The book provides a historical overview of adult literacy theory, policy, practice, and research from the mid-1980s to the present. The main focus is a descriptive analysis of three distinctive schools of literacy: the Freirean-based participatory literacy movement grounded in oppositional politics and grass-roots community activism; the British-based New Literacy Studies that focuses on the ways in which diverse students utilize various literacy practices in their daily lives; and the U.S. federal government's focus on functional literacy linked to a 45-year policy emphasis on workforce readiness. These three schools of thought lead to substantially different implications over such critical areas as curriculum, assessment and accountability, and the socio-cultural role of literacy, policy, and political culture, which are discussed throughout the chapters of the book. This discussion includes a chapter on research traditions that closely parallels these perspectives on literacy education. Demetrion argues that unless values grounded ultimately in political culture emerge, it is exceedingly unlikely that the adult literacy field will be able to move from its current marginalized status toward that of achieving the level of public and policy legitimacy many believe it needs for its long-term institutional flourishing. It is argued that any settlement of this issue must be accomplished in the field of practice rather than the ground of theory, even as theoretical insight can help to frame the issues. Conflicting Paradigms in Adult Literacy Education: In Quest of a U.S. Democratic Politics of Literacy speaks to a wide audience, including not only the adult literacy community, but anyone interested in educational theory, practice, policy, research traditions, or political culture, and more fundamentally, in their intersection. Given the breadth of the topics covered, as well as the broad scope of the argument, the book is also meant for those who would like to gain a useful perspective on contemporary U.S. culture, through the window of these conflicting tensions within the field of adult literacy education.

This CIERA sponsored book is based on the premise that high-quality texts of all kinds are essential to good teaching in elementary classrooms. Experts on a variety of text-related topics were asked to summarize existing research and then apply it to literacy development in an "ideal" classroom. The most comprehensive and up-to-date book in its field, it moves progressively from an examination of discrete literacy processes and forms to a holistic overview and assessment of the classroom literacy environment. Content coverage in this outstanding new book includes:
*Literacy Processes--Part I examines basic reading processes (instruction, comprehension, word recognition, fluency, and motivation) as they relate to text features.
*Forms of Texts--Part II examines the wide variety of text types (fiction, nonfiction, leveled, local, and electronic) that comprise an effective classroom literacy program. Discussions include the nature of these texts, their qualities and quantities, how they fit into an instructional plan, and how a teacher might assess their effectiveness.
*Text Selection--Part III examines special issues (linguistic diversity and teachers as censors) related to the selection of classroom texts.
*Personal Applications--The final, hands-on chapter synthesizes the book's ideas and offers practical tools (checklists and inventories) whereby teachers can self-assess the literacy environment of their own classrooms.
This book is suitable for anyone (graduate students, in-service reading specialists and curriculum directors, college faculty, and researchers) who deal directly with issues of classroom literacy.

Who are the teachers in children's literacy lives beyond their school teachers and parents? This text is a compilation of studies conducted in a variety of cross-cultural contexts where children learn language and literacy with siblings, grandparents, peers and community members. Focusing on the knowledge and skills of children often invisible to educators, these illuminating studies highlight how children skillfully draw from their varied cultural and linguistic worlds to make sense of new experiences. generative activity of young children and their mediating partners - family members, peers and community members - as they syncretize languages, literacies and cultural practices from varied contexts. Through studies grounded in home, school, community school, nursery and church settings, we see how children create for themselves radical forms of teaching and learning in ways that are not typically recognized, understood or valued in schools. about literacy learning as well as their own teaching practices and beliefs. It should be useful reading for teachers, teacher educators, researchers and policy makers who seek to understand the many pathways to literacy and use that knowledge to affect real change in schools.

This authoritative landmark text examines the highly topical and important issue of ICT in literacy learning. Its distinctive focus on providing a systematic review of research in the field gives the reader an essential, comprehensive overview. As governments worldwide continue to invest heavily in ICT provisions in educational institutions, this book addresses the need to gather and synthesise evidence about the impact of ICT on literacy learning. An expert team of writers draw upon two recent reports by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, which highlighted the considerable differences between nations in the access and use of ICT, to take a discursive and expansive look at the subject. Within its wide range and scope, chapters cover areas on: * the history of literacy and ICT * evidence for the effectiveness of ICT on literacy learning * the impact of networked ICT on literacy learning * the relationship between verbal and visual literacies. This book will be an invaluable and informative read with international resonance for student teachers, teachers, academics and researchers worldwide.

