Language Arts Activities for Children

Bringing effective language arts instruction into the classroom is an exciting experience for both children and teachers. Stimulating activities add sparkle to the environment and enrich children's learning experiences. However, we are living in a time when educators are facing criticism about the effectiveness of instruction, the development of language arts competencies in the classroom, and the ability of schools to meet the needs of a diverse school population. Unfortunately, adding stimulation and enrichment to the environment and effectively meeting competency needs in language arts may be considered opposing goals. This activities book illustrates how teachers can use effective teaching methods and strategies to build children's language arts skills as well as create a stimulating, enriched environment. The activities in this book include many opportunities for the integration of the language arts across the curriculum. Because of the growing demand for literacy instruction, most of the activities include selections of children's literature that may be used to focus the lesson and to expand interest in and knowledge of children's literature. These activities also emphasize the importance of oral and written language in the development of language arts capabilities. This is a very practical book--all activities are developed in a lesson plan format. All of the activities have been tested in school environments, with inservice teachers, and in teacher education classrooms. We found that effective teaching requires a model for lesson plan development, clearly stipulated objectives, and step-by-step development of the lesson. We also discovered that peer teaching, student teaching, and in-service classroom teaching improved when the methods stressed in language arts classes were demonstrated through lesson plan development. The lesson plans in the multicultural section were developed, implemented, and evaluated as part of a multicultural research project designed to improve students' language arts abilities. The lesson plans in the literature and composition sections were developed, implemented, and evaluated as part of literature and writing research projects. The plans can be implemented directly by the teacher, modified for individual needs, or used as a model for additional activities. The activities in the technology section were developed to explore ways that language arts teachers may effectively use computers and the Internet to assist instruction.Norton, Donna E. is the author of 'Language Arts Activities for Children', published 2002 under ISBN 9780130498878 and ISBN 0130498874.