Amazon.com description: Product Description: This book presents policies in language and education, and implementation in specific settings. It describes the historical background that led to the development of these policies, and presents the institutional context of the schools where reading is taught. Based on a study conducted over four years, involving daily observation in two different elementary schools and one kindergarten in Nanjing, China, this study describes the literacy acquisition process for Chinese children today. This study is recommended for Chinese language teachers, English as a second langauge instructors, linguists, students of comparative education, and sociologists.