ELEMENTARY EXPERIENCE
Search the online database of sessions to begin planning your 2024 NCTE Annual Convention schedule!
Teachers of our younger students will find plenty to explore at #NCTE24.
From incredible authors and illustrators to the leading experts and innovators in our field, every hour is packed with sessions designed just for elementary teachers. And every session will find you sitting next to other teachers who are just as passionate about early literacy as you are.
What if I work in Early Childhood? Will there be something for me?
Absolutely! The latest and greatest in early literacy education can be found in the Early Childhood Education strand. These sessions (marked with an icon in the full Convention program) are specially curated by the Early Childhood Education Assembly of NCTE and focus specifically on issues and strategies for teaching and advocating for preschool and early elementary-age children.
What kinds of sessions can I attend?
Over the course of the Convention there are more than 300 sessions designated for the elementary level, but you might be surprised at the ideas you can glean from sessions at EVERY level. Here are just a few of the topics:
• Decodable Texts for K–2 and Perhaps Some Upper Elementary Readers
• Teaching with Books That Open Hearts, Offer Hope, and Provide Connection around Mental Health
• Literacy Assessment: Where We Have Been and Where We Are Going
• If You Give a Mouse an iPhone: Teaching Writing and Media Balance to Elementary Learners through Literature
• Hugging Hearts with Humor to Engage Students in Reading, Writing, and SEL
• Letting Multilingual Learners Lead Us toward Expansive Writing Assessment Practices
• I Got This: Picture Books That Celebrate Agency and Taking Action
• Dive into the Dynamic Dance between Pictures and Words
• Poetry Comics: Combining Words and Pictures to Inspire Young Writers and Readers
• Make Haste Slowly: Cultivating Purposeful, Passionate Readers and Writers
• Making Thinking Explicit: A Skill Continuum to Support Strategic Use of Think Alouds
• Empowering ESL Learners through Comics and Visual Storytelling
• Using Narrative Nonfiction to Humanize Our Students, Our Communities, and Ourselves
• Taking a Critical Look at the Children’s Literature We Use in Early Childhood/Elementary Classrooms
Literacies and Languages for All (LLA)
There’s a strand of sessions at #NCTE24 chosen by leaders of LLA, an NCTE Conference of holistic educators who believe that ALL children deserve personally meaningful learning contexts in which their languages and cultures are valued and recognized as assets for learning. LLA members integrate theories and practices of social justice; critical literacies; digital, multimodal, and biliteracies; and inquiry- and project-based learning that embodies the work of 21st-century educators. Learn more about LLA.
Elementary favorites:
ELEMENTARY SECTION GET-TOGETHER: Hear from NCTE’s elected leaders who represent the NCTE Elementary Section and from the winner of the 2024 Outstanding Elementary Educator Award. Read more about the award.
Thursday, Nov. 21, 5:30–7:00 P.M.
CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARDS LUNCHEON: The 2024 winners of the Charlotte Huck Award® for Outstanding Fiction for Children and the Orbis Pictus Award® for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children will be honored: authors Sarah Everett and Sneed Collard III. Then, the 2025 award winners will be announced live! Read more about the awards.
Saturday, Nov. 23, 12:30–2:30 P.M.
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ASSEMBLY BREAKFAST: Hear from author Lesa Cline-Ransome and author-illustrator James Ransome during this popular Convention event! Read more about the Assembly.
Sunday, Nov. 24, 7:00–8:45 A.M.