Concept Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) is a unique, classroom-tested model of reading instruction that breaks new ground by explicitly showing how content knowledge, reading strategies, and motivational support all merge in successful reading instruction. A theoretical perspective (engagement in reading) frames the book and provides a backdrop for its linkage between hands-on science activities and reading comprehension. Currently funded by the Interagency Educational Research Initiative (IERI), this model has been extensively class tested and is receiving national attention that includes being featured on a PBS special on the teaching of reading. Key features of this outstanding new volume include: *Theoretical Focus--CORI's teaching framework revolves around the engagement perspective of reading: how engaged reading develops and the classroom contexts and motivational supports that promote it. *Content-Area Focus--Although science is the content area around which CORI has been developed, its basic framework is applicable to other content areas. *Focus on Strategy Instruction--CORI revolves around a specific set of reading strategies that the National Reading Panel (2000) found to be effective. In some current CORI classrooms collaborating teachers implement all aspects of CORI and in other classrooms teachers implement just the strategy instruction component. *Illustrative Vignettes and Cases--Throughout the book vignettes and mini-case studies convey a situated view of instructional practices for reading comprehension and engagement. A detailed case study of one teacher and of the reading progress of her students is featured in one chapter. This book is appropriate for graduate and advanced undergraduate students in education and psychology, for practicing teachers, and for researchers in reading comprehension and motivation.

Reading Work: Literacies in the New Workplace explores changing understandings of literacy and its place in contemporary workplace settings. It points to new questions and dilemmas to consider in planning and teaching workplace education. By taking a social perspective on literacies in the workplace, this book challenges traditional thinking about workplace literacy as functional skills, and enables readers to see the complexity of literacy practices and their embeddedness in culture, knowledge, and action. A mixture of ethnographic studies, analysis, and personal reflections makes these ideas accessible and relevant to a wide range of readers in the fields of adult literacy and language education and helps to bridge the divide between theory and practice in the field of workplace education. Reading Work: Literacies in the New Workplace features: *four distinct but related ethnographies of literacy use in contemporary workplaces; *a social practice view of literacy brought to the workplace; *collaborative research undertaken by experienced workplace educators and academics working in the areas of adult literacy and second language learning; *implications chapters for both practice and theory--presented not as a series of steps but rather as reflections by seasoned educators on shared dilemmas; and *engaging, accessible writing that encourages workplace practitioners to read, learn from, and do their own research. This book is an important resource for practicing workplace educators, trainers, and instructors; academics who teach workplace educators; unionists, policymakers, human resource managers, supervisors, or quality coordinators who believe education can make a difference and are interested in seeing maximum results from workplace learning. Visit the In-Sites Research Group Web site: http://www.nald.ca/insites/.

Reading Work: Literacies in the New Workplace explores changing understandings of literacy and its place in contemporary workplace settings. It points to new questions and dilemmas to consider in planning and teaching workplace education. By taking a social perspective on literacies in the workplace, this book challenges traditional thinking about workplace literacy as functional skills, and enables readers to see the complexity of literacy practices and their embeddedness in culture, knowledge, and action. A mixture of ethnographic studies, analysis, and personal reflections makes these ideas accessible and relevant to a wide range of readers in the fields of adult literacy and language education and helps to bridge the divide between theory and practice in the field of workplace education. Reading Work: Literacies in the New Workplace features: *four distinct but related ethnographies of literacy use in contemporary workplaces; *a social practice view of literacy brought to the workplace; *collaborative research undertaken by experienced workplace educators and academics working in the areas of adult literacy and second language learning; *implications chapters for both practice and theory--presented not as a series of steps but rather as reflections by seasoned educators on shared dilemmas; and *engaging, accessible writing that encourages workplace practitioners to read, learn from, and do their own research. This book is an important resource for practicing workplace educators, trainers, and instructors; academics who teach workplace educators; unionists, policymakers, human resource managers, supervisors, or quality coordinators who believe education can make a difference and are interested in seeing maximum results from workplace learning. Visit the In-Sites Research Group Web site: http://www.nald.ca/insites/.

