Created in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, this series engages students with high-interest readers that highlight all aspects of STEAM. Lessons include hands-on STEAM activities and challenges to develop innovative solutions to real-world problems!
Strengthen literacy skills and content-area knowledge with high-interest readers and easy-to-implement lessons
Promote the 4 Cs: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity
Make career connections with career advice from Smithsonian employees working in STEAM fields
Support English language learners and model fluency with professional audio recordings
Student Materials
Each leveled reader features a high-interest topic based on Smithsonian content.
The dynamic images and text features enhance the reading experience and build visual literacy.
15 titles, 6 copies each, 32 pages per book in digital and print formats.
Created in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution.
Connect to STEAM careers with advice from Smithsonian professionals.
Learn how people use the engineering process to solve real-world problems.
Each reader highlights all the components of STEAM and helps students draw real-world connections.
Help students apply what they have learned and provide them with an opportunity for teamwork and collaboration with the Culminating Activity. Challenges students to identify a problem and apply what they have learned about the engineering design process to find solutions.
Develop solutions for modern-day problems.
Supports social and emotional learning through cooperative and collaborative activities in the Friendly Feedback Mini Lesson, which introduces students to effective, constructive feedback to encourage a more productive classroom.
Culminating activity challenges students to identify a problem, apply what they have learned about the engineering design process to find solutions, and evaluate the process and outcome.
Balanced assessment opportunities require students to demonstrate analytical thinking, comprehend informational texts, and write evidence-based responses.
Teacher Materials
Integrate STEAM education into literacy instruction with support from the full-color Management Guide.
Aligns to state and national college and career readiness standards, including NGSS for reading, writing, and STEAM lessons. Features lesson plan components, balanced assessments, and differentiation strategies, and standards correlations to reach all students' needs.
Balanced assessment opportunities that require students to demonstrate analytical thinking, comprehend informational texts, and write evidence-based responses.
STEAM Education and the Makers Movement highlights the engineering design process and connections to the 5E Model and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
Lessons include objectives, timelines, materials lists, introductory activities, before-, during-, and after- reading activities, reflection questions and activities, engineering design process checklists, and teamwork rubrics for accessible teacher implementation.
Digital Resources
Help teachers weave technology into their literacy instruction with a variety of digital resources.
Reproducible student activity sheets to support hands-on learning and extend the reading experience with the digital writing and comprehension activities.
Professional audio recordings of books model fluency and reading with expression to support all readers, especially English language learners.
Unboxing Video
Each leveled reader features a high-interest topic based on Smithsonian content.
The dynamic images and text features enhance the reading experience and build visual literacy.
15 titles, 6 copies each, 32 pages per book in digital and print formats.
Created in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution.
Connect to STEAM careers with advice from Smithsonian professionals.
Learn how people use the engineering process to solve real-world problems.
Each reader highlights all the components of STEAM and helps students draw real-world connections.
Help students apply what they have learned and provide them with an opportunity for teamwork and collaboration with the Culminating Activity. Challenges students to identify a problem and apply what they have learned about the engineering design process to find solutions.
Develop solutions for modern-day problems.
Supports social and emotional learning through cooperative and collaborative activities in the Friendly Feedback Mini Lesson, which introduces students to effective, constructive feedback to encourage a more productive classroom.
Culminating activity challenges students to identify a problem, apply what they have learned about the engineering design process to find solutions, and evaluate the process and outcome.
Balanced assessment opportunities require students to demonstrate analytical thinking, comprehend informational texts, and write evidence-based responses.
Integrate STEAM education into literacy instruction with support from the full-color Management Guide.
Aligns to state and national college and career readiness standards, including NGSS for reading, writing, and STEAM lessons. Features lesson plan components, balanced assessments, and differentiation strategies, and standards correlations to reach all students' needs.
Balanced assessment opportunities that require students to demonstrate analytical thinking, comprehend informational texts, and write evidence-based responses.
STEAM Education and the Makers Movement highlights the engineering design process and connections to the 5E Model and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
Lessons include objectives, timelines, materials lists, introductory activities, before-, during-, and after- reading activities, reflection questions and activities, engineering design process checklists, and teamwork rubrics for accessible teacher implementation.
Help teachers weave technology into their literacy instruction with a variety of digital resources.
Reproducible student activity sheets to support hands-on learning and extend the reading experience with the digital writing and comprehension activities.
Professional audio recordings of books model fluency and reading with expression to support all readers, especially English language learners.
STEAM Readers offered many teachable moments to teach collaboration, sharing, respect, and encouraging all students to participate. It allowed struggling readers to shine using their artistic and creative skills.
What a Great Curriculum component! The students enjoyed every project and couldn't wait until the next week. They became very competitive with each other and I saw a great deal of verbal talk among my ESOL students during the activities.
This opportunity to design, fail, redesign, and improve helps learners build a set of invaluable life skills. It is so exciting to see students developing and refining these skills over time. These young students will be the people who change the world as we know it. It is our job to provide them with the skills to do so!
The information in the Management Guide is well laid out and provides strong evidence and reasons why teachers would want to incorporate Smithsonian STEAM Readers in their curriculum…The 5E Model facilitates teaching the lessons over a period of time…The format for all of the readers and lesson plans is very organized and easy for a teacher to follow and implement.
K-5 STEM Lab Teacher