For the Love of Books Nesson, Jennifer
School Arts,
10/2021, Letnik:
121, Številka:
2
Journal Article, Trade Publication Article
Many of Nessons's lessons have been inspired or introduced by picture books. She enjoys reading to her students, who are often not read to at home, and many of them have academic, behavioral, and ...emotional issues that hinder their learning. Reading out loud to her students is beneficial on so many levels. They immediately begin to settle down to focus on the story, which makes the transition to art class much easier. More than twenty years ago, she used Lois Ehlert's book, Color Zoo, for a first-grade collage lesson on geometric shapes and had it published in SchoolArts. Here, few of her all-time favorite literature-inspired lessons are offered. It includes Crockett Johnson's classic Harold and the Purple Crayon and Eric Carle's TheMixed-Up Chameleon.
An Ecology of the Russian Avant-Garde Picturebook takes a new approach to interpreting 1920s and 1930s picturebooks by prominent Russian writers, artists, and intellectuals by examining them within ...the ecological environment that, first, made them possible and, then, led to their demise. It argues that naturalistic models of the complex interactions of dynamic systems offer effective tools for understanding the fraught interrelations of art and censorship in the early Soviet period. Through illustrative case studies, it mounts a close analysis of word and image and their synergistic interplay in avant-garde picturebooks, while also recontextualizing them within the ecology of their original environment where extraordinary countervailing forces played out a drama of which these books survive as telling artifacts. Ultimately, it argues that the Russian avant-garde picturebook offers a uniquely illustrative example of literary ecology that sheds light on issues of creativity and censorship, politics and art, more broadly as well.
The goal of this study was to evaluate immediate and delayed effects of a caregiver-implemented picture book intervention to support children's mathematical language and numeracy skills. Eighty-four ...3- to 5-year-olds (Mage = 4.14) were randomly assigned to intervention (n = 40) or active control (n = 44) conditions. Participants in the intervention condition received three researcher-designed picture books with embedded mathematical language content. The active control group received similar books without mathematical language content. All families were asked to read each book a total of four times over 4 weeks (a total of 12 reading sessions). Children were pretested, posttested, and delayed (8 weeks) posttested on mathematical language and numeracy. The intervention resulted in significant positive effects on mathematical language and numeracy at the posttest. At delayed posttest, the mathematical language effects were not statistically significant, but the numeracy effects persisted. However, when only examining the quantitative language items that aligned with the intervention, the effects of the intervention were significant at both immediate and delayed posttests. Findings suggest picture book interventions can have positive impacts on children's early skills.
Educational Impact and Implications StatementSupporting children's mathematical language and numeracy development is important for their success in later mathematics. The findings from this study demonstrate that caregivers reading a set of books with embedded mathematical language to their children over the course of 4 weeks can have strong and persistent effects on children's mathematical language and numeracy skills.
•Brief picture-book interventions may improve adults’ fraction understanding.•Parents’ fraction performance benefited from both number lines and circle area models.•Caregivers were aware of their ...learning over time.•Caregivers may play a significant role in children’s fraction understanding.
Playful fraction picture books, together with math instructional content called “back matter,” may promote fraction learning, which is crucial because fractions are difficult and often disliked content. However, open questions remain regarding how different types of back matter may affect caregivers’ ability to use fraction picture books as a teaching tool. The current study offers a novel investigation into how back matter affects caregivers’ (N = 160) fraction understanding (i.e., equivalence and arithmetic) and subjective beliefs about math using a pretest/posttest design. We contrasted existing back matter text with research-informed back matter text crossed with either circle area or number line visual displays. Caregivers’ performance improved from pretest to posttest in the Researcher-Generated + Circles condition (fraction equivalence) and in the Existing + Circles, Researcher-Generated + Circles, and Researcher-Generated + Number Lines conditions (fraction arithmetic). In addition, caregivers were aware of their learning; they predicted improvements in their fraction arithmetic performance over time. These findings suggest that brief interventions, such as back matter in children’s picture books, may improve adults’ fraction understanding.
There are many students experiencing homelessness in the U.S. school systems. However, homelessness in children's literature has been studied little. This article discusses how homelessness is ...portrayed and illustrated in children's picture books published in the U.S. A total of 25 books, written in English and published in the U.S. from 1990 to 2016 for pre-k to 3rd grade readers, were selected for analysis. Drawing on the perspectives of post-structural lens of discourse and critical literacy, the analysis revealed that homelessness has been addressed in stereotypical ways, centering on mainly male adults living in public spaces. People experiencing homelessness were described as passive recipients of help from others with pathological view and subjects with no voices for their situations. The solution for homelessness was limited, temporary, and seasonal in the books. Homelessness was also portrayed as an individual matter rather than being caused by structural social inequities.
Picture books are often part of children's socialisation processes, contributing to the children forming images of the world, including ideas about (categories of) people, such as nurses. The study ...aims to explore how nurses/nursing are portrayed in children's picture books in a Swedish context. Through a systematic search, 44 books were included for analysis using thematic analysis and a theoretical lens inspired by Goffman. The results were presented in three themes: ‘The costume characterised and designated nurses’, ‘Nurses and nursing were defined through specific activities and accessories’, and ‘Nurses’ role as caregivers and decency practitioners'. The results showed that nurses were depicted/described in varied contexts, performing their roles mainly front stage in ‘hands‐on work’ in close contact with patients and relatives. Nurses were attributed different accessories and personality characteristics. Nurses/nursing were generally set within a healthcare context, oftentimes within an overarching medical logic. Historical depictions of nurses' uniforms still appeared as a signifier for nurses/nursing. The presentation of nurses/nursing might have potential implications on children's understanding of and for reputations of nurses/nursing in the long term as primary socialisation and related understandings of the (sub)world(s) are deeply rooted in humans.