This authoritative landmark text examines the highly topical and important issue of ICT in literacy learning. Its distinctive focus on providing a systematic review of research in the field gives the reader an essential, comprehensive overview. As governments worldwide continue to invest heavily in ICT provisions in educational institutions, this book addresses the need to gather and synthesise evidence about the impact of ICT on literacy learning. An expert team of writers draw upon two recent reports by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, which highlighted the considerable differences between nations in the access and use of ICT, to take a discursive and expansive look at the subject. Within its wide range and scope, chapters cover areas on: * the history of literacy and ICT * evidence for the effectiveness of ICT on literacy learning * the impact of networked ICT on literacy learning * the relationship between verbal and visual literacies. This book will be an invaluable and informative read with international resonance for student teachers, teachers, academics and researchers worldwide.

Concept Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) is a unique, classroom-tested model of reading instruction that breaks new ground by explicitly showing how content knowledge, reading strategies, and motivational support all merge in successful reading instruction. A theoretical perspective (engagement in reading) frames the book and provides a backdrop for its linkage between hands-on science activities and reading comprehension. Currently funded by the Interagency Educational Research Initiative (IERI), this model has been extensively class tested and is receiving national attention that includes being featured on a PBS special on the teaching of reading.
Key features of this outstanding new volume include:
*Theoretical Focus--CORI's teaching framework revolves around the engagement perspective of reading: how engaged reading develops and the classroom contexts and motivational supports that promote it.
*Content-Area Focus--Although science is the content area around which CORI has been developed, its basic framework is applicable to other content areas.
*Focus on Strategy Instruction--CORI revolves around a specific set of reading strategies that the National Reading Panel (2000) found to be effective. In some current CORI classrooms collaborating teachers implement all aspects of CORI and in other classrooms teachers implement just the strategy instruction component.
*Illustrative Vignettes and Cases--Throughout the book vignettes and mini-case studies convey a situated view of instructional practices for reading comprehension and engagement. A detailed case study of one teacher and of the reading progress of her students is featured in one chapter.
This bookis appropriate for graduate and advanced undergraduate students in education and psychology, for practicing teachers, and for researchers in reading comprehension and motivation.

Who are the teachers in children's literacy lives beyond their school teachers and parents? This text is a compilation of studies conducted in a variety of cross-cultural contexts where children learn language and literacy with siblings, grandparents, peers and community members. Focusing on the knowledge and skills of children often invisible to educators, these illuminating studies highlight how children skillfully draw from their varied cultural and linguistic worlds to make sense of new experiences. generative activity of young children and their mediating partners - family members, peers and community members - as they syncretize languages, literacies and cultural practices from varied contexts. Through studies grounded in home, school, community school, nursery and church settings, we see how children create for themselves radical forms of teaching and learning in ways that are not typically recognized, understood or valued in schools. about literacy learning as well as their own teaching practices and beliefs. It should be useful reading for teachers, teacher educators, researchers and policy makers who seek to understand the many pathways to literacy and use that knowledge to affect real change in schools.

Series Information:
Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory: Outstanding Dissertations

In this 'New Media Age' the screen has replaced the book as the dominant medium of communication. This dramatic change has made image, rather than writing, the centre of communication.
In this groundbreaking new book, Gunther Kress considers the effects of a revolution that has radically altered the relation between writing and the book. Taking into account social, economic, communicational and technological factors, Kress explores how these changes will affect the future of literacy.
Kress considers the likely larger-level social and cultural effects of that future, arguing that the effects of the move to the screen as the dominant medium of communication will produce far-reaching shifts in relations of power - and not just in the sphere of communication. The democratic potentials and effects of the new information and communication technologies will, Kress contends, have the widest imaginable consequences.
Literacy in the New Media Age is essential reading for anyone with an interest in literacy and its wider political and cultural implications.

This practical and accessible book addresses the sensitive issue of difficulties in literacy development. The authors outline what is meant by 'literacy' and the barriers to literacy development such as social class, ethnicity, culture and gender. The book emphasises practical strategies and programmes to help reduce these barriers at school, family and community levels. Throughout, the authors relate cognitive, psychological, and socio-cultural perspectives to current curriculum policies, controversies and ethical considerations.
This book enables practitioners to reflect critically upon the choices available to them in assessing and supporting students who experience difficulties in literacy development. Topics covered include a thorough consideration of dyslexia, the conceptualising of literacy, equity issues, and suggestions for assessment and planning for pupils. It will be essential reading for students on initial teacher training courses, and teachers on CPD courses in the area of special needs, literacy and dyslexia.

