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Picturebooks are highly sophisticated multimodal ensembles. Understanding the semiotic resources and affordances of the visual mode to represent and communicate meaning is fundamental to appreciating the artistry and complexity of picturebooks. A recent classroom-based research project with grade 2 students featured explicit instruction on particular elements of visual art and design to develop and enhance students’ visual competences and aesthetic appreciation and understanding of picturebooks. In addition to being provided with multiple opportunities to talk and write about picturebook artwork, the students created their own multimodal print texts. The students’ composition of this multimodal work required them to intentionally apply the focus elements of visual art and design featured during the study. Examples of students’ writing, talking, and artwork reveal how they remade meaning across modes as they described, explained, interpreted, and analyzed visual images in both the picturebooks and their own multimodal texts.

In the 21st century, our students increasingly communicate, connect, collaborate, and interact with diverse cultures and traditions around the world, so they need to develop global literacy. This department column highlights research and research-to-practice at the international level to bring global best teaching practices to the forefront. Topics include international literacy instruction, international professional development, global literacy initiatives, global partnership and collaborative projects between schools and educators, best practices in literacy globally, and advocacy.

This article discusses the importance of making available in classrooms a range of children's literature offering authentic and meaningful representations of characters with disabilities. The focus is not only on reading inclusive literature with typically developing students but also on the importance of making inclusive literature available to students who could identify with characters with disabilities. An annotated selection of current books, along with a list of criteria for evaluating children's books for respectful portrayals of disability, is presented to help educators choose inclusive literature that celebrates diverse abilities.

Children's literature plays an essential role in the literacy development of children. This department column focuses on the teaching and use of children's literature and provides educators with information about a wide range of books across multiple genres that are representative of the diverse world in which we live. A strong emphasis is placed on the importance of having diverse library collections that take into account numerous factors, such as race, class, disability, and religion. This column also offers innovative approaches for bringing children and books together, as well as content analyses and rich descriptions of titles that share common features (e.g., endpapers, the blending of poetry and nonfiction).

This article is a critical content analysis of Children's Choice award-winning picture books from 2000 to 2014. The “critical” part of the analysis consists of selecting archetypes for males presented in these texts based on applying feminist poststructuralist literacy theory that situates literacy and language at the center of gender identity manifestation. In this analysis, the dominant archetypes for male characters tended to be Wildman, Friend, and Creator. In many books, male protagonists used literacy to maintain or develop a positive identity throughout the plot of the book, as reading, writing, and symbolic communication increased choices for male characters and offered insight through language, often inspiring change. Our findings suggest that deficit views of young males’ literacy practices still appear in award-winning picture books but are becoming more complex and positive. This matters because picture books reveal values of literacy as characters read or write or engage in symbolic communication.

The purpose of this article is to describe a family literacy project involving a partnership of school-aged children and their families with in-service and pre-service teachers enrolled in a university course on literacy instruction for English language learners. This project consists of family members sharing their stories with their children to be later transformed into bilingual picture books. This project engaged teachers, families, EL learners, and community members to become partners in students’ literacy development. Teachers engaged students from culturally- and linguistically-diverse backgrounds and their families to produce student-authored and self-illustrated bilingual picture books in the classroom setting. In this article, we present the instructional process for teachers who are interested in partnering with families to create bilingual books.

This article presents an approach to use wordless picture books to enhance the language development of English language learners. This approach is grounded in best practices to teach ELLs. The process starts with viewing and analyzing the visual images, engaging ELLs in discussion, and ending with students' self-authored texts. The wordless picture books contain all the literary elements and text structures that books with text have. Wordless picture books, without the language demands, invite ELLs to share the reading experience and to construct meaning from the viewing experience. Since wordless picture books vary in its complexity, booklist indicating level of complexity with annotations is provided for K-5 students. Classroom discussion and writing samples are also included to demonstrate the four stages of this instructional approach.

