First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Offers a practical survey of the most important trAnds in education--including critical thinking, cooperative learning, and portfolio assessment--and shows how they can be translated into classroom practice.

Building on "Children and their Primary Schools" (an OU set text), this text will encourage educators and researchers in exploring pupil perspectives. Its central argument is that understanding some of the disparity between 'curriculum as intended' and 'curriculum as experienced' will increase the quality of school life and improve learning.

This volume presents chapters by researchers, practitioners, and policymakers who study the impact of classroom portfolios in the assessment of writing achievement by elementary and middle grade students.
The focus throughout the volume is on the tension between classroom assessment and externally mandated testing. It presents the efforts of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to understand the impact of classroom portfolios for the assessment of writing achievement by elementary and middle grade students. Under the auspices of the Center for the Study of Writing, the editors conducted a national survey of exemplary portfolio projects, arranged for a series of "video visits," and held several working conferences. The result of this work is a broad-ranging tale: the aspirations of teachers and administrators to move the machinery of schooling in the direction of more authentic and engaging tasks, the puzzlement of students when they realize that the assignments are real and that the teacher may not have a "right answer" in mind, and the tensions between ivory-tower ideas and everyday classroom practice.
Divided into four sections, this research volume:
* provides a historical perspective, develops the conceptual framework that serves as a background for many activities described throughout, and discusses numerous practical issues that confront today's researchers and practitioners;
* views the phenomenon of writing portfolios through a variety of broadview lenses such as teacher enthusiasm, student reflection, assessment tension, the portfolio as metaphor, and the locus of control;
* conveys important conceptual issues with a balance toward pragmatics; and
* offers unique insights from the perspective of one individual who serves as scholar, researcher, and teacher.

This book blends multiple research studies, historical and current events, reflective teaching examples, and guidance for LGBTQ+ inclusion and queer pedagogy in elementary schools. It is divided into three sections to guide the readers from a broad understanding of the hxstories of LGBTQ+ discriminations, rights, and some communities' resistance to LGBTQ+ children, teachers, and curriculum to a focused invitation into the author's own reflections, teaching, and discussions with children about LGBTQ+ literature and topics. The volume provides hxstories, theoretical and methodological inquiry, resources, and encouragement for teacher-researchers ready to engage LGBTQ+-inclusion and queer literacy pedagogy in their classrooms, schools, and communities.

* This practical resource guides students step-by-step through the writing of a personal narrative * Provides young writers with an opportunity to link their personal lives and school experiences via writing * Will transform a writing classroom into one of enthusiasm and engagement in which children find their own voice and style * Provides a detailed guide to the writing process, demonstrates different techniques, and provides useful tips and suggestions on how to revise a text and transform it into a vivid, powerful, descriptive personal narrative. * A great vehicle for welcoming and celebrating different cultures, experiences and stories into the writing curriculum. * An ideal resource to dramatically improve children's writing for all KS2 primary and KS3 secondary English teachers, literacy coordinators and parents

Students climb to new heights in reading and writing with these fun, engaging, reproducible word-building games! Students read clues on each rung, then change and rearrange letters to create words until they reach the top. All the while, they're analyzing sound-symbol relationships, broadening their vocabulary, and building spelling skills to become better readers. For use with Grades 1-2.

Examines the lives and creative work of the surrealist artist Salvador Dalâi and other artists and friends who shared his new ways of exploring art. Features art activities that engage the subconscious thoughts and spontaneity of the reader.

Discover how to help PreK students develop pre-reading competencies that build capacity for future reading phonological awareness, print concepts, and alphabetics. Research-based and accessible, this essential guidebook helps readers sidestep common errors and create engaging, child-appropriate curriculum that lays a strong foundation for future reading skills. Filled with effective resources, activities, and a simple scope and sequence to guide instruction, this critical toolkit equips educators to set emerging learners up for success.

Fully updated edition with five brand new sessions and bonus features. Fully updated with new developments in the theory and practice of teaching philosophy, this new edition of the bestselling book, The If Machine, presents 30 clear, ready-to-use plans to teach philosophy in the classroom with children aged five to 13. Each tried-and-tested session offers an imaginary situation, followed by a series of questions to encourage children to challenge key philosophical ideas such as values and ethics, gender and identity, and existence and beauty. With a star system indicating the level of difficulty, this practical book by Peter Worley, founder of The Philosophy Foundation, outlines Peter's philosophical enquiry method, which he has developed over 20 years of teaching. This fantastic resource also includes a new hints and tips section, as well as a troubleshooting table with guidance and links to further resources about how to deal with common problems such as unanimity. Accompanied by a companion website featuring an introduction to the philosophy that inspired the ideas, The If Machine is a must-have resource for all classrooms.

