Go beyond the walls of your classroom to build literacy and achievement. In this insightful book, you’ll discover how you can better meet the rigorous goals of the Common Core by opening new lines of communication with colleagues, parents, and students. Each chapter centers around an action project that was designed to help teachers improve literacy by moving beyond the typical class lessons and worksheets. The projects include... A book club for families of kindergarten and first grade students, to help students build foundational literacy skills A book club designed to engage middle school students with young adult literature using digital forums "Write with your child" evenings to help parents connect with their middle school children An instructional team’s challenge to use a range of mentor texts in their classrooms And much more! As you read each project, you’ll come away with ideas and inspiration that you can apply to your own teaching. By challenging yourself to connect with parents and colleagues on a deeper level, you will be better able to align your work, adjust for your students, and achieve your teaching goals.

Product Description: This groundbreaking, innovative resource is what every school using or planning to use a core reading program absolutely must have. This one-of-a-kind guide takes an objective look at the skills, texts, and assessments included in the most commonly used programs to first help you evaluate and select an effective program and then implement that program...read more

Vivian Vasquez draws on her own classroom experience to demonstrate how issues raised from everyday conversations with pre-kindergarten children can be used to create an integrated critical literacy curriculum over the course of one school year. The strategies she presents are solidly grounded in relevant theory and research. In this innovative and engaging text, Vasquez:*describes how she and her students negotiated a critical literacy curriculum;*shows how they dealt with particular social and cultural issues and themes; and*shares the insights she gained as she attempted to understand what it means to frame one's teaching from a critical literacy perspective.Negotiating Critical Literacies With Young Children is specifically useful for early elementary (K-3) teachers as a demonstration of classroom applications of critical literacy that they can try in their own classrooms. It is equally relevant to all concerned with issues of social justice and equity in school settings and the political nature of education, and to educators at all levels who are interested in finding ways to make their curriculum critical. For preservice teachers, this book offers a model for envisioning their future practice and for recognizing the important relationship between theory and practice. Teacher educators and consultants will find this book valuable as an example of how to put a critical edge on teaching. It is intended for use as a text in reading, language arts, literacy, social justice, critical literacy, and early childhood education courses.