There has been a close association between picturebook illustrations and works of fine art since the picturebook was first conceived, and many ways these associations among works of fine art and picturebook illustrations and design play out. To make sense of all the various ways picturebook illustrations are associated with works of fine art, three categories of appropriation have been constructed that may help teachers organize and discuss the connections among fine art and picturebook illustrations. The three categories are: 1) Reproduction, 2) Transfiguration, and 3) Stylization. Helping students interpret works of fine art leads to deeper understandings of the picturebooks they experience and carries over into other areas of the language arts curriculum.

Beginning with a brief rationale for selecting quality digital picture book apps for beginning readers, the authors describe the elements of digital picture books and provide a brief review of the instructional benefits of digital picture book use for beginning readers. They then present a detailed taxonomy for selecting quality picture book apps. Examples drawn from actual apps available for young children illustrate the concepts addressed. Beginning with a brief rationale for selecting quality digital picture book apps for beginning readers, the authors describe the elements of digital picture books and provide a brief review of the instructional benefits of digital picture book use for beginning readers. They then present a detailed taxonomy for selecting quality picture book apps. Examples drawn from actual apps available for young children illustrate the concepts addressed.

This article presents general implications for using interactive electronic picture books in the classroom. The suggestions are rooted in research with middle grades readers in a tutoring setting and kindergarten through fourth-grade classroom settings. Specific attention is given toward those features in eBooks that may distract, support, or extend comprehension. The article also addresses ways to familiarize students with multi-touch tablet devices while encouraging students and teachers to transfer print-based reading strategies to this new medium. In addition, the authors provide a framework for considering the relationship between interactive features in eBooks and students’ comprehension while establishing the need for more scaffolding of reading instruction when using ebooks.

This article examines the issue of children with incarcerated parents within the broader topic of criminal justice in multicultural children's literature. The sheer magnitude of culture of children with incarcerated parents makes it necessary for their stories to be included in children's literature. Children with an incarcerated parent need to see their experiences mirrored in books. Other children need to use books on this topic as windows into the experiences of other children. And finally, all children need to use books on this topic as doors for examining issues of criminal justice in their immediate communities and society as a whole. Authentic student voices, ranging from first graders to fourth graders, are shared and ideas for using these texts in classrooms are included.

Although the worlds of professors and author-illustrators of children's and young adult literature are closely related, they rarely intersect in practice. In this column, readers are provided with a new perspective that crosses this divide. The authors are both professor of children's and young adult literature, as well as accomplished authors and illustrators or trade books. Their unique vantage point allows the authors to share insights gained from working in these related but separated worlds. Teachers will enjoy the suggestions for classroom instruction and the look “behind the scenes” that emerges from this intersection.

This teaching tip manuscript demonstrates how picture book illustrations can be used as an inquiry tool that facilitates one's connecting of visual investigations in a picture to the process of generating self-questions. Techniques suggested to promote self-questioning are (1) introducing young readers to an interactive picture book read aloud with prompts, such as, “What do you notice?” and “What questions do you have?” instead of teacher-driven prompts that result in student statements, (2) using selected perplexing picture book illustrations as a medium for fostering and modeling the self-questioning process, (3) partnering readers together so that they investigate picture book illustrations, determine questions, and search for answers collaboratively, and (4) encouraging independent reading of self-selected picture books to apply self-questioning techniques.

This article explores a variety of contemporary picturebooks that offer the picturebook as an object of construction, as a character, and as portals to other narrative levels. These metafictive devices break the traditional boundaries between fictional and real worlds by involving the reader in the narrative, talking to them directly, and requiring them to actively participate in the construction of the narrative. In addition, we offer some ways these picturebooks may be integrated into the elementary reading curriculum.