There has been much publicity about gender inequities in classrooms, but the research literature on this subject had not been systematically analyzed or reviewed - until now. This book is the first to summarize and critically review the observational research and findings on gender literacies. The authors present five genres of studies - gender and reading, writing, discussion, electronic or posttypographical text, and literacy autobiography - and use the perspective of feminist sociology to analyze what was revealed, as well as what was omitted, from these studies. Their synthesis will be of value in breaking down gender barriers in the classroom by raising awareness of gender issues in literacy learning and practice; publicizing successful interventions and recommendations for instructional practice; and giving direction to further research on the topic.

The second edition of this successful book describes and explains the development of children's spoken and written language. Drawing on both classical and recent research studies, the processes whereby literacy is achieved during the period from infancy to about 8 years of age are traced. The authors emphasize the importance of early experiences with language in relation to later developments of literacy, highlighting the connections between learning to talk and learning to read and write.
Garton and Pratt argue that the social contexts within which talking, reading and writing are learned are essential for the development of literacy. Theoretical positions and research studies that support the argument are discussed, to provide a broad contextual framework. Early chapters describe the processes of spoken language development and the theoretical explanations put forward to account for them. Subsequent chapters discuss the development of reading and writing, as well as theoretical connections between spoken and written language development.

This book provides a range of interdisciplinary and international perspectives on difficulties in literacy development. The high-profile team of contributors provide ethical and policy discussions, as well as contextualising individual and collective strategies to addressing difficulties in literacy development. The chapters break new ground by encompassing a wide range of perspectives related to critical literacy, socio-cultural, cognitive, and psychological viewpoints, to help inform practice, policy and research into literacy difficulties.
Issues addressed include:
*the different ways literacy can be conceptualised through social-science based disciplinary perspectives
*the issues at the centre of current public and professional debates surrounding literacy difficulties and how these have impacted upon pedagogical responses
*social, cultural and ethnic factors which impact upon difficulties in literacy development
*the impact of these wider political and social issues on individual students
This book will be of interest to postgraduate students, teachers, researchers, education professionals and policy makers who are keen to address difficulties in literacy development.

This volume brings together researchers and participants from diverse groups, reflecting the different ways in which the field of multicultural literacies has been interpreted. A common theme across the chapters is attention to the ways in which elements of difference--race, ethnicity, gender, class, and language--create dynamic tensions that influence students' literacy experiences and achievement. The hope of the editors is that readers will build on the experiences and findings presented so that the field of multicultural literacies will have a greater impact of literacy research, policy, and practice.

Raising Standards in Literacy represents the best current thinking and research about literacy. The book is the outcome of a high-profile series of seminars on raising standards in literacy, and includes contributions from an impressive group of international researchers and policy makers. By offering a rich and unique mix of contemporary perspectives on literacy education, this book provides an invaluable source of study and insight into the latest research and developments in the teaching of literacy.
It includes sections on:
*how research into literacy teaching can inform new approaches found in England, the USA and Australia
*the issues involved in assessing progress in literacy and the validity of research claims made about standards of attainment
*the ways in which literacy education is developing in England, the USA and Australia
The book celebrates the apparent success of current literacy initiatives at the same time as raising questions about the feasibility and relevance of such initiatives to the literacy co-ordinators and consultants and for all those undertaking further study or research in literacy education.

Educators will find in this book an opportunity to examine the multiple, dynamic identities of the students they instruct and to consider the ways in which all teachers and students are shaped by their social and cultural settings. The volume is the first to examine theories of identity and elementary literacy practices by presenting data in a teacher-friendly format. The chapters highlight the influences of school and, to some extent, home contexts on students' identities as readers and writers, and give numerous implications for practice.

This book provides a range of interdisciplinary and international perspectives on difficulties in literacy development. The high-profile team of contributors provide ethical and policy discussions, as well as contextualising individual and collective strategies to addressing difficulties in literacy development. The chapters break new ground by encompassing a wide range of perspectives related to critical literacy, socio-cultural, cognitive, and psychological viewpoints, to help inform practice, policy and research into literacy difficulties.
Issues addressed include:
*the different ways literacy can be conceptualised through social-science based disciplinary perspectives
*the issues at the centre of current public and professional debates surrounding literacy difficulties and how these have impacted upon pedagogical responses
*social, cultural and ethnic factors which impact upon difficulties in literacy development
*the impact of these wider political and social issues on individual students
This book will be of interest to postgraduate students, teachers, researchers, education professionals and policy makers who are keen to address difficulties in literacy development.

