Scottish education and literacy have achieved a legendary status. A campaign promoted by church and state between 1560 and 1696 is said to have produced the most literate population in the early modern world. This book sets out to test this belief by comparing the ability to read and write in Scotland with northern England in particular and with Europe and North America in general. It combines extensive statistical analysis with qualitative and theoretical discussion to produce an important argument about the significance of literacy and education for the individual and society of relevance not just to the Scottish experience but to a far broader social and geographical area.

Early Reading Development and Dyslexia focuses on how children learn to read and on the difficulties some children have in acquiring this important skill. It concentrates specifically on the very beginning stages of reading development - that is, in the 4-7 year age group. This book begins by considering current ideas about how young children begin to acquire reading skills, and draws particularly on research that focuses on the language abilities that they need to have in place in order to facilitate early reading. The link between phonological abilities and the acquisition of letter knowledge is especially strongly highlighted, but attention is also paid to other reading-related language skills and to the role that parents and teachers play in promoting good early reading development. Later chapters focus on the importance of early identification of reading problems through screening and assessment procedures. Effective teaching of beginning reading skills within the classroom is discussed, prior to a review of current specialist teaching methods designed to improve reading progress in early-diagnosed young dyslexic children.

There are many examples of good practices in literacy which have not fully impacted upon the ways in which we teach children with dyslexia.

Dyslexia and Literacy: An Introduction to Theory and Practice provides the reader with an understanding of the most recent theoretical positions in dyslexia and literacy and how these may be applied in practice. The book critically considers the current notions of literacy, provides an understanding of literacy concepts and re-appraises what we mean by literacy. The implications of this for dyslexic children are immense as it means that assessment and support can be more embedded in the curriculum context.

The role of professionals such as learning support co-ordinators and educational psychologists are discussed within current legislative and theoretical frameworks. Classroom intervention and approaches to dealing with the diverse needs presented by dyslexic children are addressed by examining individual education plans and the development of differentiated curricula in schools.

Gavin Reid and Janice Wearmouth have assembled an international field of renowned experts whose text will be a core source for university students on reading and dyslexia courses and is a set book for Open University course E801. Trainee teachers, special educational needs co-ordinators and educational psychologists will also find this volume of great value.

Open University Set Book for course E801-Difficulties in Literacy Development

Literacy in American Lives traces the changing conditions of literacy learning over the past century as they were felt in the lives of ordinary Americans born between 1895 and 1985. The book demonstrates what sharply rising standards for literacy have meant to successive generations of Americans and how--as students, workers, parents, and citizens--they have responded to rapid changes in the meaning and methods of literacy learning in their society. Drawing on more than 80 life histories of Americans from all walks of life, the book addresses critical questions facing public education at the start of the twenty-first century.

Literacy in American Lives traces the changing conditions of literacy learning over the past century as they were felt in the lives of ordinary Americans born between 1895 and 1985. The book demonstrates what sharply rising standards for literacy have meant to successive generations of Americans and how--as students, workers, parents, and citizens--they have responded to rapid changes in the meaning and methods of literacy learning in their society. Drawing on more than 80 life histories of Americans from all walks of life, the book addresses critical questions facing public education at the start of the twenty-first century.

Understand the science of reading and how to implement evidence-based instruction to increase the reading and writing achievement of pre-K-6 students, including those at risk for reading difficulties. Fully revised and updated, this core text covers the research base for structured literacy instruction and practical guidance on the essential components of literacy instruction : oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, handwriting, spelling, and writing. Woven throughout this new edition are proven strategies for applying explicit, systematic instruction, including affirmative and corrective feedback, active engagement, effective practice, and ongoing assessment of student progress. Practical features such as instructional activities, scripted demonstrations of lessons, and online resources give readers explicit examples of how to translate the research into classroom instruction. Engaging, pragmatic, and accessible, this book is an essential text for preservice teacher candidates and a valuable resource for experienced teachers, teacher educators, administrators, and other professionals involved in teaching foundational literacy skills. WHAT'S NEW New chapters focused on: assessment basics* standards to guide instruction * development of social-emotional skills and early language * advanced word study * English learners * supportive technology * role of reflection in planning instruction. Revised chapters on: foundational skills of literacy acquisition and instruction to develop phonological and phonemic awareness * basic phonics * beginning and advanced handwriting, spelling, composition, and strategic writing * fluency * vocabulary * comprehension * disciplinary literacy * integrated lesson plans New features: Reflect boxes that encourage critical thought * multiple-choice Knowledge Assessment questions * revised Application Activities * vignettes, case studies, numbered text boxes, and sample activities and scripts Updated information on: structured literacy * data-based decision making * MTSS * metacognitive awareness * formal and informal assessments to guide instruction * standards-based instruction including the Common Core State Standards and the Knowledge & Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading ONLINE COMPANION MATERIALS: Online Resource Appendix addressing each topic, PowerPoint slides for each chapter, an answer key for the Knowledge Assessment questions, sample lesson plans, and sample syllabi for teacher educators.