Wordless picturebooks may be better defined by what they do contain – visually rendered narratives – rather than what they do not contain. This column challenges traditional ways of looking at wordless picturebooks and offers a few approaches for integrating wordless picturebooks into a wider range of classrooms, preschool through middle school.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a whole picture book worth? This was exactly the question Pierce School teachers asked themselves when they began the project of compiling a photo library for creating realistic and relevant short texts by and for students across all grades in their K-8 elementary school. In an effort to motivate young readers, inspire young authors, and use literacy to strengthen the school community, teachers and students compiled photographs to create an image library for creating texts about their school community. Teachers then guided their students to create a variety of texts using photos from the shared library of images as illustrations or prompts for writing in. These student-created texts form a corpus of narrative and informational texts that build on images that are accessible and meaningful to all members of the school community. إذا تساوي صورة ألف كملة كم كلمة يساويها كتاب مصور كامل؟ وهذا هو بالضبط السؤال الذي طرحه معلمو مدرسة بيرس على أنفسهم حين بدأوا مشروع جمع مكتبة صور من أجل إنشاء نصوص قصيرة واقعية وذات العلاقة بالقراء وهذا تم على أيدي الطلاب ومن أجلهم عبر كل الصفوف في مدرستهم الابتدائية المؤلفة من الروضة حتى الصف الثامن. وفي محاولة لتشجيع قراء صغار وإلهام مؤلفين صغار واستخدام معرفة القراءة والكتابة لتقوية المجتمع المدرسي جمع المعلمون والطلاب صورا لخلق مكتبة صور لإنشاء نصوص بشأن مجتمعهم المدرسي ثمة وجه المعلمون طلابهم لإنشاء نصوص متنوعة مستخدمين صورا مأخوذة من مكتبة الصور المشتركة لتحريضهم على الكتابة. إذ تشكل هذه النصوص المنشئة على أيدي الطلاب مجموعة كتابات في النصوص المعلوماتية والسردية التي تبني على الصور الملائمة وذات المعنى لكل فرد من أفراد المجتمع المدرسي. 如果一幅图画值一千个字，那么一整本图画书又值多少个字呢？这正是皮尔斯学校的教师在开始编制照片库这个计划时反问自己的问题。图片库是提供给校内幼儿园至第八年级所有学生在创作写实及相关的短文时所使用的。为了激发年轻阅读者，启迪年轻写作者，以及利用读写文化来强化学校社区，教师与学生一起编制照片，建立图像库，以供学生创作有关他们学校社区的文章时所使用。教师然后指导学生利用图像库的共用照片作为插图或写作提示，创作各式各样的文章。这些学生创作的文本集结成一本叙事及信息文集，这些文本的创作都是建立于学校社区内人人可以共用而又对他们富有意义的图像。 Si une image vaut un millier de mots, combien de mots vaut tout un livre d'images ? Telle est exactement la question que se sont poses des enseignants de l'Ecole Pierce quand il son demarre le projet de rassembler une bibliotheque de photos afin de faire creer des textes realistes, pertinents et courts par et pour les eleves de toutes les classes de leur ecole, du jardin d'enfants a la 8eme annee. Dans un effort pour motiver les jeunes lecteurs, inspirer de jeunes auteurs, et utiliser la litteratie pour renforcer la communaute scolaire, les enseignants et les eleves ont rassemble des photographies pour creer une bibliotheque d'images afin de creer des textes relatifs a leur communaute scolaire. Les enseignants ont alors guide les eleves pour creer des textes varies utilisant des photos provenant de la bibliotheque d'images commune en tant qu'illustrations ou incitations a ecrire. Les textes crees par les eleves forment un corpus de textes narratifs et informatifs qui presentent des images a la portee de tous et chargees de sens pour tous les membres de la communaute scolaire. Если лучше один раз увидеть, чем сто раз услышать, то сколько же слов может сэкономить целая иллюстрированная книга? Именно этим вопросом задались учителя восьмилетней школы Пирс в штате Массачусетс, когда задумали собрать фотобиблиотеку в помощь ученикам, которые должны на разных этапах обучения писать короткие тексты на реальном, а не вымышленном материале. Для мотивации юных читателей и писателей и для укрепления школьного сообщества посредством развития грамотности учителя и учащиеся решили собрать множество фотографий, на основе которых можно было бы писать тексты о родной школе. Теперь дети могут заниматься письмом под руководством учителей, постепенно формируя корпус повествовательных и информационных текстов, соотносимых с изображениями, которые доступны и значимы для всех членов школьного сообщества. Si un cuadro vale mil palabras, ?cuantas palabras valdria todo un libro de cuadros? Esta es la pregunta que se hizo el profesorado de Pierce School cuando empezaron el proyecto de compilar un archivo de fotos para crear textos cortos realistas y relevantes por y para los estudiantes desde el jardin de ninos hasta el octavo grado. Tratando de motivar a lectores jovenes, inspirar a escritores jovenes, y usar la lectura para fortalecer la comunidad escolar, el profesorado y el alumnado compilaron fotografias para hacer un archivo de imagenes para crear textos sobre la comunidad escolar. Los maestros luego guiaron a los estudiantes en la creacion de una variedad de textos usando las fotos del archivo como ilustraciones o senales iniciadoras para la escritura. Estos textos estudiantiles forman un corpus de imagenes que son accesibles y de gran significado para todos los miembros de la comunidad escolar.

