Thematic Educator Guide: Teaching Civic Engagement

Watch Reading the World: Nurturing a Global Perspective for All Students, a conversation featuring Laura Robb and Luz Yadira Herrera here! Books give a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything. – Plato   “The only way to read the world is by traveling the world!”

Get lost in a book! Read at school. Read at home. Thrillers, mysteries, fantasy, realistic fiction–whatever genre sweeps you into other worlds and the lives of people.  We teachers wish this kind of reading life for all of our students! However, according to the NAEP  (National Association of Reading Progress), our nation’s reading report card,

A few weeks ago Penguin Random House Education ventured out to Brooklyn, New York to hand deliver our new Classroom Libraries directly to P.S. 273 Wortman. The Brooklyn school reached out to us to help support their students’ literacy growth with Classroom Libraries earlier this summer. When we learned they had no way to move

Every time you listen to an audio book and you’re loving it, someone is reading aloud to you. And all the time you’re listening, your imagination creates pictures of settings, characters, and people. Often, you’ll find yourself stepping into a beloved character’s shoes and living life in the past, present or future. Read alouds capture

Dear Educator, Elementary school teachers often organize reading instruction around guided reading groups, and groups read books that meet the instructional needs of members. However, like most of you in middle and high school, I have used one novel, biography, or informational text for an entire class. And, in doing so, I soon realized that

Dear Parents and Teachers, When you extend the reading of poems and fairy tales beyond those in this blog, you increase the amount of listening and reading children do. It’s easy. For the Mother Goose Group, put into a search engine Ba Ba Black Sheep, One Two Buckle My Shoe, Jack and Jill, and Hot

Dear Teacher, Mysteries appeal to students’ analytical minds as they bond with the protagonist-detective to solve the crime or series of crimes. A good mystery writer tries to trick readers by throwing red herrings into the plot. A red herring takes readers on a detour of misleading clues to confuse them about which suspect is

Dear Parents and Teachers, Each time you receive the PRH Newsletter for grades K to 6, there will be a teaching and learning feature for pre-school to grade 1, grades 2-3, and grades 4 to 6 by Laura Robb. Lessons will be interactive and involve all age groups in creative and critical thinking conversations, writing,

The spring of each school year can be an anxious time. Your district’s test scores arrive, and reading scores may not have improved enough to meet your goals. The education team at Penguin Random House understands your concerns for staff and students. To support you, we’ve asked three experienced educators to write a white paper

Dear Teacher, The informational text genre feeds students’ interests and curiosity while informing them about the natural world and specific topics. Students enjoy poring over and learning from these informational text features: photographs and captions, sidebars chock-full of intriguing details, diagrams, charts, excerpts from journals and interviews, and firsthand accounts by eyewitnesses. Authors of informational books breathe

“Nothing can replace you, the teacher, in the classroom. Unlike computers and robots, when you possess deep knowledge about how children learn, you can process students’ actions, words, and written work and provide feedback that moves each child forward. Moreover, you have a heart and emotional center that enables you to build students’ self-efficacy, self-confidence, motivation, and engagement in learning because students feel your respect and trust, your hopes and goals, as they experience your investment in their progress”. – Laura Robb

Dear Teacher, A favorite genre of students, realistic fiction opens a window into their world and their hopes and dreams, and often validates their life experiences. Bonding to realistic stories can happen quickly as students connect with characters that experience a similar range of emotions, relationships, problems, and wonderings. When students relate to realistic plots,