Book excerpt: Accessible and hands-on yet grounded in research, this book addresses the "whats," "whys," and "how-tos" of integrating literacy instruction and the arts in grades K-8. Even teachers without any arts background will gain the skills they need to bring music, drama, visual arts, and dance into their classrooms. Provided are a wealth of specific resources and activities that other teachers have successfully used to build students' oral language, concepts of print, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and writing, while also promoting creativity and self-expression. Special features include reproducible worksheets and checklists for developing, evaluating, and implementing arts-related lesson plans.