Books by Nancy A. Jurenka

Teaching phonemic awareness can be boring and repetitive in the hands of a teacher who wishes to just use a workbook approach. This delightful book packs loads of fun into 75 lesson plans, providing educators with myriad creative strategies for integrating word study with children's picture books. Each lesson includes a read-aloud book description, literacy experience activity, direct instruction, follow-up activities, recommended poem, and related reading. The lessons build skills in phonemic awareness, morphemic analysis, letter identification, rhyming, and sight words, through singing, dancing, games, art activities, cooking, and interesting experiences, as well as a wealth of humorous picture books. The early childhood teacher who is committed to making literacy development meaningful, and as much fun as possible, will enjoy the wealth of valuable material here. Grades K-2.

Help students develop their own special talents and interests while supporting student literacy, social development, and a lifelong interest in reading through connecting books to children's hobbies. Each of the book's 30 chapters focuses on a different hobby through an annotation of a picture book in which the targeted hobby has a key role. Jurenka further explores each hobby ranging from bird-watching to tap dancing through a starter activity, a language arts activity, a poem citation, a glossary of associated vocabulary, references to related societies and associations, and five annotations of nonfiction informational books. Not only will students enthusiastically read about their chosen hobbies, they will develop healthy lifelong passions for activities that positively affect their social and intellectual development.