The Brilliant Star Integrative Reading Project

Project Coordinator: W. Huitt
Last revised: August 2008

Resources: | Conference Paper | Chinese Translation |

The need for educators and parents to focus on helping children and youth develop more than just academic skills is widely accepted; the question is how. The pressure to do well on standardized tests places a major burden on teachers and students, leaving no time for "frills". Just as importantly, there is disagreement among some of the most important influences on children and youth as to how to proceed. The Brilliant Star Integrative Reading Project is designed to address these two important issues: (1) integrate learning activities that focus on basic academic skills with those that take a more holistic view of identifying important knowledge, attitudes, and skills, and (2) integrate each child's classroom learning experience with important people in the child's life.

The Brilliant Star framework was used to identify important desired outcomes of schooling and education; it proposes three core elements and ten domains for consideration. The central theme is that those involved in the development of children and youth need to consider a holistic approach, including multiple factors that contribute to successful adulthood.

Reading was chosen as the central academic area around which other activities will be integrated because reading is foundational to all academic areas. This project is not intended to focus on the skills used in reading, but rather to use the activity of reading children's books, an activity used in all PreK through 2nd grade classrooms, as an integrating activity that can address multiple desired outcomes.

The following books are intended for use in PreK to 2nd grade classrooms. Linked lesson summaries based on these books show how a single lesson can address both academic objectives (traditional content) and objectives related to the development of the whole child (the Brilliant Star core elements and domains). The academic objectives are taken from the Georgia Performance Standards and would likely need to be modified for curricula used in other states or contexts. The Brilliant Star objectives are in rudimentary form and are under constant development.

In order to integrate classroom activities with people important in each child's life, it is recommended that teachers invite parents, grandparents, other relatives, or even someone with whom the child has a close relationship (e.g., a coach, an art or music teacher, a crossing guard, a cafeteria worker) to the classroom to read a book on behalf of a particular child. If someone who is close to a child has difficulty coming to the classroom during regular hours, the school might consider opening the school after hours and making an audio recording of someone reading the book. The recording could then be played by the teacher during reading time.

There is also the possibility of having middle school students engaging in a service project by writing books on these themes and then reading their books to younger students.

A compilation of the books is provided in an Excel file providing information needed to order the books as well as a short description of each book. These recommendations focus on books used in a wide variety of classrooms. Separate sets of recommendations focusing on multicultural, multilingual, and interfaith sources are under development.

Additional resources for identifying additional books are provided at the end of the list.

This site is under constant development; it should be considered a work in progress and any additions, suggestions, and/or commentary are welcome. The following links provide lesson summaries in an outline format; they are also available in a table format. [Note: A link for the title connects to a R/LA objective (N ~ 160) ; M = Mathematics (N ~ 40); SC = Science (n ~ 45);SS = Social Studies (n ~ 50);  SP = Spanish R/LA (n ~ 15).]