This paper explores how five third-graders constructed meaning in three school-based literacy participation structures, also examining teachers' invitations and the space they make for students' talk and students' comprehension practices. High-stakes assessments and mandated reading curriculum influence how comprehension is framed and how students…

This article presents a review of the author's long-term research in urban classrooms. The authors explore six illustrated information books created by children as culminating activities of integrated science-literacy units, Forest and Matter, that they developed, implemented, and studied in several 1st-3rd grade classrooms in Chicago Public…

Interviews poor urban parents and first-grade students about attitudes toward school and education. Finds parents are committed to their children's success in school. Examines things parents do to keep their children on track; parents' descriptions of teachers in their own lives; how grandparents help keep students "on track"; and the teacher's…