Huddled around a table, a group of English teachers eagerly discuss their chosen book club young adult novels. The authors appreciate that these texts explore how social injustice and inequity influence people's worlds. The novels invite teachers to consider the perspectives of those whose viewpoints and experiences differ from their own. With an…

Many literacy teachers are creating contexts for students to learn and use a range of reading comprehension strategies. As useful as reading strategy instruction is, relatively little has been documented on the ways in which reading strategies can become tools for critical literacy. In this paper, the author illustrates how a reading strategy can…

This study examines unintended consequences during a 6th-grade book club discussion of Bette Bao Lord's (1984) In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. The participants modeled a book club discussion, otherwise known as the fish bowl, for a newly enrolled student. Unintended consequences occurred within the realm of deviating from the rules of…

This study examined how the use of book clubs in a literacy methods class informed preservice, elementary teachers' visions of self as literacy teachers. Teachers began the study with the vision of teaching students the reading and writing skills they were weakest in. Teachers though transformed their visions to include culturally responsive…

Caregiver use of dialogic reading (DR) strategies in home, preschool, and daycare settings has been shown to facilitate development of oral language and emergent literacy skills in toddlers and preschool age children. Training in the use of DR strategies may be provided "live" or via videotape. Using a randomized, control group, repeated measures…

This paper explores the ways in which dual language books are used in England to support bilingual pupils in school. While pupils in many schools speak a wide range of languages at home, these hardly feature in the curriculum. In the context of a project in which an education authority provided dual language books to primary schools, the paper…

This paper (a) reintroduces E. Franklin Frazier's 1939 book, "The Negro Family in the United States," to family scholars and graduate students and highlights its importance as a groundbreaking and classic text, (b) provides both an introduction to the major thesis of this monograph and a reading of the text, and (c) discusses the…

Providing rich supply of high-interest story books is more feasible policy for literacy education than urgent exhortations to improve teacher quality. Free reading profoundly improves students' reading and writing ability, spelling, grammar, and vocabulary. The quality of a country s or state's school libraries significantly predicts its reading…

The extraordinary nursery library produced by Jane Johnson (circa 1742-1747), entirely in the private domain with no thought of publication, holds pride of place in the Lilly Library's collection of early children's books at the University of Indiana, USA. It has already been celebrated in an exhibition and international conference held at the…

eBooks are textual documents that have been converted and "published" in an electronic format and are displayed on eBook readers, devices, or computers using eBook software programs. This new form of book is a relatively recent addition to book styles and offers students, teachers, and schools an additional tool for the teaching of reading and the…

Evaluates the report of the Commission on Reading, "Becoming a Nation of Readers," which focuses on giving attention to classroom teaching, testing, and teacher education. It gives recommendations for changes in the way reading is taught and includes the list of 17 recommmendations from the report. (MD)