Conceptualizing literacy as multidimensional, this study explores the intersection between literacy integration and children's literacy engagement by investigating how a researcher's workshop guided practice in integrating literacy with social studies. A year-long qualitative case study approach was used to examine how children actively engaged…

In this research, two questions related to arts integration are studied: First, the extent to which sixth and seventh grade students' language arts and mathematics performance, as well as their engagement with school are positively impacted by classroom settings in which theater strategies are integrated into language arts instruction; and second,…

Schools bring people together. Yet for many children there are major discontinuities between their lives in and out of school and such differences impact on literacy teaching and learning in both predictable and unpredictable ways. However if schools were reconceptualised as meeting places, where different people are thrown together (Massey, 2005)…

Describes one multi-age classroom that includes children from 6-11 years of age (traditionally grades 1-5). Explains how this unique learning community began; how student groupings were established to promote social interaction and peer collaboration among a wide age span of children; what the class looked like in actual practice; and what the…

This study describes one kindergarten classroom in which informational books and other nonfiction resources were used in the context of a long-term scientific study. Children became proficient in locating information and interpreting content-specific textual features in the process of making sense of their scientific observations and sharing them…

Explores functions of literacy for students with severe language and learning problems. Discusses rationales and logistics of developing an appropriate literacy curriculum based on holistic principles. Describes the school atmospheres established to support students' literacy. Presents case studies of two students over the course of four years of…

Focuses on the nature of elementary school classrooms as social contexts for literacy, particularly for writing. Explores the nature of the classroom as the context for literacy, how children come to understand such classroom contexts, and what defines a beneficial context for literacy growth. (HTH)

Describes a three-month study of literacy development in the home and in nursery school. Discusses the results, which indicated that children engage in literacy events far more at home than at school, and offers classroom suggestions for narrowing this discrepency. (HTH)

Describes a longitudinal study of first-grade students' progress in learning punctuation. Examines the classroom as a writing environment, then presents a picture of the children's progress in learning to use apostrophes, quotation marks, and periods, drawing several implications for teaching. (HTH)

Suggests that it may be important for teachers (1) to identify the social elements and pressures that kindergarten children must manage as they try to "write themselves" in an interactive environment; and (2) to identify the coping strategies children develop to accommodate their social agendas. (SR)

Discusses recent research on social interaction and literacy (the notion that substantive talk is a primary means for becoming literate). Discusses social interaction as a means for learning, as part of literacy periods, and as a means for integrating learning across the curriculum. Discusses the effects of social interaction on literacy learning.…

Describes a study of turn-taking behavior in two kindergarten classes. Results indicated that when children were left on their own, they cooperated with turn-taking, whereas, when the teacher was present, he or she tended to dominate the turn-taking. (HTH)

Proposes that the teacher-as-liminal-servant (stripped of usual status and authority) within a critical pedagogy is guided by compassion and commitment to teach as a social and moral agent in the service of social transformation. Asserts that educational rituals must create classroom conditions that spawn liminal dimensions of learning. (MM)

Presents a case study of one child's narratives and of the teacher's efforts to change sharing time in a first grade classroom. Demonstrates the social nature of the classroom language community and provides an understanding of how children and teachers can work together to understand and support each other's stories. (PRA)

Shows how the classroom environment provided by a second- grade teacher allowed one of her students to experience her own writing process and develop as a writer. (RL)