Understanding Literacy Development

Understanding Literacy Development

The acquisition and maintenance of literacy is of pressing interest and concern to educators and educational policy makers worldwide. What are the common themes, the common questions, and the unique circumstances and initiatives that spring from this interest and concern? To address these questions, Understanding Literacy Development: A Global View brings together leading experts from around the world to explore ways to best provide teaching and learning opportunities, tailored to specific educational needs, to help all children become better readers. The premise is that current generic "one-size-fits-all" approaches are inappropriate for many children and can lead to underachievement and failure. The contributors write from a stance that reflects not only their own particular expertise and experience, but also sheds light on literacy development across cultures, countries, and circumstances. Taken together, chapters in this volume target a wide and comprehensive set of literacy issues, and offer an extensive exploration of the complexities of literacy development, including issues related to early literacy, school instruction, family literacy, adolescent and adult literacy, and teacher development. At a time when education is burdened by increasing economic pressure to do more with less, it is imperative that educators and decision makers at all levels have access to current, broad-ranging, and in-depth information and evidence to inform their choices. This volume, compiling critical research on a wide spectrum of literacy concerns, is an invaluable tool for scholars, teacher educators, professionals and graduate students in the fields of literacy education, early childhood education, educational psychology, educational policy, and related areas.

Understanding Literacy Development

Understanding Literacy Development

This book presents an account of literacy learning based on what effective teachers and learners actually do. It demonstrates how literacy develops in social and communicative exchanges. Learning to be literate - - like all learning -- involves negotiating meanings with others, through whom learners clarify, confirm and expand their understandings of literacy and how they can use it. This approach demands a focus on learning itself, rather than on the alleged complexity of written language. Failure to learn is due to failure in communication and this book establishes a framework to enhance the understandings required of children learning to read. The book draws on videotaped research during literacy sessions in Australian schools and is principally addressed to primary teachers. It will also interest academics and teacher educators. This account of how children learn to be literate breaks new ground by presenting an account of literacy learning based on what effective teachers and learners actually do. The book demonstrates how literacy develops in social and communicative exchanges. Learning to be literate - like all learning - involves negotiating meanings with others, through whom learners clarify, confirm and expand their understandings of literacy and how they can use it. This approach demands a focus on learning itself, rather than on the alleged complexity of written language. Failure to learn is due to failure in communication and this book establishes a framework to enhance the understandings required of children learning to read. Based on videotaped research during literacy sessions in Australian schools, Understanding Literacy Development records the practice of three experienced teachers working in different schools, all of who use similar techniques in their classrooms. There is a class of 5-year olds, a class of 9-year olds, and a class in a special school of children with emotional and personality disorders. In each, the teachers' engagement with the students as they set about writing is recorded and analyzed so that we can see what succeeds, why, and how these approaches can be adopted in primary classrooms. Designed mainly for primary teachers, this book will also interest academics, teacher educators and students, and teachers of children with special needs.