Creating Support for Effective Literacy Education: Workshop Materials and Handouts

Intended to help teachers convey to others what they know about how reading and writing flourish in whole language classrooms, this resource provides transparencies, brochures and factsheets. By treating reading and writing as a gradually emerging process rather than skills to be taught and mastered in isolation, children become not only proficient, but also develop a lifetime love of reading and writing. But when parents and administrators hear only about literacy activities without details on how teachers "teach" children to read and write, they can become concerned. This book addresses the need to help others understand the nature of learning and the processes of language and literacy development, as well as some of the specific things teachers do to nurture independent and competent readers and writers. The first part of the book contains eight sections, made up of materials which can be copied directly onto transparencies, on learning theory, language acquisition, the reading process, teaching and learning reading, phonics, reading strategies, writing, and assessment.
Each set is accompanied by suggestions for using the transparencies, relevant anecdotes about the authors' experiences using them, background information from research, and sources and resources. The second part of the work includes flyers, letters, brochures, and fact sheets on various topics relating to emergent literacy and teaching practice, all of which can be copied and distributed.