NIU Today

An NIU College of Education department is beginning the new semester with a new name. Meet the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Formerly known as Literacy and Elementary Education, the department changed its moniker to better reflect the diverse teaching, learning and faculty that make it up. “With the Program Prioritization process, we had two...

NIU’s Jerry L. Johns Literacy Clinic will install its seventh Little Free Library at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 10, at the Mason Court Apartments, 275 N. Cross St. in Sycamore. Little Free Libraries are an international movement where people place small, weather-proof boxes in their communities. These boxes are stocked with books which are free...

The 2015 WNIJ Winter Book Series begins Monday, Dec. 7, and features authors from throughout northern Illinois. Each Monday in December at 6:50 and 8:50 a.m., Dan Klefstad speaks with authors about their books as well as their motivation and inspirations. He also invites the authors to read selections of their published pieces. Dec. 7:...

Members of the NIU community can make a difference in the lives of young children by donating a book to “The Storybook Project,” a service event connected with the 2015-2017 Common Reading Experience. The Storybook Project provides books to young children and grandchildren of inmates in area correctional institutions through a social service agency, Lutheran...

Families are invited to meet and interact with well-known authors of favorite children’s books at the inaugural “Literacy on the Lawn” event from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, June 13. The free event will be held at NIU’s health and literacy building at 3100 Sycamore Road in DeKalb (the former Monsanto building), and will...

Sitting in clusters of three, the Cortland Elementary School second-graders write things for which they are thankful onto “leaves” and “pumpkins” cut from red, orange and yellow construction paper. Friends. Clothes. Cousins. Mama. Teacher. Food. Halloween. Next, they squirt Tacky Glue onto their harvest-colored shapes and press them onto paper plates as they create Thanksgiving...

The Friends of NIU Libraries is hosting a panel discussion on fantasy fiction. The program, which is titled “Fantasy Fiction: Ask the Real Wizards,” will be held at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 14, in Rare Books and Special Collections on the fourth floor of Founders Memorial Library. The discussion will be geared for a wide...

NIU’s mascot Mission visited Founders Memorial Library in July to pose for a READ poster, which is now hanging in the Leisure Reading Area on the third floor of the library. Mission found several interesting titles on the shelves and posed for photos in Regional History and University Archives. Come in to see Mission’s poster and...

Northern Illinois University’s Department of Literacy Education will host a Literacy Educators & Leaders Networking Event from 5 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 8. This event at NIU-Hoffman Estates, 5555 Trillium Blvd., provides an opportunity for alumni to reconnect with faculty and former classmates. Alumni are encouraged to bring their colleagues to introduce them to the...

NIU’s Campus Child Care Center will host a Scholastic Book Fair during the week of March 24. Funds raised will help purchase books and materials for the center’s classrooms. Faculty, staff and students are invited to attend this event that helps inspire children to become lifelong readers. The book fair will be open from 8...

NIU’s Department of Literacy Education will offer a new cohort this summer leading to a Master of Science degree in literacy education with a focus on reading. Classes will be held at the Jerry L. Johns Literacy Clinic in DeKalb. The program includes one or two classes per semester and is ideal for classroom teachers...

Mayra Daniel understands more than many the importance of colleges and universities equipping teachers with the necessary skills to teach and design effective and appropriate culturally relevant instruction. Daniel, an NIU professor of literacy education and bilingual ESL coordinator, moved to the United States from Cuba as a child. “When I first came here, I...