Here the nationally acclaimed educator who transformed the way our children learn to read and write in school shows us how to nurture our children’s imagination at home, from the earliest days of babytalk to the time when we see them off to school. Drawing upon her influential philosophy of active learning, as well as her personal experience as a parent, Calkins shows parents how to stimulate curiosity and spark creative thinking in children. Having an open and creative approach to conversations, chores, and games can matter just as much as reading, writing, and math. And even in traditional skills like reading and writing, we need to encourage our children to read for meaning and write for expression, rather than focus only on mechanics like phonics and spelling.By giving parents new and imaginative techniques for educating children, and by providing them with an insider’s view of what goes on in the early grades, Raising Lifelong Learners creates the ultimate partnership in learning between home and school, parents and teachers.
Lucy Calkins is Founding Director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project and the Robinson Professor in Literature at Teachers College where she co-directs the Literacy Specialist program. She is the author of over 30 seminal books on the teaching of reading and writing, including her trademark curriculum resources, Units of Study supporting K-2 and 3-5 writing and 3-5 reading. Other foundational texts include The Art of Teaching Reading, The Art of Teaching Writing, One-to-One: The Art of Conferring with Young Writers, A Principal's Guide to Leadership in the Teaching of Writing (co-authored with Laurie Pessah), Raising Lifelong Learners: A Parent's Guide, and most recently, Pathways to the Common Core (co-authored with Mary Ehrenworth and Christopher Lehman)--currently one of Amazon's top-selling titles. Lucy is also the author of the upcoming Units of Study for Teaching Writing, Grade by Grade: A Yearlong Workshop Curriculum, Grades K-8 (Heinemann: 2013).
