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This study aims to investigate the development of pitch-matching, rhythmic entrainment, and socioemotional skills in children who received formal music instruction and other non-music based after school programs. Eighty-three children, averaging 6.81 years old at baseline, were enrolled in either a music, sports, or no after-school program and followed over four years. The music program involved formal and systematic instruction in music theory, instrumental technique, and performance. Most control participants had no music education; however, in some instances, participants received minimal music education at school or at church. Musical development was measured using a pitch-matching and drumming-based rhythmic entrainment task. Sharing behavior was measured using a variation of the dictator game, and empathy was assessed using three different assessments: the Index of Empathy for Children and Adolescence (trait empathy), the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (theory of mind), and a Fiction Emotion-Matching task (state empathy). Results revealed no time-related associations in pitch-matching ability; however, formal music instruction improved pitch-matching relative to controls. On the contrary, improvements in rhythmic entrainment were best explained by age-related changes rather than music instruction. This study also found limited support for a positive association between formal music instruction and socioemotional skills. That is, individuals with formal music instruction exhibited improved emotion-matching relative to those with sports training. In terms of general socioemotional development, children’s trait-level affective empathy did not improve over time, while sharing, theory of mind, and state empathy did. Additionally, pitch-matching and rhythmic entrainment did not reliably predict any socioemotional measures, with associations being trivial to small. While formal music instruction benefitted pitch-matching ability and emotion-matching to an audiovisual stimulus, it was not a significant predictor of rhythmic entrainment or broader socioemotional development. These findings suggest that the transfer of music training may be most evident in near or similar domains.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, students, families, and educators have faced unprecedented challenges. These challenges have disproportionately impacted racially/ethnically diverse, low-income communities because of long-standing health system, socioeconomic, and educational inequities. With closures of schools, libraries, and childcare centers, many students were disconnected from their community and did not have access to books. Parents’ and educators’ concerns centered around students falling behind academically and socially. In this article, we explain the motivation and rationale for a social justice initiative to provide students of color from low-poverty areas with access to high-quality multicultural children’s literature at home. We describe our literacy partnership with a local after-school program serving participant students and families, research underpinning the initiative, and our process for selecting high-quality multicultural literature book sets and offer suggestions about how to facilitate comprehension and motivational support for home-based reading. We also offer a list of recommended literature and discuss outcomes and implications of this project.

Tell us about your writing process. Being lucky enough to have my work be part of school curriculums is both humbling and hopeful that the stories I create are being put in the hands of those who need to read them. Over the last two years, I've spoken at over 40 schools and after-school programs with underrepresented youth, and I'm always looking for new ways to help their voices be amplified through both fiction and spoken word poetry.

The aim of this article is to examine the immigration experiences of Latinx child characters in picturebooks, analyzing the portrayals for their potential impact as mirrors and windows for students in today's schools. This study builds on research that explores Latinx representation in children's literature by specifically attending to how authors of picturebooks include complicated issues of Latinx immigration. Since Latinx children and families are still underrepresented in children's literature, analysis of how this topic is handled in the available texts is essential. The study focused on the following research questions: (1) How is the immigration experience for Latinx immigrant children and children of immigrants represented in realistic fiction picturebooks with significant Latinx content? (2) How are Latinx immigrant children and children of immigrants themselves represented within that text set? Using critical content analysis, the authors examined depictions of Latinx immigration in 13 children's picturebooks published between 2010 and 2016. The investigation revealed that though representations of Latinx child characters' experiences are still limited, a handful of newer books addressed some of the hardships of moving to a new place in honest ways.

Founded in 1998, Girls Write Now (GWN) mentors underserved high school girls from throughout New York City’s five boroughs—over 90% high need and 95% girls of color. GWN runs two programs for mentors and mentees: the Writing & Mentoring and Digital Media Mentoring programs. The Writing & Mentoring program currently has 180 people (90 mentees, 90 mentors) and the Digital Media Mentoring program has 100 people (50 mentees, 50 mentors). This article is about the writing program as that is the one I volunteer for.

On almost any day of the week the Book Bank offers a tableau that would warm the heart of any book lover- parents and children reading together in one of the cozy overstuffed reading chairs, keen young readers immersed in their first chapter-books, children lying on the floor leafing through gorgeous non fiction books, toddlers pulling books offthe shelves and of course, babies chewing on board books. The Book Bank has offered a number of literacy education and support programs, including a dictionary distribution program, an after school reading buddies program, a program for teenaged mothers and a program to teach mothers about the importance of reading books to their babies.

Understanding how to better engage young students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) is essential. The constraints of U.S. K-12 schools (e.g. insufficient institutional supports, lack of technology access, testing pressures, etc.) often make it difficult to create truly engaging STEM curricula with which students can deeply identify. Educators currently have a unique opportunity to leverage resources that resonate with young people today, such as: science fiction, sci-fi movies, and sci-fi games; popular science media such as \"National Geographic\" and \"Discovery Education\"; and online communities and social-media platforms. This is a prime time for school library programs to link these forms of media and technology to science learning. The authors contend that school library programs are uniquely suited to lead innovative thinking about how to leverage these resources to help young people see the value of STEM in their everyday lives. For school library programs to function as bridges to these resources, many substantive questions must be addressed. How could school libraries structure educational programs, access to media resources, and curriculum to create engaging learning experiences for students? What would be the role of the school librarian in designing and implementing STEM-infused programs? To begin answering these questions, the authors report on the Sci-Dentity project launched in January 2012. Sci-Dentity is a project through which researchers at the University of Maryland are collaborating with school librarians to design ways to incorporate science storytelling, new-media literacies, and participatory culture to ignite students' interest in STEM. (Contains 3 figures.)