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Is Reading Aloud Common Ground for WOW and LETRS?

by Mary L. Fahrenbruck, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico

Author’s Note: The thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog post are my own and do not represent the Worlds of Words Center. The content is based on my professional experiences in WOW and in the LETRS professional development training sessions.

My response to the question posed in the title above is that reading aloud has the potential to become common ground between Worlds of Words (WOW) and Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) (Lexia, 2024). Despite their different focuses – Worlds of Words on global literacies and literatures for all readers and LETRS on professional development training for prek-3 educators and administrators – this common ground exists. This blog post is my attempt to reconcile my theoretical groundings in constructivism, socio-psycholinguistics and Reader Response theory with the LETRS training permeating school districts in New Mexico (NM) where I reside. Continue reading →

WOW Dozen: Difficult and Challenging Topics in Children’s Literature

By Seemi Aziz, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

While teaching a graduate course on the art of picturebooks this past semester, I realized that there has been an influx of children’s books on challenging topics. This piqued my curiosity, and I began digging into the stacks at the Worlds of Words and online. While I found many recent titles about anxiety, depression, death, and grandparents who are growing older, I also thought of books that would pair nicely and help ease the acceptance of these hard topics. Needless to say, picturebooks have never been simple and mono-dimensional and it is there power to speak to the youngest of our audiences, giving them strength. Continue reading →