The imaginative and interactive modes of communication available for children today, above and beyond print, indicate a profound shift to the nature of reading education as a whole. This article reviews the theoretical landscape involved in multimodal education, and then examines the practices that make multimodal education feasible in the classroom. Using examples from a research project in which elementary school teachers designed and implemented literacy curricula that focused on multimodal reading and writing skills, we highlight the instructional dynamics that took place in these classrooms and outline the ways in which the teachers effectively oriented their students toward the kind of multimodal and sociocognitive work that is characteristic of a larger digital culture. In the end, the implications for reading instruction are framed in terms of a pedagogy of multiliteracies. تشير طرق المواصلات الخيالية والتعاونية المتوفرة للأولاد اليوم فوق المطبوعات ووراءها إلى التغير الجوهري في طبيعة تعليم القراءة ككل. لذا تراجع هذه المقالة التضاريس النظرية في التعليم ذي تعددية الطرق وثم تفحص الممارسات التي تسني التعليم ذا تعددية الطرق في غرفة الصف. وباستخدام أمثلة من مشروع بحثي فيه قد صمم مدرسو الابتدائية منهاجا دراسيا مركزا على مهارات تعددية الطرق في القراءة والكتابة نسلط الضوء على الديناميكيات التعليمية التي حدثت في غرف الصفوف هذه ونبين الطرق التي وجه فيها المعلمون طلابهم نحو نوع من العمل التعددي الطرق والاجتماع الذهني الذي يتمثل في الثقافة الرقمية الكبرى. وفي الختام يتم وضع أعقاب تعليم القراءة في إطار علم أصول التدريس من حيث تعددية المعارف. 今天可供孩子们使用的通信模式富创意性及互动性，远超越以往的打印模式，这表示阅读教育的性质在整体上有一个深远的转变。本文评论有关多模态教育的理论背景，并考查能使多模态教育在教室里成为可行的教学实践。在一项研究计划中，小学教师设计及实施以教授多模态读写技能为主的读写文化课程。作者使用该研究其中一些实例来凸显出这些教室里所产生的教学动力，并概述教师如何有效地指导学生以多模态及社会认知为目标的读写文化学习，而这些多模态及社会认知性读写文化工作正是一个更大的数位文化的特征。本文最后以多元媒体读写文化教学法的理论框架说明这项研究结果对阅读教学所带来的启示。 Les modalites de communication imaginatives et interactives dont disposent aujourd'hui les enfants, concernant l'ecrit et au-dela de celui-ci, indiquent un profond changement de la nature de l'enseignement de la lecture dans son ensemble. Cet article fait un tour d'horizon du paysage theorique qu'inclut la pedagogie plurimodale, puis examine les pratiques qui rendent possible une pedagogie plurimodale dans la classe. En prenant des exemples dans un projet de recherche dans lequel les professeurs des ecoles elementaires preparent et realisent des programmes de litteratie centres sur des competences en lecture et ecriture plurimodales, nous mettons en lumiere la dynamique pedagogique qui se produit dans ces classes et mettons en evidence les modalites selon lesquelles les professeurs orientent veritablement les eleves vers le genre de travail plurimodal et sociocognitif qui caracterise une culture numerique plus large. On definit pour finir un cadre des implications pour un enseignement de la lecture en termes de pedagogie de multilitteratie. Дети сегодня получают и передают информацию различными способами – не только посредством печатной или письменной речи, но также образно и интерактивно. Поэтому подходы к обучению чтению тоже должны коренным образом измениться. В статье предложен обзор теоретических работ по мультимодальному обучению и опыт конкретных учителей начальной школы, реализовавших этот подход на практике в рамках исследовательского проекта. Они разработали и апробировали программу по обучению грамотности, включавшую развитие навыков чтения и создания мультимодальных текстов. Авторы подробно описывают учебный процесс и методы, с помощью которых учителя успешно познакомили учащихся с теми видами мультимодальной и социально-когнитивной деятельности, которые характерны для современной цифровой культуры. Предложенные выводы связаны с применением этих практик с целью развития мультиграмотности при обучении чтению. Los medios imaginativos e interactivos de comunicacion disponible a los ninos de hoy, mas alla de lo impreso, indican un cambio profundo en la naturaleza de la alfabetizacion en su totalidad. Este articulo examina las teorias sobe la educacion multimodal, y luego examina las practicas que hacen la educacion multimodal posible en las aulas. Usando ejemplos de un proyecto de investigacion en el que maestros de escuela primaria disenaron e implementaron planes de estudio de alfabetizacion enfocados en las destrezas multimodales de lectura y escritura, hacemos resaltar la dinamica docente que tomo lugar en estas aulas y hacemos un resumen de las maneras en que los maestros pudieron orientar eficazmente a sus estudiantes a hacer la clase de trabajo multimodal y sociocognoscitivo que caracteriza gran parte de la cultura digital. Al final, las implicaciones para la instruccion de lectura se enmarcan en terminos de la pedagogia de multicompetencias.