This text, based on Louise M. Rosenblatt's transactional model of literature, focuses on the application of transactional reader-response theory in the classroom. It grows from frequent requests from secondary school and college teachers for teaching suggestions on how to put theory into practice. This is not a "What should I do on Monday?" cookbook, but an expression of the practice of theory in college and secondary school classrooms.
The chapters portray a spectrum of strategies--including biopoems, expressive and imaginative writing, journal writing, readers' theater, role playing, and unsent letters--using as examples individual works from several genres. Recognizing that teachers who may have been trained in other theories and methodologies may be hesitant about their quite different role and expectations in the reader-centered classroom, the authors provide stepping stones to develop readiness and confidence, suggestions, and insights to ease the transition to the transactional model of teaching and learning.
Pedagogical features:
* An "explanatory introduction" to each section defines its orientation and describes the content and direction of the chapters it contains.
* "Invitations" elicit engagement of readers with concepts, attitudes, or strategies presented in the chapters; they invite readers, as individuals or members of a small group, to consider ideas or to practice a strategy, among other activities, in order to enhance understandings.
* A "glossary" defines key concepts and strategies discussed in the text.
* A "bibliography" provides an extensive list of resources--books and journal articles--both theoretical and applied.
New in the second edition:
* "Six new chapters"--three deal with the roles of film-as-literature in the English classroom, and three with enhancing multicultural understandings.
* "Updates and revisions" to several chapters that appeared in the first edition.
* "Invitations," new in this edition, have been added to focus and expand readers' thinking.

This book consists of a series of studies, each by a specialist in a different period or area of the ancient history of the Mediterranean world and northern Europe, examining the relationship between power and the use of writing in ancient society. The studies range in date from c. 600 B.C. to A.D. 800. It is intended not to provide a complete coverage of the ancient world but to use particular case studies to examine ways in which the relationship between literacy and power can be analyzed.

Appalachia faces overwhelming challenges that plague many rural areas across the country, including poorly funded schools, stagnant economic development, corrupt political systems, poverty, and drug abuse. Its citizens, in turn, have often been the target of unkind characterizations depicting them as illiterate or backward. Despite entrenched social and economic disadvantages, the region is also known for its strong sense of culture, language, and community. In this innovative volume, a multidisciplinary team of both established and rising scholars challenge Appalachian stereotypes through an examination of language and rhetoric. Together, the contributors offer a new perspective on Appalachia and its literacy, hoping to counteract essentialist or class-based arguments about the region's people, and reexamine past research in the context of researcher bias. Featuring a mix of traditional scholarship and personal narratives, Rereading Appalachia assesses a number of pressing topics, including the struggles of first-generation college students and the pressure to leave the area in search of higher-quality jobs, prejudice toward the LGBT community, and the emergence of Appalachian and Affrilachian art in urban communities. The volume also offers rich historical perspectives on issues such as the intended and unintended consequences of education activist Cora Wilson Stewart's campaign to promote literacy at the Kentucky Moonlight Schools. A call to arms for those studying the heritage and culture of Appalachia, this timely collection provides fresh perspectives on the region, its people, and their literacy beliefs and practices.

What role has writing played in the development of our modern understanding of language, nature and ourselves? Drawing on recent advances in history, anthropology, linguistics and psychology, the author offers a bold new perspective on how writing and reading have historically and developmentally altered our understanding of language, mind and nature. These understandings, Olson argues, are by-products of living in a "world on paper."

Literacy continues to be a central issue in anthropology, but methods of perceiving and examining it have changed in recent years. In this 1995 study Niko Besnier analyses the transformation of Nukulaelae from a non-literate into a literate society using a contemporary perspective which emphasizes literacy as a social practice embedded in a socio-cultural context. He shows how a small and isolated Polynesian community, with no access to print technology, can become deeply steeped in literacy in little more than a century, and how literacy can take on radically divergent forms depending on the social and cultural needs and characteristics of the society in which it develops. His case study, which has implications for understanding literacy in other societies, illuminates the relationship between norm and practice, between structure and agency, and between group and individual.

