From Words to Wisdom: Supporting Academic Language Use in PreK–3rd Grade (Language and Literacy Series)

Product Description This practical guide shows teachers how to introduce academic language to young children, with an emphasis on appreciating and leveraging linguistic diversity. New educational standards are asking students to master content-area concepts and increasingly complex texts in earlier grades. This practitioner-friendly text provides instructional materials, sample dialogues, and assessment tools to facilitate academic language use in PreK–3 classrooms. The authors describe the word, sentence, and discourse levels of academic language, while encouraging teachers and students to consider purpose, participants, discipline, and context. Strategies are provided to help readers adapt language for a variety of academic purposes across mathematics, science, play, mealtimes, and ELA instruction. The text includes discussion questions, reproducible activities, planning materials, assessment tools, and handouts to facilitate smooth implementation into classroom practice. From Words to Wisdom will empower teachers to build bridges to academic success for all young learners. Book Features:Expands teachers’ understanding of academic language beyond vocabulary to include syntax and discourse-level features.Includes specific strategies, activities, and suggestions for teaching from and with academic language across multiple settings and disciplines.Addresses all students, including multilingual and linguistically diverse speakers.Incorporates user-friendly features, such as text boxes, vignettes, assessment protocols, and sample teaching materials. Review “By making a case for academic language, these authors are helping us all open a gateway for children to become members of a language community highly valued in school learning. It may become one of the most prized assets that we can give to our young children.”―From the Foreword by Susan B. Neuman, professor of childhood and literacy education, New York University“This book should be required reading for all teachers so that all children are provided with high-quality classroom language environments that ensure their future success. It is packed full of strategies and activities for integrating academic language throughout the school day. With thoughtful guidance for instruction across subject areas, teachers will learn to identify, model, and explicitly teach academic language. As a developmental psychologist who works with children from linguistically diverse backgrounds, I appreciated the real-world examples of classroom-based academic language used with young children―a testament that teachers have the power to build classrooms that support academic language across a variety of settings.”―Perla B. Gámez, associate professor, Loyola University Chicago About the Author Erica M. Barnes is an associate professor in the Department of Literacy Teaching and Learning at the University of Albany and a former teacher, teacher consultant, and progress monitoring specialist. Jill F. Grifenhagen is an assistant professor of literacy education at North Carolina State University and a former early elementary classroom teacher and instructional coach. David K. Dickinson is professor emeritus at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College.