• If you are searching for a picture book to teach a specific language arts concept, the SCASD elementary librarians have created a way for you to easily find one.  Five or more titles have been identified as great choices for each of the concepts defined below. 
     
    To locate these books, please follow these directions:
    • Go to your school's catalog web page 
    • Broaden your search by setting the location to Elementary Schools (please see the screen capture below) rather than narrowing the search to just your specific building.

                                                Screen Shot

    • In the Find box, type in the specific searchable term from the list below
    • Click on the Keyword search button
    • Review the list of suggested titles from all of the elementary schools in the district
    • Check out the book or books that you think will work best for your lesson -- remember, you may borrow books from other school libraries by using the Hold option (please check with your library's staff for help with this, as needed)

    The following language arts terms are searchable -- for best results, please use each term as it specifically appears below (for example, use the plural version of the term as noted below rather than the singular version).  A definition of each term is provided for your convenience.

    If you have any suggestions of additional titles that are great to use when teaching any of these concepts, please feel free to let your librarian know so it could be added to the list. Your suggestions are welcomed and appreciated.
     
    Adjectives - describe a noun or pronoun
    Adverbs - a part of speech that modifies a verb, adverb, or adjective
    Affix - a prefix or suffix
    Alliteration - the repetition of initial consonant sounds in neighboring words
    Allusions - an implied or indirect reference to a familiar book, person, place, or event
    Ambiguity - unclear or uncertain word or expression meaning
    Anagrams - a word, phrase, or sentence formed from another by rearranging its letters
    Analogy - finding the similarity between two things
    Antonyms - a word that is the opposite in meaning to another word
    Aphorisms - an original thought, spoken or written in a concise and memorable form
    Appositive - two adjacent nouns have the same referent stand next to one another (“My father, Ned”)
    Atmosphere - prevailing tone or mood
    Autobiography - the story of a person’s life written by him or her
    Captions - explanation of a picture or illustration
    Caricature - a description exaggerating the peculiarities or defects of persons or things
    Cause and Effect - cause statements stem from actions and events, and effects are what happen as a result of the action or event
    Characterization - description of character and traits
    Charts - a graphic representation of information
    Compound Words - a word composed of two or more smaller words
    Conclusions - the ending of a story or the summarizing of ideas
    Conflict (sometimes referred to as Tension) - a struggle or clash between opposing characters, forces, or emotions
    Context Clues - information from the reading that identifies a word or group of words
    Circle Story - stories that begin and end in the same place
    Cutaways (sometimes referred to as Cross Sections) - an illustration that reveals interior components or structure
    Descriptive Language - allows the reader to picture the scene or setting in which the action of a story takes place
    Dialect - a special variety of language
    Dialogue - conversation between people
    Exaggeration - to make a overstatement or stretch the truth
    Figurative Language - language that cannot be taken literally since it was written to create a special effect or feeling
    Flashback - a device used in literature to present action that has occurred before the beginning of the story
    Foreshadowing - a device used in literature to create expectation or to setup an explanation of later developments
    Glossary - a list at the back of a book, explaining or defining difficult or unusual words and expressions used in the text
    Homonyms - a word of the same written form as another but of different meaning
    Homophones - two or more words pronounced alike, but different in spelling or meaning
    How To - modeling how to create or do various crafts and skills
    Hyperboles - an exaggeration or overstatement
    Idioms - an expression with special meaning that cannot be understood from the meaning of the individual words in the phrase
    Imagery - figurative description
    Index - alphabetical listing of names, places, and topics along with the numbers of the pages on which they are mentioned or discussed
    Inferencing (sometimes referred to as Drawing Conclusions) - a judgment based on reasoning rather than on a direct or explicit statement
    Informational Writing - nonfiction work, primarily to convey factual information
    Irony - the use of a word or phrase to mean the exact opposite of its literal or usual meaning
    Main Idea - the author’s central thought; the chief topic of a text, expressed or implied in a word or phrase
    Maps - the insertion of one or more maps in a text
    Metacognition - awareness of one’s own thinking and learning processes
    Metaphors - expresses an idea through the image of another object
    Mood - the prevailing emotions of a work
    Narrator - the person who relates a story or account
    Narrative - text which conveys a story or which relates events or dialogue
    Nouns - a person, place, thing, or quantity
    Onomatopoeia - the use of words whose sounds express or suggest their meaning
    Oxymorons - combines contradictory terms
    Paradox - an opinion or statement contrary to commonly accepted opinion
    Parallel Stories - two or more stories which take place simultaneously that are told in one
    Parody - a humorous or satirical imitation of a serious piece of literature or writing
    Personification - an object or abstract idea given human qualities or forms
    Persuasive - defends a position, opinion, or issue
    Phonemic Awareness - the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds-phonemes--in spoken words
    Plot - the structure of a story, the sequence in which the author arranges events in a story
    Point of View - the way in which an author reveals characters, events, and ideas in telling a story
    Pourquoi - a folk tale that explains how or why something came to exist
    Predicting - to foretell what will happen
    Prefix - a unit of letters attached to the beginning of a root word to change its meaning
    Prepositions - a class of words that are used before nouns or pronouns to form phrases functioning as modifiers of verbs, nouns, or adjectives, that typically express a spatial, temporal, or other relationship
    Pronouns - a word that takes the place of a noun
    Puns - a play on words  
    Punctuation - the practice or system of using certain conventional marks or characters in writing or printing in order to separate elements and make the meaning clear
    Rhyme - words having similar ending sounds
    Satire - using ridicule or making fun of human vice or weakness
    Schema (sometimes referred to as background knowledge) - organized knowledge accessed during reading
    Setting - the description of the surroundings or environment of a specific place
    Similes - a  comparison of two unlike things in which a word of comparison (“like” or “as”) is used
    Sequencing (referring to the concepts of: Beginning/Middle/End) - the successive order of two or more things
    Solutions - explanations, answers, resolutions
    Stereotypes - something that is assumed about a group of people, but isn't always true
    Strong Endings - makes the story feel complete; pulls all the elements of the story together in a powerful way
    Strong Leads - opening sentences which grab the reader
    Superlatives - exaggerated in language or style; the highest degree of comparison between adjectives or adverbs
    Suffixes - a syllable or group of syllables fixed to the end of a word to modify its meaning
    Symbolism - a device in literature where an object represents an idea
    Synonyms - one of two or more words that have highly similar meanings
    Table of Contents - a list of articles or chapters and the page on which they start
    Theme - a topic of discussion or writing; a major broad enough to cover the entire scope of the literary work
    Tone - the attitude of the author toward the audience and characters
    Understatement - representing something as less than it is
    Verbs - words that express action or relation between two things
    Visualizing - seeing something in your mind
    Voice - writing words in a way that portrays personality
    Wordless - contains illustrations but no text
     
Last Modified on May 23, 2013