Like its predecessors, this edition presents a comprehensive approach to teaching the language arts, balancing direct instruction in the communication arts and integrating the language arts with other content areas such as music, art, mathematics, social studies, and science. It explores the important topics of community and caregiver involvement in education and offers thoughtful coverage of diversity in the schools. Practical teaching ideas are found in every chapter.
The fifth edition reflects current teaching practices, field knowledge, and research. It also offers significant changes, including:
- A more streamlined approach to allow readers to move quickly from learning chapter concepts and related theory and research to understanding how they are applied in classroom practices, activities, and strategies.
- Discussion of standards, including the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), with the goal of showing readers how they can apply standards in the classroom to help meet their students' needs.
- New teaching activities that support the chapter topics and align with the CCSS.
- An appendix offering more than 25 classroom assessment tools. Discussion of current, quality children's and young adult literature, including informational texts, supported by an appendix offering annotated lists of books by genre.
- "In the Classroom" vignettes, describing real teachers implementing language arts strategies and activities with their students
- "RRP" (Read Research Practice) boxed features, offering ideas for activities and projects
- "Teaching Activities," which future teachers can use in their own classrooms.
- "Field and Practicum Activities," which readers can use now in field and practicum settings
- Discussions of technology and websites, to help readers prepare to integrate technology in their own classrooms