Recently, historical fiction has begun to dominate major children's book awards. This article describes the values of using high-quality historical fiction in the classroom and presents different ways to respond to this genre including using modern technology. Two tables, one of picture books and one of novels, with paired nonfiction texts, are provided as a teacher resource. تلخيص البحث: لقد بدأ الأدب التاريخي الخيالي يسيطر على الجوائز الرئيسية لكتب للأطفال مؤخرا. لذا تصف هذه المقالة قيم استخدام الأدب التاريخي الواقعي ذات الجودة العالية في الصف وتقدم طرقا مختلفة لتعالج هذا الجنس من الأدب بما فيها استخدام النقنية الحديثة. وقد تم تقديم جدولين واحد منهما كتب مصورة والآخر روايات مع نصوص واقعية كمورد للمعلمين. 历史小说最近开始在主要获奖儿童书籍中脱颖而出。本文介绍在课堂教学中使用高质历史小说的价值，并提供不同方法对这种体裁作回应，包括使用现代科技方法。作者提供了两个表：一表列出图画书，另一表则列出小说书，两表均配以非小说的文本，作为教师的教学资源。 Depuis peu, la fiction historique a commence a prendre le dessus lors des principaux prix attribues aux livres pour enfants. Cet article indique les avantages qu'il y a a utiliser en classe une fiction historique de grande qualite et presente differentes facons de faire face a ce genre, y compris en utilisant la technologie moderne. L'article comporte deux tableaux en tant ressource pour les maitres, l'un pour les livres d'images et l'autre pour les romans, avec des textes apparies autres que des textes de fiction. В последнее время среди лауреатов премий по детской литературе лидирует историческая беллетристика. В статье описано, насколько важно и полезно использовать высококачественную историческую беллетристику на уроках. Читатель познакомится с различными способами учебной работы с литературой такого жанра, в том числе, с применением компьютерных технологий. В качестве ресурса для учителей предлагаются одна книга с иллюстрациями и один роман, причем в пару к каждому из этих текстов подобран соответствующий нехудожественный текст. Recientemente, libros de ficcion historica para ninos han ganado muchos de los premios que se otorgan. Este articulo describe la utilidad de la ficcion historica de alta calidad al salon de clase y presenta diferentes modos de usar este genero, incluyendo usando la tecnologia moderna. Dos tablas, una de libros dibujados y otra de novelas—ambas emparejadas con textos que no son de ficcion—se proporcionan para servirles de recursos a los maestros.

