Based on years of classroom observation, this book presents the thesis that powerful, critical, active, productive literacy can be achieved systematically, and regularly, with large numbers of the school population, if the principles currently known as the whole language approach are applied. The book is based on the assumptions that learning to become literate ought to be as uncomplicated and barrier free as possible, and that once learned, the skills and knowledge that make literacy learning possible ought to endure beyond the classroom. Chapters in the book are: (1) What It's All About; (2) Portraits of Literacy Learning; (3) Prisoners of a Model of Learning?; (4) An Alternate View of Learning; (5) Theory into Practice I; (6) Theory into Practice II; (7) Theory into Practice III; (8) Making Connections I: Understanding Reading; (9) Making Connections II: Understanding Writing; and (10) Pulling the Threads Together. (RS)