Stretch young minds to creative and productive thought with some of the best literature currently available. Polette shows you how to promote critical thinking, decision making, and problem solving through building excitement for the reading experience and increasing students' active participation in learning. She offers suggestions for creative reproduction, elaboration, rearrangements and transformations of text to help children connect reading content to their own experiences. A wonderful resource for elementary and middle school teachers of the gifted, these books and activities can be...

Motivate middle school students to become more involved in literature Introducing hundreds of sophisticated and thought-provoking picture books on a variety of topics, this book shows you how to connect students to literature through picture books. Each title was carefully chosen, using as criteria the quality of the writing, the importance of its message, and how easily it could serve as a springboard to novels. Students will become familiar with the basic components of literature, understand idioms and analogies, recognize literary devices, and determine a text's main ideas. Each topic...

"The Library Film Party: Activities with Children's Classic Films" helps you use classic children's films to enable kids to see the world more clearly. The book centers on 30 diverse films of genuine worth. Some poke fun at reality, play with it, brighten it, and eventually illuminate it. Others simmer with chuckles and surprises, while still others confirm the awe and mystery surrounding all living things.

Well-known author Nancy Polette guides you in choosing the right films, then offers a plethora of post-viewing activities appropriate for ages 7 through 12. Select any or all of the...

Getting students to want to read is one of the greatest challenges facing middle school teachers and librarians. Determining which are the "right books" that can spark a child's mental awakening is also difficult. This book from prolific author Nancy Polette furnishes interesting and fun games to pique students' interest in junior novels that are worth reading--carefully selected titles that will contribute to their educational and emotional growth.

"Gateway to Reading: 250+ Author Games and Booktalks to Motivate Middle Readers" is a powerful tool for luring middle-school students away...

Young students need to continually be presented with a vast variety of types of books, authors, illustrators, and subject matter in order to find the perfect concept or image that sparks their imagination, takes their comprehension to a new level, or helps them turn the corner to becoming a book lover. Nancy J. Polette's The Picture Book Almanac: Picture Books and Activities to Celebrate 365 Familiar and Unusual Holidays can be used year-round as a key to open that great literary treasure vault.

The books Polette has painstakingly selected for their value as learning...