There once lived a wolf who loved to eat more than anything else in the world. As soon as he finished one meal, he began to think of the next. One day the wolf got a terrible craving for chicken stew. (Kasza, 16-996, n.p.) The author's experiences in using children's literature to engage her students in mathematics are described in this article. Using the book The Wolf's Chicken Stew, the author's class participated in an interactive read-aloud, graphed favorite foods from the story, and finally followed a recipe to bake chocolate chip cookies. Reasons for making the literature/math connection with students are explored. Additional pieces of children's literature, both those with and without specific math content, are presented and examples of possible mathematics learning experiences are described. Steps teachers might take in helping children make literature/math connections are offered. They include choosing appropriate pieces of children's literature for read-alouds, helping students actively make mathematics connections to those books, and providing authentic hands-on exploration of literature/math connections.

In his book To Be a Boy, To Be a Reader: Engaging Teen and Preteen Boys in Active Literacy, William Brozo suggested that many adolescent boys have become mentally and academically detached from school. While Brozo acknowledges that a solution to these problems is multifaceted, he asserts that engaging boys in literature that makes use of archetypes can contribute to their resolution. This article extends Brozo's ideas to boys in the years before adolescence. If educators wait until the middle grades to engage boys in literacy and books, they risk losing many to the detachment Brozo describes. Boys can and should be introduced to archetypes earlier, and this can be accomplished with picture books. The author presents a list of picture books arranged by archetype, along with strategies for creating boy-friendly classrooms.

The Radical Change conceptual framework provides theory for understanding, appreciating, and evaluating three types of significant change in contemporary literature for children and youth: changing forms and formats, changing perspectives, and changing boundaries. A paucity of research has explored primary students' literary understandings of and responses to books with Radical Change characteristics. This article uses transcript excerpts from small-group interactive read-aloud sessions with grade 1 children to illustrate their understandings of and responses to the Radical Change characteristics in two picture books. The characteristics of Type One Radical Change (graphics in new forms and formats, words and pictures reaching new levels of synergy, nonlinear organization and format, nonsequential organization and format, multiple layers of meaning, and interactive formats), and one characteristics of Type Two Radical Change (multiple perspectives, visual and verbal), are used as a framework to discuss the grade 1 students' oral responses to and interpretations of the two books. The article also discusses the possibilities for language, literacy, and literary development afforded by picture books with Radical Change characteristics.

Teachers need a deeper understanding of the texts being discussed, in particular the various textual and visual aspects of picturebooks themselves, including the images, written text and design elements, to support how readers made sense of these texts. As teachers become familiar with aspects of literary criticism, art history, visual grammar, picturebook design, peritextual devices and narrative theories, they are better positioned to take full advantage of the discussions that occur in their classrooms.

Author Virginia Hamilton had the gift of creating lyrical phrases that captured the complexities of life. Among her most notable phrase is the idea of the “hopescape,” the metaphoric description of the pains and joys, triumphs and defeats, longing, and dreams that make us human. The publication of an edited volume that compiles a sampling of Hamilton's provocative ideas serves as a foundation on which to examine the hopescapes that are found in various types of literature.