouds to Help Students Begin to Understand the Process, Christine A. McKeon

19. Comparatively Reading Multiple Sources: Developing Critical Literacy in a Second-Grade Classroom, Jesse Gainer

20. Using Written Response for Reading Comprehension of Literary Text, Ruth Oswald, Evangeline Newton, and Joanna Newton

III. Crafting the Genre: Sharing One’s Voice through Writing

21. Reading Persuasive Texts, Thomas DeVere Wolsey, Cheryl Pham, and Dana L. Grisham

22. Writing a Biography: Creating Powerful Insights into History and Personal Lives, Dorothy Leal

23. Monumental Ideas for Teaching Report Writing through a Visit to Washington, DC, Susan K. Leone

24. Writing Summaries of Expository Text Using the Magnet Summary Strategy, Laurie Elish-Piper and Susan R. Hinrichs

25. Conclusion: Looking Back, Looking Forward, Diane Lapp and Barbara Moss

Interviews

Classroom teachers in grades K–3, literacy specialists and coaches, staff developers, preservice teachers, and teacher educators. May serve as a supplemental text in literacy methods courses.

Editorial Reviews

"Teaching New Literacies in Grades K-3 is the right book at the right time. It expands the definition of 'new literacies' to include the skills and strategies needed for reading, understanding, and evaluating not only electronic and digital texts, but also other types of texts that have grown in importance in the lives of primary-grade children. This is one of those books that offers too much information for a single reading--teachers are likely to return to it time and again to find answers to questions new and old."--Jeanne R. Paratore, EdD, Department of Literacy and Language, Counseling and Development, Boston University
 

"This book is jam-packed with lessons to incorporate new literacies, especially critical literacies, into any primary-grade classroom! These lessons provide readers with an understanding of the research as well as examples from real classrooms across the country. From hip hop to folk literature, from digital storytelling to high-stakes testing as a genre, this user-friendly book has it all. Current classroom teachers will come away with new ideas for their classrooms and preservice teachers will learn how to incorporate new literacies into their instruction. This book would be a great addition to advanced literacy methods courses at the undergraduate and graduate level."--Jennifer Garrette Lisy, MEd, former kindergarten and first-grade teacher, Chicago, Illinois
 

"I am eager to introduce this book to the teachers I work with. The consistent format makes it easy to read and access the lessons in each chapter. I also appreciate the inclusion of the research base for using the different text types. The book's ideas for differentiated instruction offer crucial assistance for teachers striving to meet the needs of all their K-3 learners. The cutting-edge resources in these pages are exciting and engaging."--Michelle Lewis, MEd, Literacy Leader, Reading First, North Parkway Elementary Magnet School, Jackson, Tennessee
 

"This book will help primary-grade teachers use a wide range of text types to provide students with engaging choices and critical learning opportunities. The chapters provide concrete, standards-based lesson plans. I was struck by the many genres that often go untaught in K-3, including most of the informational texts. It is absolutely wonderful to get lesson ideas for teaching such a wide variety of text types."--Dawnene D. Hassett, PhD, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Madison

From the Publisher