Iva Ticic’s Perfect Poems: Springtime
Happy Spring! This one is for children who like it when things melt, new things blossom, temperature rises and short sleeves are in again: Welcome to Spring! To celebrate the new season I’d like to offer you a beautiful, fun poem for the occasion. Let these lines roll off your...
Emmy And Oliver: Smooth Sailing Over A Rough Sea
Emmy and Oliver, written by Robin Benway, dives headfirst into choppy waters. Emmy and Oliver are best friends until they are seven years old, when Oliver disappears, kidnapped by his father. Cut to ten years later. Emmy’s life is restricted by her parents’ fear and she has never stopped...
Ruby Ruben: A Flawed Gem
Ruby Ruben, written by Candice Muñoz and illustrated by Branislav Gapic, asks children to see the world through the eyes of its titular character. Ruby is a young boy who “sees the world a little bit differently.” He imagines flying to the moon, touching the sky, being a superhero,...
What I Learned From Learning Differently
Everyone learns differently. This is a universally accepted truism. But that one student may have a markedly dissimilar learning process from those around him or her and shouldn’t necessarily mean a decreased chance in success for that student. The idea of alternative learning processes has been a recurring...
How Much Tech Is Too Much Tech?
If you walk into a preschool class, you will still most likely see children being children; jumping around, twirling, finger-painting (hopefully not the wall!), interacting with one another in various ways, learning how to fairly trade a teddy bear for a block tower. This is what they are supposed...
What’s Going On With The Word Gap?
Written by: Molly McManus, PhD Candidate in Educational Psychology, University of Texas at Austin. Note: We Read Together presents this article in order to facilitate dialogue. WRT doesn’t officially endorse or support the opinions below. Why do rich kids end up doing better than poor kids in school? Of late, one common explanation...
Librarian Bans Blameless Book for Social Experiment
Last weekend marked the end of Banned Books Week, the annual book readers’ celebration of drawing attention to the dangerous history of literary censorship. In 2014, the American Library Association (ALA) Office of Intellectual Freedom received 311 challenges. When an individual finds a book unacceptable for any reason, they...
Elephants Make Fine Friends
Colter Jackson’s debut picture book is a heartfelt delight. Ella and her elephant were the best of friends. But when Ella begins to notice the differences between herself and an elephant, she wonders: is this really my best friend? Are we too different? It takes a lot of...
Learning Through War: The Refugee Children of Syria, Croatia and Beyond
Zagreb, Croatia, 9/29/2015 All month long, the Syrian refugees have been flooding my news feed and TV screen. I have a strong need to leave the political aside, to see them for who they are: humans. A World At School website says: Children trapped in conflict zones are the...