This is the second of a two-volume publication which provides an international perspective on how children learn to read. Research studies and classroom experiences from around the world are reported, highlighting implications for the design implementation and evaluation of classroom reading programmes. Contributions are included from the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Jamaica and Israel with evidence drawn from over 18 countries. Despite the contexted differences, there are many common concerns and controversies. From these, three areas are identified: the first is developing an improved understanding of the nature of children's early reading development; the second is the consideration of the ways in which children's reading can be encouraged. This volume addresses the issues of curriculum and assessment in the context of accountability.

The learning of mathematics can go beyond the acquisition of facts and rules; it is a subject which is constantly being developed, from community to community, and from one generation to the next. This text presents a philosophical yet classroom approach to mathematics teaching, and examines how mathematics is taught across the curriculum and age range in primary schools. The book explores the role of play, story, drama, pattern, sound, and children's drawings and games. It discusses how these themes can be used by the teacher, and the various interactions with pupils. The use of the teacher's own mathematics in order to facilitate children's understanding of mathematics is covered and the resultant volume contains many ideas for the teaching of maths.

How do young children bridge the gap between "writing" a story with pictures and writing with words? How children learn to use written words to tell a story is a topic important to both cognitive development and early literacy instruction. Using the theoretical framework developed by Vygotsky, the behavior of a group of prekindergarten children as they author two consecutive pieces of writing is analyzed. The children tell their stories at first with spoken words and pictures. As they discuss their work-in-progress in public conferences, they discover how to build on and combine existing skills to produce a new skill -- telling stories with written words.
Current descriptive and theoretical perspectives on beginning writing are presented in this volume, with a particular focus on Vygotsky's concept of the "zone of proximal development," a period of sensitivity in which learning advances. The proposed mechanism of change is "verbal mediation" -- talk among peers and teachers as they discuss work-in-progress -- which moves the children through the zone of proximal development.
An open, whole-language approach to literacy instruction makes the classroom in this book an ideal arena in which to observe verbal mediation in operation. Children are free to question, criticize and argue; and in the process they collectively advance their developing ability to use written language.
The work is unique in that the rich and comprehensive data record is reproduced in its entirety. More than 400 illustrations of the children's products -- two "books" apiece, pictured before and after the children's revisions -- are included, along with transcripts of the conferences about each of the pages, permitting direct observation of the effects of verbal mediation. This dynamic study documents change during a period of time when specific learning is occurring, and provides strong support for the value and power of Vygotsky's theoretical framework.

This account of teacher research is a study of four first grade classrooms, and the interaction between the teachers and their students. The accounts give examples of "good teaching" and show, through case studies, how the students can better learn and teachers better teach. The author demonstrates examples of good teaching by means of dialogues between teachers and students, and she sees the "ethnography of empowerment" as bringing university staff closer to the empowering practice, in the same way that teacher-research work has brought teachers closer to empowering university practice.

The first part of this book charts and analyzes the working days of 326 primary school teachers. It shows how they spent their working lives, the nature of the curriculum they taught, and analyzes their work into five main categories: Teaching, Preparation, Administration, Professional Development and Other Activities. The second part comments on the findings by relating them to issues of school management and curriculum manageability and looks at how the idea of conscientiousness' among primary school teachers may have led to their exploitation.

As one of the core areas of the curriculum, science provides particular challenges, especially to teachers working at the top end of the elementary school range. "Science 7-11" invites science teachers working with preteens to examine their practice in the light of current research findings. Clive Carre and Carrie Ovens, both experienced primary teachers themselves, ask what teachers really need to know both about their subject and about their students in order to teach science effectively. The authors give practical guidance on curriculum planning, on balancing enquiry approaches to learning with more formal "telling" and on the difficult area of collecting and interpreting evidence of children's progress for assessment.

The final volume of four, the authors, all specialists in the areas of the curriculum, consider how the concerns of ethnic groups may be addressed within the framework of the National Curriculum. Despite the indecision surrounding the structure, content, pedagogy and assessment of many components of the primary school curriculum, it remains that the multicultural nature of the population and of schools will develop. These developments and their educational implications must be considered if the educational system is to respond adequately.