In this compelling collection of first-person stories, adults who have made outstanding achievements in adult literacy were paired with writers to tell of their transition to reading. These are people who have had the courage to overcome the barrier of words to break into a broader sense of themselves, to feel more empowered in the world. Courageous, too, is the very sharing of these stories, in which private moments are opened wide with the hope that others will take the same steps. Whether confronting undiagnosed dyslexia, a Canadian Tire store manager to ensure Christmas for a child, written tests for the military, certification exams, or jumping from an airplane, these people are heroes.

This is a study of the psychological development of readers of fictional stories across the whole lifespan. The author argues that regardless of personality and background, readers go through a regular sequence of stages as they mature from childhood to adulthood, which affects how they experience and respond to stories. Each subsequent stage requires an advance to a way of thinking about a story which is qualitatively different from the previous one. Appleyard's evidence for these claims is drawn from numerous studies of reading and from interviews with readers of all ages. The developmental perspective provides a useful framework for assessing the implications of competing theories of reading, for charting the evolution of young readers as they mature, and for locating and understanding the varied responses of adult readers. Literary theorists, teachers of reading and literature at every level, developmental psychologists, and general readers interested in the power of reading should find this a useful book.

This book investigates the ways in which literacy was important in early mediaeval Europe, and examines the context of literacy, its uses, levels, and distribution, in a number of different early mediaeval societies between c. 400 and c. 1000. The studies, by leading scholars in the field, set out to provide the factual basis from which assessments of the significance of literacy in the early mediaeval world can be made, as well as analysing the significance of literacy, its implications, and its consequences for the societies in which we observe it. In all cases, the studies represent recent research and bring evidence such as the recent archaeological discoveries at San Vincenzo al Volturno to the subject. They provide fascinating insight into the attitudes of early mediaeval societies towards the written word and the degree to which these attitudes were formed. This period is shown as fundamental for the subsequent uses of literacy in mediaeval and modern Europe.

Becoming a Reader argues that, whatever our individual differences of personality and background, there is a regular sequence of attitudes we go through as we mature, which affect how we experience fiction, from the five-year-old child absorbed in the world of fantasy play, through the seventeen year old critical seeker of the truth, to the middle-aged reader recognizing their own experiences in fictional characters. Becoming a Reader argues that this sequence of responses can be worked out and described. The evidence for these claims is drawn from numerous studies of reading and from interviews with a great many readers, young and old. The developmental perspective provides a useful framework for assessing the implications of competing theories of reading and for charting the evolution of individual readers. Finally, in allowing us to predict our reading experience, the book allows us, as adults, to choose what to do with the power which reading gives us.

An increasingly popular approach to second and foreign language education, this book focuses on incidental learning: how students learn words from reading. Despite its popularity, some researchers have questioned this theory that students can learn new words by inferring meanings based on a text they are reading. So, why does the incidental method not work for some students? What are the conditions for naturalistic learning to occur? What do students need to be able to do while reading in order to learn words successfully? Tackling these questions head-on, this book provides researchers and educators with a more specific account of the processes behind the seemingly naturalistic method. Clarifying the connection between reading and word learning processes, Megumi Hamada proposes a new model, the Cognitive Model of Word-Meaning Inference, to describe how we obtain and use word-form and contextual information for learning words and the pedagogical applications of this. A significant new contribution to research in the field, Learning Words from Reading provides a cognitive perspective on how students learn new words from reading in a second or foreign language.

In a Time to Read, Mary Ruth K. Wilkinson and her daughter, Heidi Wilkinson Teel, have compiled a helpful guide to children's books. More than bibliography A TIME TO READ also includes essays on the nature of children, families, literature and story--and how these hold together in a Christian life, reflecting Mary Ruth's 30 years' experience teaching a literary and Christian approach to children's books.

These new Set 6A (Blue) Storybooks are designed to give children extra practice, and to develop their fluency and vocabulary further before moving on from the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme. The books are matched to the phonic progression of the existing Storybooks and provide extra practice for children learning the Set 2 and 3 sounds. They include a range of engaging stories such as fairy tales, myths and legends and familiar settings. Activities at the start help children to practise the sounds and words from the story and questions at the end of the story help to develop children's comprehension. Detailed lesson plans are provided on Read Write Inc. Phonics Online. The books are part of the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme, developed by Ruth Miskin. The programme is designed to create fluent readers, confident speakers and willing writers. It includes Handbooks, Sounds Cards, Word Cards, Storybooks, Non-fiction, Writing books and an Online resource. Read Write Inc. is fully supported by comprehensive professional development from Ruth Miskin Training.

