Once upon a time...children's nonfiction books were stodgy, concise, and not very kid friendly. Most were text heavy, with just a few scattered images decorating the content and meaning, rather than enhancing it. Over the last 20 years, children's nonfiction has evolved into a new breed of visually dynamic and engaging texts.

In 5 Kinds of Nonfiction: Enriching Reading and Writing Instruction with Children’s Books, Melissa Stewart and Dr. Marlene Correia present a new way to sort nonfiction into five major categories and show how doing so can help teachers and librarians build stronger readers and writers. Along the way, they:

• Introduce the 5 kinds of nonfiction: Active, Browseable, Traditional, Expository Literature, and Narrative—and explore each category through discussions, classroom examples, and insights from leading children’s book authors
• Offer tips for building strong, diverse classroom texts and library collections
• Provide more than 20 activities to enhance literacy instruction
• Include innovative strategies for sharing and celebrating nonfiction with students. 

With more than 150 exemplary nonfiction book recommendations and Stewart and Correia’s extensive knowledge of literacy instruction, 5 Kinds of Nonfiction will elevate your understanding of nonfiction in ways that speak specifically to the info-kids in your classrooms, but will inspire all readers and writers.

When writing workshops first blossomed in classrooms, its hallmarks were genuine curiosity, individual choice, quality conversations, and engaging children's literature. A joyous hum of intention, creativity, and craft enlivened the school day. Today's teachers are often faced with a range of obstacles, as new initiatives are embraced, mandates handed down, and scripted programs are purchased. Sometimes teachers must sacrifice the original principles of the writing workshop and lose the creative venue they provide.

Above and Beyond the Writing Workshop is filled with original writing challenges designed to bring back the spirit of the original writing workshop model and encourage teachers to enhance it with invention, innovation, and inspiration. Teaching creative writing is not only possible, but an important process in their instruction. Author Shelley Harwayne invites teachers to keep the workshop spirit alive by:

• Encouraging professional conversations on classroom ideas and methods between colleagues
• Developing writing cues that allow young writers to be inquisitive, outspoken, and independent
• Showing how high quality writing can make a difference 
• Offering an inspired and stimulating outlet for students to express their passions

Harwayne's book will help teachers encourage students to write the world around them, which can generate more critical thinking and make for a more well-rounded child.

Conversing with others has given insights to different perspectives, helped build ideas, and solve problems. Academic conversations push students to think and learn in lasting ways. Academic conversations are back-and-forth dialogues in which students focus on a topic and explore it by building, challenging, and negotiating relevant ideas.
In Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk that Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understandings authors Jeff Zwiers and Marie Crawford address the challenges teachers face when trying to bring thoughtful, respectful, and focused conversations into the classroom. They identify five core communications skills needed to help students hold productive academic conversation across content areas:

1. Elaborating and Clarifying
2. Supporting Ideas with Evidence
3. Building On and/or Challenging Ideas
4. Paraphrasing
5. Synthesizing

This book shows teachers how to weave the cultivation of academic conversation skills and conversations into current teaching approaches. More specifically, it describes how to use conversations to build the following:

• Academic vocabulary and grammar
• Critical thinking skills such as persuasion, interpretation, consideration of multiple perspectives, evaluation, and application
• Literacy skills such as questioning, predicting, connecting to prior knowledge, and summarizing
• An academic classroom environment brimming with respect for others' ideas, equity of voice, engagement, and mutual support

The ideas in this book stem from many hours of classroom practice, research, and video analysis across grade levels and content areas. Readers will find numerous practical activities for working on each conversation skill, crafting conversation-worthy tasks, and using conversations to teach and assess. Academic Conversations offers an in-depth approach to helping students develop into the future parents, teachers, and leaders who will collaborate to build a better world.

Teaching reading to children in a language that is not their own is a daunting task. Balancing Reading and Language Learning: A Resource for Teaching English Language Learners, K-5 provides the strategies proven to be effective in a balanced reading program, while at the same time valuing the native culture and first-language skills of the English language learner. Combining the best classroom practices and research on teaching reading and language acquisition, author Mary Cappellini integrates effective reading instruction with effective language instruction. Through the framework of a balanced reading program, she emphasizes the importance of constantly listening for and assessing children's language and reading strategies during read aloud, shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading, including literature circles.
Included in this text are:

• How to set up an environment that will allow all English language learners to succeed
• Stages of English language proficiency and stages of reading development—how they compare and how to use them to assess and plan for individual children
• A focus on tapping into children's prior knowledge in their primary language while teaching reading in English and using Spanish/English cognates to help develop academic language
• A collection of in-depth lessons and mini-lessons based on children's language proficiency and reading strategy needs with ongoing assessment, teacher reflection, and with an emphasis on choosing the right books to match their reading and language level
• How to manage numerous guided reading groups with children of all stages of reading and language proficiency
• Thematic planning, with sample units for primary and upper grades, to support academic language and meet content standards
• Ideas for literacy evenings, school tours, and other events to involve parents with the learning community
• Extensive resources: numerous forms and checklists—observation sheets, planning sheets, literature response sheets, focus sheets for shared and guided reading, and more.

Regardless of how many or how few ELL students a teacher has, this invaluable resource helps them meet the challenges and reap the rewards of teaching children to read as they learn the language.