Primary education is in a period of transition. The whole question of what constitutes 'good practice' is being vigorously debated. This reader looks at primary practice in the light of this debate, examining it in the context of continuing efforts to understand and improve the learning opportunities offered to children in school. It offers a range of research into how classrooms work and the development of specific curriculum areas: science, technology, mathematics, the arts, humanities and language. The final section takes a closer look at life in the primary classroom from the perspectives of the children and their teachers.

Over the last 25 years, reading processes have been the focus of an enormous amount of research in experimental psychology as well as in other disciplines. The theories and models emerging from this research have greatly advanced understanding of both normal acquisition and of reading disabilities. Although great progress has been made, there are certain aspects that have been relatively neglected in the current understanding. Specifically, the role of visual factors has received less attention than that of other component processes. This is particularly surprising since reading and writing are distinct from the other language processes of speaking and listening in large part by virtue of the fact that a visual dimension is involved. Relevant research is broadly scattered both geographically and in terms of disciplines, and there have been no major reviews or books concerned with the visual dimension of reading and reading disabilities.
The purpose of this book is to bring together a broad range of evidence that concerns the role of visual information in reading and reading disabilities. Because reading processes are of central interest to cognitive scientists, neuropsychologists, psycholinguists, clinicians, and educators, this book should draw a very broad readership.

Primary teachers have always been required to master a wealth of knowledge and professional skills and recent debate has led to pressure for ever higher levels of competence. Ted Wragg's book aims to provide a comprehensive guide to the skills needed by today's primary teachers. Separate chapters cover such central demands of the job as explaining new topics, asking stimulating questions and settling down with a new class, and one chapter is devoted to the particular problems of supply teachers. Based on extensive research in classrooms over a number of years, "Primary Teaching Skills" is designed for both student and novice teachers, as well as their more experienced colleagues at any stage of their professional development.

This book offers a creative and practical guide for K-6 teachers on how to effectively integrate creative movement and the performing arts into the curriculum to increase student engagement, deepen learning, improve retention, and get kids moving during the school day. Chapters offer concrete ideas for integrating creative movement and theater into subjects such as math, science, literacy, and social studies. Drawing on two decades of experience, Dr. Becker outlines key skills, offers rich examples, and provides adaptable and flexible classroom tested lesson plans that align with Common Core Standards, the NGSS, C3 Social Studies Standards, and the National Core Arts Standards. Activities are grounded in arts integration, which is steadily gaining interest in school reform as an effective teaching strategy that increases student outcomes academically and socially; particularly effective for students who have traditionally been marginalized. This book will benefit practicing educators who want to invigorate their practice, pre-service teachers who want to expand their toolkit, as well as school leaders looking to employ policies that support movement and arts during the school day. Jump in and get your kids Moving Through the School Day and see how active and engaging learning can be!

The inclusion of technology in subjects taught to primary school students presents teachers with an exciting and somewhat daunting challenge. "Design and Technology in the Primary School" aims to provide teachers with a definition and exploration of design and technology activities through a project approach. The book includes case studies which illustrate how teachers with little or no previous experience can draw on their existing knowledge of materials, processes, and local authority support, to develop successful projects linking areas of the curriculum with design and technology.
Guidance is also offered on topic planning with design and technology activities either central to the topic being studies, or as a development of a topic from another curriculum area.
This book offers a strong practical approach to embarking on design and technology activities through projects, topic designs, and case studies. It will encourage not only student teachers but their more experienced colleagues in developing existing skills and talents in teaching technology and design through the use of familiar topics.

This volume centers on the words and experiences of teachers and students who used QUILL -- a software package developed by the authors to aid in writing instruction. It looks in detail at the stories of these early users and considers questions relevant for other teachers, students, researchers, and developers of educational innovations. Questions posed include:
* What does it mean to develop an environment for literacy in an actual classroom?
* How can a teacher create an environment in which students work together toward meaningful goals?
* How can a teacher promote the rich communication so necessary for developing language?
* What is the role of technology in the practice and development of literacy?
The examination of the QUILL experiences provides a fuller and more revealing account of what it meant to use QUILL than would have been possible through standard evaluation techniques. At the same time, the focus on the particulars also finds analogues in analyses of similar pieces of open-ended software or educational innovations in general.