The Natural Reader

This colorful reader will introduce the student to God s marvelous creation and reinforce phonics principles. The student will also learn beginning dictionary skills as he is exposed to new words. Grade 1."

It has been recognized since the 1980s that literacy begins to develop a long time before formal schooling begins. In today's literate environment, children start learning to read much as they learn to speak, through playful print interactions with their parents, older siblings, or other adults, beginning in year one. A sharp debate about the best approach to developing early childhood literacy is now brewing between reading instruction experts, who tend to advocate direct instruction of skills, and preschool educators, who know that preschoolers learn best through play. This book provides a model for action that may help to settle the debate. Interactions that involve the printed word occur spontaneously between young children and adults in the context of daily life activities. This is true, to a greater or lesser degree, in essentially all socioeconomic and cultural environments. Recognizing the critical importance of the early years for the development of literacy, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the International Reading Association (IRA) formulated, in 1998, a joint position statement regarding early literacy. That statement included a set of general recommendations for teaching practice. But following the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind legislation of January 2002, and the establishment of the Reading First and Early Reading First programs, early childhood educators are now under heavy pressure to be more specific and to issue standards, or shared expectations, for the literacy development of all children below kindergarten age. Utilizing the actual experiences of six preschool children, The Secret of Natural Readers documents the process of reading development through stories of their early years. The author discusses the implications of natural reading development and its feasibility among preschoolers from different segments of the population. She also spells out, for parents and early childhood teachers, critical information on how preschool children should learn to read.

This book provides supplemental reading for students who want to learn more about animals. Interesting illustrations and helpful chapter comprehension questions are included with this reader. Grade 4.

Uncle John is heeding the call of nature! So pack a rucksack, and let’s head outside! It’s a wild world out there, and the folks at the BRI want to explore it with you. From hornywinks to Dracula orchids, from alluvium to zymogen, Uncle John is embarking on a back-country safari to track down the wackiest, weirdest, silliest, and most amazing stories about the natural world. It’s 448 wild pages of great outdoor facts, strange stories, incredible science, and fun quotes and quizzes. You’ll feel the fresh mountain air energize you as you read about… * An ape that fries burgers and a lizard that plays video games * The explosive history of America’s deepest (and bluest) lake * The search for the mysterious rhinoceros dolphin * How to distinguish a mushroom from a toadstool * Cats vs. birds: the Feline-Avian War * A waterfall that turns toys to stone * The history of dirt And much, much more!

First Published in 1990. Central to the vision of teachers researching their own practice was the belief that the improvement of teaching and learning in schools could best be achieved through the development of the critical and creative powers of individual teachers. The research studies in this book, which reflect and extend that vision, serve as accounts of the learning experiences of a group of practitioner researchers. The book has two closely interrelated purposes. The first is to provide information and ideas on the areas of the formal and hidden curriculum into which the practitioners enquired. The second purpose is to provide methodological ideas and assistance for those already engaged in practitioner research and to motivate others to seek an opportunity to undertake some form of research-based enquiry. The two purposes are closely interrelated because of the value the contributors ascribe to taking a research stance to teaching.

A beautiful lost classic of nature writing which sits alongside Tarka the Otter, Watership Down, War Horse and The Story of a Red Deer This is the story of Wulfgar, the dark-furred fox of Dartmoor, and of his nemesis, Scoble the trapper, in the seasons leading up to the pitiless winter of 1947. As breathtaking in its descriptions of the natural world as it is perceptive its portrayal of damaged humanity, it is both a portrait of place and a gripping story of survival. Uniquely straddling the worlds of animals and men, Brian Carter's A Black Fox Running is a masterpiece: lyrical, unforgiving and unforgettable.

Between the American Revolution and the Civil War, the dialogue of religious skepticism and faith shaped struggles over the place of religion in politics. It produced different visions of knowledge and education in an "enlightened" society. It fueled social reform in an era of economic transformation, territorial expansion, and social change. Ultimately, as Christopher Grasso argues in this definitive work, it molded the making and eventual unmaking of American nationalism. Religious skepticism has been rendered nearly invisible in American religious history, which often stresses the evangelicalism of the era or the "secularization" said to be happening behind people's backs, or assumes that skepticism was for intellectuals and ordinary people who stayed away from church were merely indifferent. Certainly the efforts of vocal "infidels" or "freethinkers" were dwarfed by the legions conducting religious revivals, creating missions and moral reform societies, distributing Bibles and Christian tracts, and building churches across the land. Even if few Americans publicly challenged Christian truth claims, many more quietly doubted, and religious skepticism touched--and in some cases transformed--many individual lives. Commentators considered religious doubt to be a persistent problem, because they believed that skeptical challenges to the grounds of faith--the Bible, the church, and personal experience--threatened the foundations of American society. Skepticism and American Faith examines the ways that Americans--ministers, merchants, and mystics; physicians, schoolteachers, and feminists; self-help writers, slaveholders, shoemakers, and soldiers--wrestled with faith and doubt as they lived their daily lives and tried to make sense of their world.