This mixed-methods study explored (a) the purposes for which teachers selected video clips of their own literacy teaching and assessment practices to share and discuss with peers, (b) how these purposes were related to the content of the discussions, and (c) what variables were related to teachers' generation of new ideas and future actions that…

Researchers frequently suggest that effective teachers adapt their teaching to navigate the complexity of classroom literacy instruction. However, little research has examined how teachers adapt their instruction, teachers' reflections on their adaptations, or the instructional conditions in which they adapt. To address this gap in the research…

Historically, Whites have scored higher than Blacks on most measures of literacy (referred to as the "Black-White" literacy gap). The authors outline the historic social inequities that contributed to the Black-White literacy gap as well as the current school and home environment that may maintain it. They then examine the current state of the…

This study examined elementary school students' perceived support for recreational reading from their mothers, fathers, and friends. Participants, including 130 fourth graders and 172 fifth graders, completed the researcher-developed Reading Support Survey, which assesses how often children experience and how greatly they enjoy multiple types of…

This qualitative study examined code-switching patterns in the writing-related talk of 6 emergent Spanish-English bilingual first-grade children. Audio recordings, field notes, and writing artifacts documenting participant activities and language use in Spanish and English writing workshops were gathered over the course of 6 months and analyzed…

Focusing on matters of power and difference, this article examines rhetorical theories of genre and James Gee's theory of Discourse. Although both theories offer productive ways of understanding literate practice, it is argued, they are limited in crucial respects. Genre theory offers few ways of understanding how and why some social actors have…

How proficiency in reading the first language (L1) influences proficiency in reading in the second language (L2) was explored in this study. Reading scores in Mandarin Chinese (L1) and in English (L2) for 30,000 Taiwanese ninth-grade students were randomly selected from all who took the national Basic Competency Test during a 6-year period in…

This article provides micro analysis of one representative incident from a larger qualitative study to examine how third-grade bilingual students and their teacher negotiated academic disciplinary and popular culture discourses in a social studies unit on Jamestown and Pocahontas. Informed by discourse and linguistic analyses, this study explores…

The present study examines how sixth grade students' discussions about texts and comprehension strategies looked similar and/or different based on their identities as readers and their reading levels. Findings indicated that students who self-identified as high-performing readers talked about texts and strategies in ways that were different from…

One path to improving adolescents' literacy skills is to integrate reading and writing into the content areas in which such work occurs. Although argumentative writing has been found to help students understand historical content and transform information, scholars do not know the influence of specific task structures on students' writing or…

This study examines how students in Finland (16-18 years of age) constructed meaning and knowledge in a collaborative online reading situation. Student pairs (n = 19) were asked to write a joint essay on a controversial issue. First, the pairs discussed the topic freely to activate their prior knowledge. Next, they gathered source material on the…

This study analyzed the current state of the gender literacy gap and the change in the gender literacy gap between 1992 and 2003, using the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) and the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL). The results revealed that although there were significant gender literacy gaps in 1992, virtually all…

This report presents the results of the development of a methodological approach to provide empirical evidence that family literacy programs "work." The assessment techniques were developed within the action research project Literacy for Life (LFL) that the authors designed and delivered for 12 months, working collaboratively with three different…

Transnational youth represent an increasing demographic in societies around the world. This circumstance has amplified the need to understand how youths' language and literacy repertoires are shaped by transnational life. In response, this article presents a case study of a Mexican adolescent girl who immigrated to the United States and continued…

The relation between preschoolers' phonological awareness and the frequency and quality of parents' book-reading and reminiscing practices were examined in 54 low-income and ethnically diverse families. Children's phonological awareness was assessed at the beginning and end of preschool. Mothers reported the frequency with which they read books…