Dr. Sylvia Vardell is a professor of children’s literature in the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman’s University and the 2014 recipient of the Scholastic Library Publishing Award. In this interview, she talks about her recent collaboration with Janet Wong to compile the Poetry Friday Anthology series for elementary school, middle school, and science topics; ideas for using poetry across the curriculum; and reasons that teachers may be reluctant to teach poetry.
A Rand study indicates that well-designed summer programs can help low-income students read and do math better. The key to academic gains in summer programs are steady attendance and a high-quality program with engaging, fun activities for school children and highly effective teachers teaching for at least three hours a day.
Reading over the summer not only keeps your child from losing ground, but actually improves skills for the coming year. Here are some suggestions to keep a book in your child’s hands over the summer months.
Learn some of the ways that pre-kindergarten through elementary school teachers can enhance the vocabulary development of young children. It focuses on teaching words from texts that are read aloud to children and presents activities that help young children make sense of new words.
There’s something for everyone in this booklist: flights of fact and fantasy, traditional aviation from the air and with one foot on the ground; daredevil flights and flights of fancy; flyers both funny and brave.
What is better on a warm summer afternoon than a game of baseball? It is the great American pastime, after all! Meet baseball players whose passion broke various barriers and find out about the history of the game.
