The use of picture books has been illuminated as a potential to address important topics such as STEM, fluency, and social justice. Unique genres such as hybrid texts and wordless picture books are also worth considering for instruction. This article explores new perspectives on using picture books. Potentials for using wordless picture books beyond the early grades to support literacy across the curriculum are shared first. Next, we discuss how some picture books lend themselves to the engineering design cycle and can be used as an organizing idea for instruction which focuses on integrating the STEM disciplines. To continue, the prospect of utilizing picture books to strengthen reading fluency while engaging students in rich content area material is discussed. The potentials for using banned and challenged picture books to teach social justice is discussed next. We conclude by presenting practical strategies, picture books to consider for each of the areas, and lessons learned.
Mathematically talcnted m i d & grade students are traditionally served by beginning Algebra I (and the traditionalpre-caliussequence) in seventh, or even sixth, grade. They thus enroll in geometry early, with lit& attention paid to the fact that readiness for and sucyss in algebra requires diferent skillr and types of understanding than readiness for and success in geomeq. Research about geometric understanding in regular andgifed students, as well as research predicting success in high school geometry chses, sug;gests that the decision to place mathematically talented students in geometry classes at a younger than typicai age should be made on the basis of more infirmation than the successfii completion ofAlgebra L This paper describes a procedure for assessing geometry readiness in mathematically ablc mi&k school studnts.
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