"Teachers and students studying to be teachers want strategies that they can use in the classroom and this book definitely delivered...The reader is hooked from the first page."---Amy MacKenzie, Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY --

The definitive encyclopedic resource on literacy, literacy instruction, and literacy assessment in the United States. Once upon a time, the three "R"s sufficed. Not any more—not for students, not for Americans. Gone the way of the little red school house is simple reading and writing instruction. Surveying an increasingly complex discipline, Literacy in America: An Encyclopedia offers a comprehensive overview of all the latest trends in literacy education—conceptual understanding of texts, familiarity with electronic content, and the ability to create meaning from visual imagery and media messages. Educators and academicians call these skills "multiple literacies," shorthand for the kind of literacy skills and abilities needed in an age of information overload, media hype, and Internet connectedness. With its 400 A–Z entries, researched by experts and written in accessible prose, Literacy in America is the only reference tool students, teachers, and parents will need to understand what it means to be—and become—literate in 21st-century America.

The concepts of the past, centered more narrowly on traditional ways of learning to read and write, no longer suffice in a society that requires higher level skills from an increasingly diverse student population. Providing a new direction in literacy education, the chapters in this volume offer a revitalized perspective of literacy. They focus on the forms that literacy will take in the future, the influence of changing technologies and multimedia on curriculum and instructional practices, and on effective learning environments. These chapters incorporate the insights of researchers in several disciplines to examine ways of helping students develop the broad-based literacy skills they will need in order to participate fully in American society. Teachers, teacher educators, and others concerned with the future of nurturing and schooling will find challenging ideas for redefining instruction in literacy in this book.

This book examines the linkage between literacy and linguistic diversity, embedding them in their social and cultural contexts. It illustrates that a more complete understanding of literacy among diverse populations and in multicultural societies requires attention to issues of literacy per se as well as to improving an educational process that has relevance beyond members of majority cultures and linguistic groups. The focus of the book is on the social and cultural contexts in which literacy develops and is enacted, with an emphasis on the North American situation. Educators and researchers are discovering that cognitive approaches, while very valuable, are insufficient by themselves to answer important questions about literacy in heterogeneous societies. By considering the implications of family, school, culture, society, and nation for literary processes, the book answers the following questions. In a multi-ethnic context, what does it mean to be literate? What are the processes involved in becoming and being literate in a second language? In what ways is literacy in a second language similar and in what ways is it different from mother-tongue literacy? What factors must be understood to better describe and facilitate literacy acquisition among members of ethnic and linguistic minorities? What are some current approaches that are being used to accomplish this? These are vital questions for researchers and educators in a world that has a large number of immigrants, a variety of multi-ethnic and multi-lingual societies, and an increasing degree of multinational activity. Beyond addressing applied concerns, attending to these questions can provide new insights into basic aspects of literacy.

Templeton' s authentic reading/integrated literacy approach is based on five premises: 1) the construction of meaning underlies all reading activity, 2) all literacy instruction takes place in context, 3) literacy instruction occurs with diverse students in a diverse society, 4) a child' s natural development provides teachers with essential background for instructional decisions, and 5) literacy instruction should be based on authentic reading.