Early Literacy Matters

Early Literacy Matters is an innovative action guide for elementary school leaders and instructional coaches dedicated to accelerating literacy performance in the early grades, when prevention of reading difficulties matters most. As a unique father-daughter team with combined expertise in literacy education and instructional leadership, the authors share best practices for literacy success. Readers will learn how to... establish and lead a literacy team, implement embedded professional development, utilize key assessments to frame daily instruction, and illustrate specific organizational and scheduling models needed to support systemic change based on the science of reading. Each chapter features reflection questions and explicit strategies and tools leaders can implement immediately in today’s classrooms.

Current research increasingly highlights the role of early literacy in young children's development--and informs practices and policies that promote success among diverse learners. The Handbook of Early Literacy Research presents cutting-edge knowledge on all aspects of literacy learning in the early years. Volume 2 provides additional perspectives on important topics covered in Volume 1 and addresses critical new topics: the transition to school, the teacher-child relationship, sociodramatic play, vocabulary development, neuroimaging work, Vygotskian theory, findings from international studies, and more.

The versatile and practical handbook to promote students′ literacy and learning! Scores of children across the country do not read with comprehension, and literacy has become a national priority. In Literacy Matters, internationally recognized author, educational coach, and consultant Robin Fogarty defines and reviews 15 practical literacy approaches that teachers can use across all content areas and grade levels to help students develop essential literacy skills. This user-friendly resource provides strategies for immediate implementation with an overview of the research and best practices associated with each strategy. With an easy-to-use menu that enables teachers to select the specific strategies they want to use to boost content-area literacy and comprehension, this valuable guide explores proven instructional methods such as Teaching metacognitive student thinking Creating literature circles Involving parents and community Tapping into prior knowledge Using technology to impact literacy acquisition Put these strategies to use in your classroom, and watch as your students improve their reading and comprehension, and apply these tools for success across content areas and in their lives!

The author defines 15 literacy approaches, with research and best practices associated with each strategy, to teach literacy and comprehension across all grade levels and content areas.

Unprecedented in the field, this book is addressed to those invaluable volunteers and first-time educational professionals in emergent literacy. Accessible and engaging, this book has been written out of concern that although our average achievements remain high, far too many children in the United States are not learning language and literacy to an adequate degree. Nearly 40% of our elementary school children lack basic reading skills and the language to support it. Differences between those who will make it and those who may not are already showing up in preschools and the gaps in teaching are increasingly being filled by volunteer tutors. The National Reading Panel report and the No Child Left Behind legislation have put children's success in reading on everyone's agenda. This timely book tells these tutors what they need to know about early intervention for literacy development, and what they need to do. The book has a further aim of giving volunteers and future teachers a realistic view of what teaching is like, especially in urban environments. The book also assists readers looking toward careers as teachers and as child-support workers.

Literacy can empower students, but it may also limit their understanding if taught without regard for the context of their lives. Using his encounters with students, in high school, college, and state prison classrooms, as well as his own experience, Robert Yagelski looks at the sometimes ambiguous role of literacy in our lives and examines the mismatch between conventional approaches to teaching literacy and the literacy needs of students in a rapidly changing, increasingly technological world. He asserts that ultimately, the most important job of the English teacher is to reveal to students ways they can participate in the discourse that shapes their lives, and he offers a timely look at how technology has influenced the way we write and read. The scope of this fascinating book reaches beyond the classroom and offers insight about what it means to be "literate" in an economically driven, dynamic society. Addressing earlier works on the subject of literacy, as well as the ideas of theorists such as Foucault, this perceptive work has much to offer educators and anyone seeking to understand the nature of literacy itself.

Exploration of the ways in which literacy and its teaching has changed to reflect a new diversity of racial, social, cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Contributors explore the emergence of 'multiliteracies': from the more broad perspectives of policy implications to specific case studies in classroom and home settings. Simultaneously published in paperback and downloadable PDF format. Includes notes on contributors and references.