This unique book tells the story of a select group of schools and teachers who have managed to beat the odds in terms of improving elementary students reading achievement. Originating with the CIERA "School Change Project" directed by Barbara Taylor and David Pearson, it was subsequently expanded to include the work of other research teams doing similar work. It combines large scale studies of effective schools and teachers (Part I) with case studies of individual schools and teachers who have successfully transformed research findings into situation-specific strategies appropriate to their schools and classrooms (Parts II and III). The book's distinct contribution is showing that no matter how consistent the research findings on effective school and classroom practice, groups of teachers must improvise their own situation-specific programs and practices. In short, they must be able to create variations on a common theme. Key features of this outstanding new volume include:
*Integration of research and cases--One cannot fully understand research-based general principles without knowing how they play themselves out in specific settings. Similarly, one cannot fully understand cases without seeing the commonalities across different schools and classrooms sharing similar goals. This book provides both perspectives.
*Diverse cases--The schools and classrooms depicted in this book are urban, rural, and suburban; poor and middle class; and English-only and bilingual. Rather than telling readers how to beat the odds, it provides them with a wide variety of cases from which they can extrapolate to build their own customized teaching programs and practices.
*Summarizing section--The final section contains a summary of research on effective schools and teachers and a concluding chapter by Gerry Duffy and Jim Hoffman in which they reflect on the book's content and possible directions for future research.
The book is targeted to both in-service elementary teachers and literacy students in advanced college courses.

For decades early childhood educators in high-quality programs have understood that the transition into reading and writing occurs naturally when young children are surrounded by opportunities to interact with print in ways that are meaningful to them. The original edition of More Than Letters, first published in 2001, showed teachers how to intentionally help children develop literacy skills through hands-on, play-based activities. Like the original edition, the Standards Edition is based on theory and research. It contains new chapters that specifically focus on developing the skills needed to decode literature and informational text. Expanded chapters include activities that target specific concepts included in national literacy standards.

This book explores how writers from several different cultures learn to write in their academic settings, and how their writing practices interact with and contribute to their evolving identities as students and professionals in academic environments in higher education.
Embedded in a theoretical framework of situated practice, the naturalistic case studies and literacy autobiographies include portrayals of undergraduate students and teachers, master's level students, doctoral students, young bilingual faculty, and established scholars, all of whom are struggling to understand their roles in ambiguously defined communities of academic writers.
In addition to the notion of situated practice, the other powerful concept used as an interpretive framework is captured by the metaphor of "games"--a metaphor designed to emphasize that the practice of academic writing is shaped but not dictated by rules and conventions; that writing games consist of the practice of playing, not the rules themselves; and that writers have choices about whether and how to play.
Focusing on people rather than experiments, numbers, and abstractions, this interdisciplinary work draws on concepts and methods from narrative inquiry, qualitative anthropology and sociology, and case studies of academic literacy in the field of composition and rhetoric. The style of the book is accessible and reader friendly, eschewing highly technical insider language without dismissing complex issues. It has a multicultural focus in the sense that the people portrayed are from a number of different cultures within and outside North America. It is also a multivocal work: the author positions herself as both an insider and outsider and takes on the different voices of each; other voices that appear are those of her case study participants, and published authors and their case study participants. It is the author's hope that readers will find multiple ways to connect their own experiences with those of the writers the book portrays.

This special issue is a snapshot of current research in this area, showing many of the issues encountered, the methods employed, and the limitations faced. All four studies involve experimental or quasi-experimental studies but all are based on participants recruited from adult literacy programs. Together these studies illuminate many of the gray areas of adult basic processing, particularly for adults in basic skills programs. They present many of the complexities of studying how literacy adults: the high percentages with learning disabilities, the differences across native and non-native English speakers and within classes of the latter, the different processing abilities of adults and children matched for reading ability, the impacts of language and orthography on reading strategies, and the importance of measure speed, as well as accuracy in studying basic processing. As such, the present studies are an indication that scientific programs exist and are at work on key issues.

This book reinterprets the relevance, quality and impact of academic literacies provision at university in light of recent higher education developments in a pandemic-transformed world. Drawing on the author's own experience of researching, implementing and assessing academic literacies provision, and on insights from broader scholarship and professional debates, the book helps set a new direction of travel for academic literacies professionals working in a variety of roles to enable and resource students' academic and professional growth. It makes recommendations for policy, strategy and scholarship-informed practice that place value on communicating with confidence, clarity and care at university and beyond.