Conceptualizing literacy as multidimensional, this study explores the intersection between literacy integration and children's literacy engagement by investigating how a researcher's workshop guided practice in integrating literacy with social studies. A year-long qualitative case study approach was used to examine how children actively engaged…

Concerns for the well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth and the children of families who so self-identify suggest that teachers may need additional support in fostering classrooms that welcome all students. The field of children's literature has long-standing interests in multiple cultures and the literature…

This article offers a way of thinking about literacy instruction that critiques current reasoning, but also provides a space to dynamically think outside of prevalent practices. It presents a framework for both planning and studying literacy pedagogy that combines a practical everyday model of the reading process with Michel Foucault's (1988c)…

Schools bring people together. Yet for many children there are major discontinuities between their lives in and out of school and such differences impact on literacy teaching and learning in both predictable and unpredictable ways. However if schools were reconceptualised as meeting places, where different people are thrown together (Massey, 2005)…

Describes a three-month study of literacy development in the home and in nursery school. Discusses the results, which indicated that children engage in literacy events far more at home than at school, and offers classroom suggestions for narrowing this discrepency. (HTH)

Reflects on the role of tradition in defining the nature of classrooms, schools, schooling, learning, and teaching. Argues that if schools really are for children, they should be organized in such a way that they facilitate learning rather than perpetuate tradition or make things easier for adults. (HTH)

Suggests that teachers examine the assets of natural language in children's homes for implications for language instruction at school. Discusses a children's story that can be interpreted as an analogy with instructional implications for creating natural language contexts in the classroom. (HTH)

This article focuses on the evolution of the classroom literacy block as a learning space where teachers and students renegotiated activities for independent vocabulary and word work within a high-stakes reform environment. When a second grade classroom teacher and literacy support specialist decided to co-teach, they invited all students in the…

States essential principles in the teaching of writing, prepared by the Commission on Composition of the National Council of Teachers of English. (HTH)

This article illustrates not only how students with special needs grew as writers in an inclusive writing community, but also how a fourth-grade teacher systematically structured the learning environment and tailored her instruction to guide her students to develop as writers as well as to improve their language skills. (Contains 4 figures and a…

Discusses the potential of word processors for allowing students to generate and manipulate language while writing, and its superiority over the widespread use of computer programed packages and drills for teaching writing. (HTH)

Teachers should enrich students' language environment, give children opportunities to practice their language, and allow feedback on language to occur. (DD)

Examines what children's own stories reveal about the attributes they assign to females. Discusses the different ways elementary school boys and girls orally completed an unfinished story about a girl wanting to play baseball. Proposes how teachers can help move their students toward a more gender-fair classroom environment by using instructional…

Describes actual classroom episodes from three successful teachers and analyzes patterns of teacher-child interaction that empower both learners and teachers. Assumes that successful teaching is not accidental, that only powerful teachers can empower students, and that the teacher's role is both central and crucial. (SRT)