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Bringing together an international team of scholars, this book provides the first truly systematic, multidisciplinary and multi-language view of factors that affect global variation in literacy development. It is essential reading for researchers and advanced students in child literacy development and literacy teaching and learning.

Cover; From Literacy to Literature: England, 1300-1400; Copyright; Acknowledgments; Contents; List of Illustrations; List of Abbreviations; Note on Texts; MEDIEVAL SCHOOL TEXTS; MIDDLE ENGLISH; SCRIPTURE; Introduction; ELEMENTARY LEARNING AND THE MIDDLE ENGLISH POET; THE ERA OF GRAMMATICALIZATION; 1: The Language of Learning; "SAYING EVERYTHING IN LATIN"; "FIANT LATINA!"; 2: The Ad Hoc School; THE INFORMAL SCHOOLROOM; SCHOOLBOOK VARIATIONS; SCHOOLBOY IMPROVISATIONS; 3: The Basic Grammars and the Grammar-School Style; PEDAGOGIC POSITIONS; BREAD AND MILK FOR CHILDREN

This paper examines the ways that political contexts affect the perceptions and practices of social studies preservice teachers (SSPSTs) being prepared in a conservative "Red State" compared to those being prepared in a liberal "Blue State." The researchers analyzed how controversial the SSPSTs in each context considered the practice of teaching media literacy by exploring their beliefs about media literacy using a survey, analyzing practices related to media literacy through a targeted lesson plan assignment, and facilitating focus groups to member check emerging themes. Survey data indicated that both groups believed teaching media literacy skills was essential, but the assignment revealed that Red State SSPSTs were far more likely than Blue State SSPSTs to create lesson plans at the lowest level of media literacy integration. In the focus-group interviews, this discrepancy was explained as Red state SSPSTs considered media literacy to be controversial at rates beyond their Blue State peers. The study's implications suggest that methods instructors who prepare SSPSTs need to be aware that community context influences the way SSPSTs integrate anything that can be deemed political into the classroom, including media literacy skills, and provide targeted content examples to help SSPSTs gain confidence for teaching these skills.

Intro -- WHAT CONTENT-AREA TEACHERS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ADOLESCENT LITERACY -- WHAT CONTENT-AREA TEACHERS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ADOLESCENT LITERACY -- LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- INTRODUCTION -- KEY LITERACY COMPONENTS -- DECODING -- What Do Good Readers Do? -- What Challenges Do Adolescent Readers Face Regarding Decoding? -- How can Instruction Help Adolescent Students with Decoding? -- Modeling Phonemic Awareness Skills When Introducing New Vocabulary -- Providing Instruction in Phonics Strategies Helps Students Articulate and Identify Multi-syllabic Words -- Use Direct, Explicit, and Systematic Instruction to Teach Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Skills -- Provide Extra Time for Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Instruction and Opportunities for Students to Practice Using New Skills When Reading -- What Do We Still Need to Know? -- MORPHOLOGY -- What Do Good Readers Do? -- What Challenges Do Adolescent Readers Face with Morphology? -- How Can Instruction Help Adolescent Students with Morphology? -- Teach Different Morpheme Patterns -- Use Speed Drills to Develop Automatic Recognition of Syllables and Morphemes -- Teach Students the Different Syllable Types -- Teach the Meanings of Morphemes within the Context of a Sentence -- What Do We Still Need to Know? -- FLUENCY -- What Do Good Readers Do? -- What Challenges Do Adolescent Readers Face with Fluency? -- How Can Instruction Help Adolescent Students Read Fluently? -- Provide Models of Fluent Reading -- Engage Students in Repeated Oral Reading of Texts -- Engage Students in Guided Oral Reading -- Engage Students in Partner Reading -- What Do We Still Need to Know? -- VOCABULARY -- What Skills Do Good Readers Have? -- Good Readers Have Strong Oral/Aural Vocabulary -- Good Readers Have Strong Print Vocabulary

This book details the findings of a research project investigating the social uses of literacy in a range of contexts in South Africa. This approach treats literacy not simply as a set of technical skills learnt in formal education, but as social practices embedded in specific contexts, discourses and positions. What this means is made clear through a series of fine-grained accounts of social uses and meanings of literacy in contexts ranging from the taxi industry in Cape Town, to family farms, urban settlements and displacement sites, rural land holdings, and various sites during the 1994 elections, and among different sectors of South African society, Black, Colored and White.Since the view of literacy presented here is so dependent on context, the book provides not only descriptions of literacy practices but also rich insights into the complexity of everyday social life in contemporary South Africa at a major point of transition. It can be read as a concrete way of understanding the emergence of the New South Africa as it appears to actors on the ground, focused through attention to one central feature of contemporary life — the uses and meanings of literacy. "Using fascinating and carefully documented case-study material, this book raises vital questions about literacy and illiteracy, and about adult education. Above all, it questions the efficacy of any literacy programme which fails to acknowledge the many ways in which uneducated and so called 'illiterate' people already use reading, writing and numeracy in their everyday lives." Jenny Maybin, The Open University, Milton Keynes