Tag Archives: literacy

Watch the Webinar: Teaching Tough Topics with Children’s Literature

Thank you to everyone who joined us this week for our webinar, “Teaching Tough Topics with Children’s Literature”! If you missed it live (or just want to watch again), here is a recording of the webinar:


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How to Use Pictures to Help Students Read in Kindergarten

In the third post of our Reading Conferences with Beginning Readers blog series, our literacy team shares how to use pictures to help children read text. This post is taken from our free, downloadable Reading Conferences by Bebop Books guide.

Teaching valuable reading skills and behaviors is essential in the beginning of kindergarten. When children start to read and engage with texts at levels A, B, and C, they need to know different strategies to use when they come to a word they don’t know or have to figure out what’s happening in the story.

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Webinar Update: Teaching Tough Topics with Children’s Literature

Teaching Tough Topics with Children's Literature

Our highly anticipated webinar, “Teaching Tough Topics with Children’s Literature” has been rescheduled for Wednesday, October 3, 2018 at 4:00 PM EDT!

Join us for our timely webinar with panelists Jinnie Spiegler, Director of Curriculum at Anti Defamation League (ADL) and Katie Potter, Literacy Specialist at Lee & Low Books to discuss how to talk to young people about topics such as: bullying, bias, what’s happening in the news, allyship, and action through worthy books and corresponding activities and resources.

At the end of this webinar, participants will receive a toolkit that features book lists relevant to the topics, free resources about these issues, links to relevant websites, and a one-hour professional development certificate.

Date: Wednesday, October 3, 2018
Time: 4:00 PM EDT/1:00 PM PDT
How to Join: You can register here.

Registration is FREE, but space is limited so register today! Even if you can’t attend live, you can still register and we will send a recording of the webinar to all registrants after the webinar takes place.

If you have any questions or particular topics you would like to see covered, feel free to leave them in the comments.

What Does Guided Reading in Levels A, B, and C Mean?

Reading Conferences with Your Beginning Readers

In the second post of our Reading Conferences with Beginning Readers blog, our literacy team discusses leveled texts for Kindergarten and what students should learn at levels A through C. This post is taken from our free, downloadable Reading Conferences by Bebop Books guide.

Don’t miss our first post sharing reading conferencing strategies for beginning readers.

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Reading Strategies for Kindergarten

It’s Back-to-School time, which means new educator resources on the Lee & Low blog!

Lee & Low Books is extremely excited to announce our Reading Conferences by Bebop Books Guide! We are proud to feature these new Conferencing Documents as essential resources for teachers in the classroom working with beginning readers.

Our Conferencing Guide includes tips and techniques for conferring with readers at guided reading levels A, B, and C. The Guide also includes “Teaching Cheat Sheets” that feature how to examine a student’s reading behavior, and turn those observations into teaching moments so students can achieve the targeted reading skill.

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Más Piñata and the Story Behind Culturally Authentic Leveled Reading

In the first post of our new blog series, Dr. Barbara Flores shares the history and philosophy behind the beloved dual language leveled reading series, Más Piñata.

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Upcoming Webinar: Teaching Tough Topics with Children’s Literature

Teaching Tough Topics with Children's Literature

The start of the school year is a critical time to establish classroom community and shared values of respect, honesty and trust.

With the one-year anniversary of the violence in Charlottesville coming up and other traumatic news constantly making headlines, many educators are left wondering how to discuss difficult current events with their students and to navigate meaningful, age-appropriate discussions on topics like hate, racism, and prejudice.

Join Lee & Low Books in collaboration with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for the timely webinar: “Teaching Tough Topics with Children’s Literature” that aims to help address these concerns through worthy books, activities, and resources. Continue reading

EVERY MONTH IS A NEW YEAR Teacher’s Guide

Every Month Is a New YearHere at Lee & Low, we are incredibly excited about the release of Every Month is a New Year, an amazing picture book from beloved author, Marilyn Singer, and illustrator, Susan L. Roth. This book has a wealth of curricular opportunities, and offers chances for students, teachers, librarians, and families alike to learn all about new year celebrations around the world and share their own cultural and familial celebrations. All of the celebrations have deep-rooted traditions and treasured customs. The collection of sixteen lively poems introduce readers to some of the most fascinating festivities, some well-known and less familiar (depending on the reader!) Continue reading

How to Use Wordless and Minimal-text Picture Books

In this age of rigor, text complexity, and higher standards for younger and younger readers—why do wordless picture books continue to be so popular?

Wordless, or minimal-text, picture books:

  • enable children to explore the art of storytelling and world-building
  • are a wonderful medium for expression and creative thought
  • are a natural introduction to inferencing, a metacognitive skill that is often taught in the later grades
  • help readers practice reading facial cues and studying visual context clues for vocabulary and plot development
  • engage visual learners or visually-motivated readers
  • alleviate struggling readers who may feel overwhelmed by dense text and long print sections
  • offer a launch pad to a lifelong love of other visually-rich formats, including comics and graphic novels

Why choose a wordless, or minimal-text, picture book for your next storytime?

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