Offering a unique, data-led, evidence-based approach to reflective practice in English language teaching, this book brings together theory, research and practice in an accessible way to demonstrate what reflective practice looks like and how it is undertaken in a range of contexts. Readers learn how to do and to research reflective practice in their own settings. Through the use of data, dialogue and appropriate tools, the authors show how reflective practice can be used as an ongoing teaching tool that supports professional self-development.

Reading Students’ Lives documents literacy practices across time as children move through school, with a focus on issues of schooling, identity construction, and how students and their parents make sense of students’ lives across time. The final book in a series of four that track a group of low-income African American students and their parents across a decade, it follows the same children into high school, bringing to the forefront issues and insights that are invisible in shorter-term projects. This is a free-standing volume that breaks new ground both theoretically and methodologically and has important implications for children, schools, and educational research. Its significant contributions include the unique longitudinal nature of the study, the lens it casts on family literacy practices during high school years, the close and situated look at the experiences of children from communities that have been historically underserved by schools, and the factors that alltoooften cause many of these children to move further and further away from school, eventually dropping out or failing to graduate.

Product Description: Showcasing a new methodology in language learning and identity research, this carefully conceptualized, innovative book explicates the use of autoethnography as a way of re-imagining one’s sense of linguistic and cultural identity...read more

At a time when literacy has become more of a political issue than a research or pedagogical one, this volume refocuses attention on work with young children that places them at the center of their literacy worlds. Drawing on robust and growing knowledge which is often marginalized because of political and legislative forces, it explores young children’s literacies as inclusive, redefined, and broadened―encompassing technologies, the arts, multiple modalities, and teaching and learning for democracy, cultural sustainability and social justice. Highlighted themes include children’s rights to grow through playful engagements with multiple literacies to interrogate their worlds; adults who expand and inspire children’s consciousness and awareness of others and the world around them; the centrality of meaning making in all aspects of language and literacy development; a deep respect for diversities, including languages, cultures, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status and more; and an expansive understanding of the nature of texts.

When four brothers and sisters discover a Psammead, or sand-fairy, in the gravel pit near the country house where they are staying, they have no way of knowing all the adventures its wish-granting will bring them

An indispensable course text and practitioner resource, this teacher-friendly book puts the needs of English language learners (ELLs) front and center. Leading authorities connect current research to effective instructional practices for elementary students with varying degrees of English proficiency. Key components of literacy instruction are addressed, including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Chapters also explore how linguistic, sociocultural, psychological, and educational factors shape ELL literacy development, highlighting practical implications for the classroom. Reflection questions and a wealth of illustrative examples enhance the utility of this engaging, tightly edited work.