These new Set 6A (Blue) Storybooks are designed to give children extra practice, and to develop their fluency and vocabulary further before moving on from the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme. The books are matched to the phonic progression of the existing Storybooks and provide extra practice for children learning the Set 2 and 3 sounds. They include a range of engaging stories such as fairy tales, myths and legends and familiar settings. Activities at the start help children to practise the sounds and words from the story and questions at the end of the story help to develop children's comprehension. Detailed lesson plans are provided on Read Write Inc. Phonics Online. The books are part of the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme, developed by Ruth Miskin. The programme is designed to create fluent readers, confident speakers and willing writers. It includes Handbooks, Sounds Cards, Word Cards, Storybooks, Non-fiction, Writing books and an Online resource. Read Write Inc. is fully supported by comprehensive professional development from Ruth Miskin Training.

These new Set 7A (Grey) Storybooks are designed to give children extra practice, and to develop their fluency and vocabulary further before moving on from the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme. The books are matched to the phonic progression of the existing Storybooks and provide extra practice for children learning the Set 2 and 3 sounds. They include a range of engaging stories such as fairy tales, myths and legends and familiar settings. Activities at the start help children to practise the sounds and words from the story and questions at the end of the story help to develop children's comprehension. Detailed lesson plans are provided on Read Write Inc. Phonics Online. The books are part of the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme, developed by Ruth Miskin. The programme is designed to create fluent readers, confident speakers and willing writers. It includes Handbooks, Sounds Cards, Word Cards, Storybooks, Non-fiction, Writing books and an Online resource. Read Write Inc. is fully supported by comprehensive professional development from Ruth Miskin Training.

These new Set 7A (Grey) Storybooks are designed to give children extra practice, and to develop their fluency and vocabulary further before moving on from the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme. The books are matched to the phonic progression of the existing Storybooks and provide extra practice for children learning the Set 2 and 3 sounds. They include a range of engaging stories such as fairy tales, myths and legends and familiar settings. Activities at the start help children to practise the sounds and words from the story and questions at the end of the story help to develop children's comprehension. Detailed lesson plans are provided on Read Write Inc. Phonics Online. The books are part of the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme, developed by Ruth Miskin. The programme is designed to create fluent readers, confident speakers and willing writers. It includes Handbooks, Sounds Cards, Word Cards, Storybooks, Non-fiction, Writing books and an Online resource. Read Write Inc. is fully supported by comprehensive professional development from Ruth Miskin Training.

The updated second edition of "Unlocking Literacy" is here--and now pre- and inservice educators will have the very latest research and practical guidance on teaching good reading and spelling skills. Developed for general and special educators of students from prekindergarten to middle school and beyond, the new edition of this bestselling textbook arms teachers with the most recent developments in reading research and shows them how to apply their knowledge in the classroom to help all students learn.

Focusing on two interlocking skills--decoding and spelling--this textbook gets teachers ready to

• promote students' print awareness and phonological awareness through letter naming, letter forming, and listening and speaking activities such as poetry and play
• improve students' spelling skills by teaching the origins of English words, Anglo-Saxon base words, Latin affixes and roots, Greek combining forms, and multisyllabic words
• help students understand and correctly use the components of the English language, including common consonant and vowel patterns, syllable patterns, common spelling rules, prefixes and suffixes, roots, nonphonetic words, and contractions
• deepen older students' proficiency with language by introducing less common Latin roots and Greek combining forms, new words entering the English language, and lessons built around themes such as calendars and mythology

To help educators teach with confidence once they're in the classroom, this text is packed with practical, immediately applicable material. Educators will get engaging classroom activities (including 21 NEW activities suitable for use all students, including English language learners); lesson plans incorporating multisensory, language-based instruction; samples of student work; explanations of current research; and even more websites and reference material to strengthen their instruction.

An essential text for college and university courses on reading instruction--and an ideal professional development resource for inservice educators--this new edition of a classic bestseller will help teachers "unlock literacy" for all their students.

The poor performance of pupils in reading comprehension tasks has caught the attention of all stakeholders in the education industry in recent times. Efforts at tackling this problem have often always focused on linguistic, psychological and sociological factors, neglecting pedagogical factors. While schools may not be able to do much to change a child's socio-linguistic background for instance, much could be achieved by altering the methodologies of teaching. The findings reported in this book are geared towards upgrading the quality of reading instruction at the primary and secondary levels. The Direct-Reading-Thinking-Activity-Approach discussed in this book, is aimed at encouraging pupils to make use of their natural abilities to make and confirm predictions as they read. Teachers, teachers-in-training, curriculum planners, policy makers, parents and the society in general will find this book useful in improving reading comprehension pedagogy.