Navigating Languages, Literacies and Identities showcases innovative research at the interface of religion and multilingualism, offering an analytical focus on religion in children and adolescents' everyday lives and experiences. The volume examines the connections between language and literacy practices and social identities associated with religion in a variety of sites of learning and socialization, namely homes, religious education classes, places of worship, and faith-related schools and secular schools. Contributors engage with a diverse set of complex multiethnic and religious communities, and investigate the rich multilingual, multiliterate and multi-scriptal practices associated with religion which children and adolescents engage in with a range of mediators, including siblings, peers, parents, grandparents, religious leaders, and other members of the religious community. The volume is organized into three sections according to context and participants: (1) religious practices at home and across generations, (2) religious education classes and places of worship and (3) bridging home, school and community. The edited book will be a valuable resource for researchers in applied linguistics, linguistic anthropology, socio-linguistics, intercultural communication, and early years, primary and secondary education.

Originally published in 1997. By drawing on the experiences of children aged 3 to 8 attending schools in Britain, Germany, Iceland, Australia and the USA, the authors of these eleven case studies provide insights into what it means for young children to enter a new language and culture in school. They look at the scope of out-of-school language and learning practices (the role of care givers, siblings and community language classes) and go on to look at the ways in which the teacher can act as mediator of a new language and culture in school. This book helps teachers develop culturally responsive teaching programmes based on an awareness of the knowledge children bring from home and the community. The book will be of interest to early years and primary school teachers working in multilingual classrooms and students.

'[This book] is a helpful edition to a field where there is a limited amount of good literature to support teachers dealing with second language acquisition in the classroom' - ESCalate `Gregory's book is an important and timely contribution to the literature on literacy, biliteracy, second language learning and early childhood education, synthesizing cutting-edge research, perspectives and teaching approaches in a clear and accessible way. Overall, it is a terrific resource' - Dinah Volk Across the world, an increasing number of young children are learning to read in languages different from their mother tongue, and there is a clear need for a book which addresses the ways in which these children should be taught. Eve Gregory's book is unique in doing so. Building upon the ideas proposed in Making Sense of a New World, this second edition widens its scope, arguing for the limitations of policies designed for 'monolingual minds' in favour of methodologies which put plurilingualism at the centre of literacy tuition. This book offers a practical reading programme -- an 'Inside-Out' (starting from experience) and 'Outside-In' (starting from literature) approach to teaching which can be used with individuals, small groups and whole classes. It uses current sociocultural theory, while drawing on examples of children from America, Australia, Britain, China, France, Singapore, South Africa and Thailand who are engaged in learning to read nursery rhymes and songs, storybooks, letters, the Bible and the Qur'an as well as school texts, in languages they do not speak fluently. Gregory argues that, in order for literacy tuition to be successful, reading must make sense -- children must feel part of a community of readers. There is no common method which they use to learn, but rather a shared aim to which they aspire: making sense of a new world through new words. Eve Gregory is Professor of Language and Culture in Education at Goldsmiths, University of London.

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.

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 work explores the lives and literacies of different generations of people living in Spitalfields and The City at the end of the 20th century. It contrasts these two square miles of London, which outwardly symbolize the huge difference between poverty and wealth existing in Britain at this time. The book presents a study of living, learning and reading as it has taken place in public settings, including the school classroom, clubs, places of worship, theatres, and in the home. Over fifty people recount their memories of learning to read in different contexts and circumstances. Eve Gregory and Ann Williams contextualize the participants' stories and go far to dispel the deep-seated myths surrounding the teaching and learning of reading and writing in urban, multicultural areas. The result is both poignant and highly significant to the study of literacy.

Navigating Languages, Literacies and Identities showcases innovative research at the interface of religion and multilingualism, offering an analytical focus on religion in children and adolescents' everyday lives and experiences. The volume examines the connections between language and literacy practices and social identities associated with religion in a variety of sites of learning and socialization, namely homes, religious education classes, places of worship, and faith-related schools and secular schools. Contributors engage with a diverse set of complex multiethnic and religious communities, and investigate the rich multilingual, multiliterate and multi-scriptal practices associated with religion which children and adolescents engage in with a range of mediators, including siblings, peers, parents, grandparents, religious leaders, and other members of the religious community. The volume is organized into three sections according to context and participants: (1) religious practices at home and across generations, (2) religious education classes and places of worship and (3) bridging home, school and community. The edited book will be a valuable resource for researchers in applied linguistics, linguistic anthropology, socio-linguistics, intercultural communication, and early years, primary and secondary education.

Originally published in 1997. By drawing on the experiences of children aged 3 to 8 attending schools in Britain, Germany, Iceland, Australia and the USA, the authors of these eleven case studies provide insights into what it means for young children to enter a new language and culture in school. They look at the scope of out-of-school language and learning practices (the role of care givers, siblings and community language classes) and go on to look at the ways in which the teacher can act as mediator of a new language and culture in school. This book helps teachers develop culturally responsive teaching programmes based on an awareness of the knowledge children bring from home and the community. The book will be of interest to early years and primary school teachers working in multilingual classrooms and students.