Demonstrating what it is like to be an adult learner in today’s world, this book focuses on language, literacy and numeracy learning. The authors explore the complex relationship between learning and adults’ lives, following a wide range of individual students in various formal learning situations, from college environments to a young homeless project, and a drug support and aftercare centre. The study is rooted in a social practices approach and examines how people’s lives shape their learning. Themes addressed range from: how literacy is learned through participation and how barriers such as violence and ill-health impact on people’s lives. Based on a major research project and detailed, reflexive and collaborative methodology, the book describes a coherent strategy of communication and impact which will have a direct effect on policy and practice

This book addresses critical questions facing public education at the twenty-first century.

Contributors to this book have illuminated the practices of literacy and learning in the lives of urban youth. Their descriptions and assessments of these practices are anchored in perspectives of «New Literacy Studies». The ten studies explore a number of urban scenes in order to engage, understand, and present multiple youth identities, attitudes, activities, representations, and stories connected to a range of situated, adaptive, and voluntary uses of literacy. The authors use a variety of conceptual and methodological approaches to explicate the various skills, the distinct methods of production or composition, the subjective and collective meanings, the mutable and variegated texts, and the dynamic contexts that urban youth utilize for expression, affirmation, and pleasure. There is a response to each chapter by a major scholar in its area of focus. Together, these studies and responses contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the pedagogies, politics, and possibilities of literacy and learning in and out of school.

Working from the premise that literacy is a social process rather than an autonomous practice, The Way Literacy Lives offers a curricular response to the political, material, social, and ideological constraints placed on literacy education. Shannon Carter argues that fostering in students an awareness of the ways in which an autonomous model deconstructs itself when applied to real-life literacy contexts empowers them to work against this system in ways critical theorists advocate. She builds upon a theoretical framework provided by new literacy studies, activity theory, and critical literacies to construct a new model for basic writing instruction, one that trains writers to effectively read, understand, manipulate, and negotiate the cultural and linguistic codes of a new community of practice based on a relatively accurate assessment of another, more familiar one.

An approach to literacy that understands it as lived and experienced in the everyday across varied spaces and populations. This book approaches literacy as lived and experienced in the everyday. A living literacies approach draws not only on such official, schooled activities as reading, writing, speaking, and listening but also on such routine, tacit activities as scrolling through Instagram, watching news footage, and listening to music. It goes beyond well-worn framings of literacy as an object of study to reimagine literacy as constantly in motion, vital, and dynamic, filled with affective intensities. A lived literacies approach implies a turn to activism, to hopeful practice, and to creativity. The authors examine literacies through a series of active verbs: seeing, disrupting, hoping, knowing, creating, and making. Case studies--ranging from an exploration of photography as a way to shift perspectives to a project in which adults teach young people how to fish--show lived literacies in both theory and practice. With these chapters, Pahl and Rowsell, along with contributors Collier, Pool, Rasool, and Trzecak, make it possible to see literacy in everyday activities, woven into the modes of seeing and knowing. By disruption and activism, literacy can encompass a wide array of practices--exchanging information at a school gate or making a collage. Grounding theory in the sites and spaces of their research, working with artists, photographers, poets, and makers, the authors issue a call to action for literacy education.

An award-winning journalist and literacy advocate provides a clear, step-by-step guide to helping your child thrive as a reader and a learner. When her child went off to school, Maya Smart was shocked to discover that a good education in America is a long shot, in ways that few parents fully appreciate. Our current approach to literacy offers too little, too late, and attempting to play catch-up when our kids get to kindergarten can no longer be our default strategy. We have to start at the top. The brain architecture for reading develops rapidly during infancy, and early language experiences are critical to building it. That means parents’ work as children’s first teachers begins from day one too—and we need deeper knowledge to play our positions. Reading for Our Lives challenges the bath-book-bed mantra and the idea that reading aloud to our kids is enough to ensure school readiness. Instead, it gives parents easy, immediate, and accessible ways to nurture language and literacy development from the start. Through personal stories, historical accounts, scholarly research, and practical tips, this book presents the life-and-death urgency of literacy, investigates inequity in reading achievement, and illuminates a path to a true, transformative education for all.

Why is it that more people can’t read and write? Why are there still so many vastly different methods of teaching literacy? Why do people still argue about it? Reading for Life examines these three questions, addressing the less evidence supported ideas about teaching reading and writing which are still alive and well in schools all over the world. This accessible guide bridges the gap between research and practice, translating academic findings into practical suggestions and ready-to-use techniques. Written in an approachable style and with informative graphics, vignettes and interviews woven throughout, this book covers: the components of literacy, including phonics, vocabulary and fluency the history of approaches to literacy teaching and an overview of the key figures government-level inquiries into the provision of reading and writing teaching the mindset which leads to acceptance of poor practice the essential components of an effective literacy program with practical advice on selecting resources to get the job done well Reading for Life helps educational practitioners make informed decisions about which teaching methods to reject and select, and empowers parents to ask the right questions of professionals and policy makers. This book is a timely exploration of poor teaching methods and is an innovative, fresh assessment of how high quality literacy teaching can be provided for all.