Elementary Experience

Teachers of Our Younger Students Will Find Plenty to Explore at #NCTE26

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 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.

See Also the New & Early Career Teacher Strand

Search the Convention app and see the Convention program for sessions in the New & Early Career Teacher Strand. These sessions focus on highlighting issues for new teachers and celebrating those in the early years of their profession. Recognizing that teachers today take various paths to the classroom, these sessions will answer questions and offer strategies specifically curated for new and early career teachers and those who support them.

What Kinds of Sessions Can I Attend?

Over the course of the Convention there are nearly 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:

• Think Like a Scientist, Write Like a Poet: Using Picturebook Biographies to Inspire STEM and Language Arts Learning
• How Picturebooks Strengthen Reading Identity and Elevate Student Writing
• Gateways to Literacy: Early Reader Graphic Novels That Imagine, Innovate, and Inspire
• From Classroom to Corridor: Supporting Teachers as Writers and Storytellers for NCTE’s Classroom Corridors
• Illuminate and Inspire: Innovative Ways to Harness the Power of Poetry In Your Classroom
• Celebrating Diverse Stories: Books and Strategies to Illuminate Inclusive Communities and Inspire Children
• Exploring Complex Family Relationships through the Lens of Children’s Novels
• Nonfiction Empowers: Sparking the Literacies, Imaginations, and Innovations of Black and Latine Youth
• Making Meaning in Maker Spaces: Playful, Multimodal Literacy Learning in PreK–6 Classrooms
• Author Visits under Attack: How Teachers Can Host Awesome Events in the Face of Challenges
• Immigration Narratives in Youth Literature
• Reimagining Reading Assessment: Using AI to Understand Readers and Respond to What They Need
• Using Various Author Works from First Draft to Final Text to Inspire Student Writing, Revision, and Literary Analysis
• AI Isn’t Replacing Thinking: How Teachers Use SchoolAI to Deepen Literacy, Engagement, and Student Agency
• “We Can’t Do This on Our Own”: Reflecting on How to Inspire Innovative School Librarian-Teacher Collaborations
• Stories That Count: Reimagining Culturally Responsive Teaching across Literacy and Mathematics

Literacies and Languages for All (LLA)

There is a strand of sessions at #NCTE26 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 sessions focus on whole language theory and practice. They push understandings of critical literacy, inquiry, and collaborative learning, and integrate literacy with other sign systems and knowledge systems situated in social, historical, political, and cultural contexts.

Learn More About LLA

Elementary Favorites

Elementary Section Get-Together

Thursday, Nov. 19, 5:30–7:00 p.m.

Hear from NCTE’s elected leaders who represent the NCTE Elementary Section, from keynote speakers Traci Todd and Vashti Harrison, and from the winner of the 2026 Outstanding Elementary Educator Award.

Read More About the Award

Children’s Book Awards Luncheon

Saturday, Nov. 21, 12:30–2:30 p.m.

The 2026 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 and illustrators María Dolores Águila, Megan Clendenan, and Brittany Cicchese. Then, the 2027 award winners will be announced live!

Read More About the Awards

Children’s Literature Assembly Breakfast

Sunday, Nov. 22, 7:00–8:45 a.m.

Hear from children’s book author Grace Lin during this popular Convention event.

Read More About the Assembly