Real Life Literacy

The compelling connection between the classroom and what happens in the world is the basis of Real Life Literacy. It shows teachers how to turn kids on to learning and build skills that will help them function more successfully in the real world. It fills in the gaps often missing from traditional language arts classes and offers a range of classroom tools that promote real-world reading and writing. Some of the basic literacy topics that are covered include: Writing and deciphering messages -- from notes and memos to invitations and advertisements; Taking the mystery out of labels -- from understanding labels on medicine bottles to making sense of food and clothing labels; Coping with everyday money management -- from completing order forms to writing cheques and balancing a bank book; Reading and interpreting specialized text -- from finding information in nonfiction books to effectively using phone books, entertainment guides, and bus schedules. This timely book makes a powerful case for linking genuine, purposeful, and functional in-school activities to the lives of students. It promotes using classroom learning to guide and support students as they strive to make meaning of their world.

It has become almost cliché to say that the world has changed. The pace of technology change, the increasing number of new businesses, and growing global workforce has made the world a more competitive place. Global economic events have delayed retirement for millions around the world and thinning margins are making employers more risk adverse to prevent any disruptions in business continuity. This major shift in the business world is the recipe for a perfect storm that could be nothing short of catastrophic for many organizations, nations, and people. Life Literacy is a cautionary tale, a forensic journey into what went wrong, a roadmap out of trouble, and a beacon for what life can be like. It is a timely, highly practical survival guide that will help the current and future generations create a better world where opportunities are abundant, success is achieved, and the pitfalls of predecessors are avoided. One-sided solutions never solve problems. Life Literacy provides both viewpoints highlighting the problems that aren’t very far downstream that will cripple companies and communities if left unaddressed, as well as solutions that show what life could be like if people learn from one another.

These high-interest lessons help students build essential skills for reading the ""real-life"" texts they encounter every day--from sports schedules to toy advertisements. Includes reproducible real-life texts, read-aloud scenarios that show how students can read to solve everyday problems, guided activities, and independent practice. Helps students meet reading standards and learn to make smart decisions independently--by locating and using exactly the information they need. For use with Grades 3-5.

This collection presents "more than 650 readings about daily life from present-day authors ..."--Inside jacket flap.

This theoretical and practical guidebook prepares reading specialists and literacy coaches to develop and teach reading and language arts at the school and district levels. Using current information on the standards for literacy professionals, the text incorporates significant developments in intervention, assessment, adolescent literacy, and multiple literacies. Vogt and Shearer explore the expanding roles and responsibilities of reading specialists and their impact on instructional practice. The full-featured and distinctive Third Edition offers opportunities for flexible teaching approaches as well as substantive coverage and tools such as the function of the literacy coach in Response to Intervention (RtI), guides to needs assessment and two-year plans, the advancement of professional development communities, portfolio and self-assessment projects, and companion materials that include key terms, recommended readings, chapter vignettes, and online resources.

"Just as adults join clubs to share and talk about common interests, reading clubs allow kids to immerse themselves in topics and ideas they care about - whether it's turtles, fairy tales, a beloved author, a favorite new series, or the desire to get better at reading aloud to a baby brother or sister. While they are reading and talking about their interests and passions, students in reading clubs are also orchestrating all of the reading skills and strategies they've learned and applying them in real-life ways." "While Kathy presents ideas for implementing reading clubs during reading workshop in a balanced literacy framework, the information she provides will be helpful for any teacher who wants to foster the joy of reading by offering students support and opportunities to read for authentic purposes and to have conversations about topics that interest and engage them. After all, we don't just want kids to learn to read, we want them to love to read."--BOOK JACKET.

'Joanne Larson and Jackie Marsh's Literacy Learning is easily the most theoretically sophisticated and practically useful discussion of sociocultural and critical approaches to literacy learning that has appeared to date' - James Paul Gee, Tashia Morgidge Professor of Reading, University of Wisconsin-Madison Making Literacy Real is the essential reference text for primary education students at undergraduate and graduate level who want to understand literacy theory and successfully apply it in the classroom. Doctoral students will find this a useful resource in understanding the relationship of theory to practice. The authors explore the breadth of this complex and important field, orientating literacy as a social practice, grounded in social, cultural, historical and political contexts of use. They also present a detailed and accessible discussion of the theory and its application in the primary classroom.