It is well known that children's language development lays the foundation for their literacy development, though it is difficult for preschool teachers alone to consistently engage in the individual interactions necessary to boost children's language skills. Given that parents are their children's first teachers, it is imperative to consider how…

The purpose of this article is to examine developments in the area of family literacy over the last decade. Acknowledging the bifurcation that has occurred in the field of family literacy, as well as changing conceptions of literacy and of families, we review naturalistic studies of literacy embedded and enacted in communities and families across…

In this literature review, we examined 30 years of play-literacy inquiry through a quantitative lens in order to identify, assemble and summarize studies of sufficient methodological strength to form a corpus of research that encourages meta-analytic thinking. First, a multi-phase search of the literature was conducting yielding 192 studies that…

This article problematizes a hegemonic vision of children and writing, one undergirded by an individualistic ideology; this ideology informs a curricular emphasis both on mastering "basic" skills and on crafting for self expression. To this end, the article focuses on the slippery phenomenon of "copying." It begins with a consideration of two…

This qualitative research presents an expanded perspective of literacy practices in which young students engage in multiple literacies while exploring personal inquiries about Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, LA. An extended classroom example and analysis taken from a broader research project focusing on early multiliteracies, illustrates the…

This paper considers young learners' construction of agency in the context of classroom writing lessons. It draws on data from the Esmee Fairbairn-funded project, "From Talk to Text: Using Talk to Support Writing", which investigated the relationship between talk and writing in early years classrooms. The paper reports on results from in-depth…

This paper reports on an ethnographic study conducted with two Year 1 classes in two different Norwegian schools. In total, 35 five- and six-year-old children were involved in the study and were observed over a two-month period as they engaged in learning activities that involved drawing. Building on Kress and Van Leeuwen's (1996) theory of a…

Schools have a legitimate and vital role in providing Americans with a better and more accurate understanding of the Muslim world. Given the cultural and ideological issues at play in any understanding of Islam, the theories and practices of critical literacy can provide useful guidance to teachers. The purposes of this article are to counteract…

Can daily access to laptop computers help students become better writers? Are such programs affordable? Evidence from the Inspired Writing program in Littleton Public Schools, Colorado, USA, provides a resounding yes to both questions. The program employs student netbooks, open-source software, cloud computing, and social media to help students in…

Schools have a legitimate and vital role in providing Americans with a better and more accurate understanding of the Muslim world. Given the cultural and ideological issues at play in any understanding of Islam, the theories and practices of critical literacy can provide useful guidance to teachers. The purposes of this article are to counteract…

A literacy coach collaborates with a new teacher to incorporate structured note-taking and summarizing into a science class. Many students struggle with these skills and require explicit instruction before they are able to work independently. Using the gradual release of responsibility framework, the literacy coach begins by modeling how to choose…

Over the past two decades, educational scholars have seen major shifts in how literacy is viewed. One of these shifts has been toward conceptualizing literacy as a set of social practices (Street, 1995) that people embody and value. To disrupt current definitions of literacy, the valued practices that keep those forms of literacy in place must…

This article describes a writing workshop that took place with 41 low-income, multi-ethnic 12th-grade students who received instruction on specific genre features for writing college admission essays. As a result, students improved the quality of their college admission essays and demonstrated greater confidence with this writing task. This…

The purpose of this article is to explore the motivation for and content of young adult author's blogs and the potential use of these blogs for teaching and learning the English language arts and 21st-century literacy skills. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.)

The author examines the rise in popularity of graphic novels, the sales of which have steadily increased as their influence expands into adolescent culture. This article also includes an overview of current research results supporting the use of graphic novels within the classroom and school library; graphic novels support English-language…