Crossing Literacy Bridges

It has been well established that schools and families must work together to ensure academic and literacy success for all children. Educators understand the importance of creating a learning connection between families and schools. Families provide teachers with increased knowledge of students. Teachers also recognize the importance of building on the learning events occurring in students’ homes and communities. However, in practice, partnerships are not easily established. Often teachers are not prepared to effectively reach out to families nor are families and schools prepared to effectively work together. There are many constraints in forming home-school partnerships and the added challenges of creating partnerships with families of children struggling with literacy development are even more difficult. Often teachers and families find themselves on opposite sides, facing similar challenges, looking for a way to connect. Families of children struggling to acquire literacy skills are often faced with many challenges other families never experience. For teachers, trying to reach out to these families and form partnerships is equally challenging. Bridges enable connections to be made between people and ideas and allow passage from one side to another. This book describes five principles to guide teachers in working with families of struggling readers. With examples from the field, tools to put into practice, and extensive resources lists, teachers will expand their understanding of family engagement. This book is an important resource for pre-service and in-service teachers who are eager to engage more sensitively and effectively with families, particularly those whose children have struggled with literacy.

This book provides a framework for academic vocabulary and language instruction in today's diverse classrooms. The authors present a set of strategies and tools that work effectively across all content areas to support enhanced comprehension and academic success.--[book cover].

Winner of the Pura Belpré Medal! A New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book! Little Lobo and Bernabé return in ¡Vamos! Let’s Cross the Bridge, a joyful picture book follow-up to ¡Vamos! Let’s Go Eat about coming together and celebrating community from New York Times bestselling, three-time Pura Belpré Award–winning author-illustrator Raúl the Third. People are always crossing the bridge for work, to visit family, or for play. Some going this way; others going that way. Back and forth they go. With friends on foot and in bicycles, in cars and trucks, the bridge is an incredibly busy place with many different types of vehicles. Little Lobo and his dog Bernabé have a new truck and they are using it to carry party supplies over the bridge with their pals El Toro and La Oink Oink. The line is long and everyone on the bridge is stuck. How will they pass the time?

This title presents new research on teaching reading in a second language. Controversy abounds across many aspects of second language reading instruction despite much research on the subject. This volume attempts to bring together the competing perspectives on second language reading research and instruction to tackle these questions: should second language reading instruction be comprehension-oriented, or should it be language-oriented? What types of knowledge and skills are necessary for improving reading comprehension? What elements of language can be learned through reading? Is it possible to integrate grammar training into comprehension training, and if so, how may that be achieved in the classroom?By crossing the boundaries between diverse conceptual and pedagogical practice this volume appeals to second language reading researchers, teachers, curriculum developers, materials writers, and graduate students of second language education interested in reading.

This edited volume unpacks the familiar concepts of language, literacy and learning, and promotes dialogue and bridge building within and across these concepts. Its specific interest lies in bridging the gap between Literacy Studies (or New Literacy Studies), on the one hand, and SLA and scholarship in learning in multilingual contexts, on the other. The chapters in the volume center-stage empirical analysis, and each addresses gaps in the scholarship between the two domains. The volume addresses the need to engage with the concepts, categorizations and boundaries that pertain to language, literacy and learning. This need is especially felt in our globalized society, which is characterized by constant, fast and unpredictable mobility of people, goods, ideas and values. The editors of this volume are founding members of the Nordic Network LLL (Language, Literacy and Learning). They have initiated a string of workshops and have discussed this theme at Nordic meetings and at symposia at international conferences.

Bring parents into literacy learning with daily routines and shared experiences.

When it was first published, Crossing Bok Chitto took readers by surprise. This moving and original story about the intersection of Native and African Americans received starred reviews and many awards, including being named an ALA Notable Children's Book and a Jane Addams Honor Book. Jeanne Rorex Bridges' illustrations mesmerized readers--Publishers Weekly noted that her "strong, solid figures gaze squarely out of the frame, beseeching readers to listen, empathize and wonder." Choctaw storyteller Tim Tingle blends songs, flute, and drum to bring the lore of the Choctaw Nation to life in lively historical, personal, and traditional stories. Artist Jeanne Rorex Bridges traces her heritage back to her Cherokee ancestors.