About Smithsonian STEAM Readers

Pearson Canada

Prepare students to answer complex questions, investigate global issues, and develop solutions for modern-day problems by becoming STEAM proficient. These dynamic resources foster curiosity, creativity, and wonder about the world.

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. Each book includes a hands-on STEAM challenge that guides students through every stage of the engineering design process. The real-world examples give insight into how the engineering design process is used to solve real-world problems. The books offer career advice from Smithsonian employees working in STEAM fields and highlight every aspect of STEAM: science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics.

Strengthen content-area literacy skills with research-based reading, writing, and STEAM lessons for every title. The STEAM challenge is included on the back of each lesson. Lessons include:

Learning objectives

Lesson timeline

Materials list

Introductory activity

Before-, during-, and after-reading activities

Friendly Feedback question stems

Reflection questions and activity

Engineering design process checklist

Teamwork rubric

Integrate STEAM education into literacy instruction with support from the full-color Management Guide.

STEAM Education and the Makers Movement highlights the engineering design process and connections to the 5E Model and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)

Balanced assessment opportunities that require students to demonstrate analytical thinking, comprehend informational texts, and write evidence-based responses

Friendly Feedback Mini Lesson introduces students to effective, constructive feedback to set the stage for a more productive classroom dialogue and supports social and emotional learning (SEL)

Differentiation strategies and English language learner support

Standards correlations to College and Career Readiness (CCR), Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), McREL Compendium, TESOL, WIDA, and ISTE

Tips for incorporating technology

Pacing and instruction setting options

The culminating activity challenges students to identify a problem and apply what they've learned to solve a real-world problem. Each hands-on, minds-on STEAM challenge guides students through every stage of the engineering design process: researching the issue, brainstorming ideas, designing and testing a solution, evaluating the results, improving the process, and sharing the outcomes.

Help you weave technology into your literacy instruction with a variety of digital resources.

Interactiv-eBooks to engage students, extend the reading experience, and build 21st century skills

Professional audio recordings of the books to model fluency and support English language learners

Reproducible student activity sheets to support hands-on learning