The new edition of this important, wide-ranging and extremely useful textbook has been extensively re-written and expanded. Rab Houston explores the importance of education, literacy and popular culture in Europe during the period of transition from mass illiteracy to mass literacy. He draws his examples for all over the continent; and concentrates on the experience of ordinary men and women, rather than just privileged and exceptional elites.

Drawing material from all European languages and concentrating on the experiences of ordinary people, this book provides a social and historical analysis of how a largely illiterate population in Europe in the 16th century became by 1800 one of mass literacy.

This volume describes in detail teaching philosophies, curricular structures, research approaches and organizational models used in European countries. It offers concrete teaching strategies and examples: from individual tutorials to large classes, from face-to-face to web-based teaching, and addresses educational and cultural differences between writing instruction in Europe and the US.

Primary school teachers are increasingly faced with the task of assessing the literacy of pupils in a language other than a pupil's mother tongue. The handbook presents practical issues and principles associated with this assessment. The section on writing also contains a step-by-step guide for training teachers in the use of the material. Teachers will find tips on how to get pupils to write, how to assess their writing and how to give feedback. This is illustrated by pupils' texts and teachers' comments. In addition, the project website contains downloadable material for assessing writing. Samples of pupils' writing across a range of levels are provided exemplifying how to use the proposed material, with comments demonstrating how the assessment can be used as a basis for feedback to the pupils.

This book summarizes aspects of reading and writing in primary schools, interest to educationists in the UK. It outlines the general process of reading comprehension into different levels.