The classroom use of the key vocabulary, developed by Sylvia Ashton-Warner as a reading approach--rather than as a reading method--which utilizes the child's actual experience, is the major concern of this book. Materials used and tested for a number of years present examples, outlines, and various methods for eliciting children's dramas through…

Living in an age of communication, literacy is an extremely integral part of our society. We are impacted by literature during our infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. "Literacy for the New Millennium" includes information from specialists in the field who discuss the influence of popular culture, media, and technology on…

After analyzing the leading theories on reading instruction and noting their advantages and limitations, this updated book presents a specific combined approach to reading instruction which draws on the proved strengths of older methods while avoiding their failures. This approach centers around training in effective use of the teacher-pupil…

The focus of this book is on improving reading instruction among disadvantaged minority groups through the language experience approach. Four chapters contain discussions of self-concept, the growth of self-concept, reading instruction and the disadvantaged, and adult literacy. The other 16 chapters consist of bibliographies on the heritage of…

This book seeks to set the record straight about today's "reading wars," and analyzes the three major "battle cries" of whole language critics. In a step-by-step dissection, the book reiterates the three arguments, then explores the most salient studies that support or refute them. According to the book, the three claims are:…

The central focus of this second edition is the same as that of the first edition: to describe the language-experience approach and to identify instructional practices which can be followed to teach reading with this approach. In addition, the volume expands the theoretical foundations of language-experience communication, extends the…

This monograph presents classroom activities that were designed to encourage children to read and write in a self-reliant and responsible manner. The activities were chosen for their relevance to the children involved and because the vocabulary involved was interesting, familiar, and worth remembering and using again. The topics are arranged in…

This anthology of 22 published articles and book chapters written by Dorothy Watson (the first president of the Whole Language Umbrella) were chosen for their historical importance, centrality to Watson's body of work, lack of availability, and/or their ongoing relevance to teachers. Items in the anthology are grouped to reflect major themes…

Representing views on many facets of reluctant readers, the chapters in this book provide suggestions for working with students who function at a frustration level and those who have an aversion to reading. Specific topics discussed in the book's nine chapters are: (1) building language experiences for reluctant readers, (2) home remedies, (3)…

Arguing that reading and writing in school should be natural and enjoyable for children, this book is based on the Piagetian theory that knowledge is constructed by each individual and the psycholinguistic view that learning takes place best when viewed as holistic and when instructional materials for children are authentic and purposeful. The…

Suggesting that every child has the right to know first-hand the power and possibility that comes from being a literate individual, this textbook offers prekindergarten through primary education preservice teachers the opportunity to participate in the thinking and decision making that face teachers of young children. Selected theoretical…

The 38 essays in this book look back at language experience as an educational approach, provide practical classroom applications, and reconceptualize language experience as an overarching education process. Classroom teachers and reading specialists describe strategies in use in a variety of classroom settings and describe ways to integrate…

Based on the belief that language should be the central focus for study in the reading and language arts classroom, this collection presents 10 diverse viewpoints on language study in the middle school and secondary school. The collection is divided into the following areas: studying language through literature and the arts, using writing and…

Based on the belief that the teaching and learning of language are inextricably intertwined, this book addresses the challenge of providing an integrated language arts program in the elementary and middle school level that bridges traditional instruction and thematic, whole language, or literature-based instruction. The book also presents ways to…

Interspersing vignettes and comments, this book describes the "Doing Words" program of teaching reading and writing to kindergarten and first-grade children. The book notes that the system is based on talking with the children each day, and finding what words are the most important to them that day and giving them those words on a card…