Language Arts & Disciplines : Literacy

This is an encompassing review that addresses all aspects of literacy (reading, numeracy, and technological literacy, for example) with a global perspective. It connects the objectives of literacy education with broader areas of social welfare, including health, employment and political and economic empowerment. The second volume in a new annual series, this unique publication for practitioners in the field of adult learning and literacy collects in one yearly volume the best new knowledge and practice advances identified by the prestigious, Harvard-based and federally-funded literacy center, NCSALL. more...

Price: $40.00

At a time when all administrators are urged to be literacy leaders, Jennifer Allen's book provides an insider's view of leadership, and how to create an environment that fosters professional development. Becoming a Literacy Leader chronicles Jennifer's move to a new school and a new job as a literacy specialist where she found herself tackling everything from teacher study groups to state-mandated assessment plans. This is a positive book, rooted in the belief that teachers know what they need when it comes to professional development in literacy, and the best literacy leaders are those who listen to and respect the educators in their midst. more...

Price: $14.40

Computers, now the writer's tool of choice, are still blamed by skeptics for a variety of ills, from speeding writing up to the point of recklessness, to complicating or trivializing the writing process, to destroying the English language itself. A Better Pencil puts our complex, still-evolving hate-love relationship with computers and the internet into perspective, describing how the digital revolution influences our reading and writing practices, and how the latest technologies differ from what came before. The book explores our use of computers as writing tools in light of the history of communication technology, a history of how we love, fear, and actually use our writing technologies--not just computers, but also typewriters, pencils, and clay tablets. Dennis Baron shows that virtually all writing implements--and even writing itself--were greeted at first with anxiety and outrage: the printing press disrupted the "almost spiritual connection" between the writer and the page; the typewriter was "impersonal and noisy" and would "destroy the art of handwriting." Both pencils and computers were created for tasks that had nothing to do with writing. Pencils, crafted by woodworkers for marking up their boards, were quickly repurposed by writers and artists. The computer crunched numbers, not words, until writers saw it as the next writing machine. Baron also explores the new genres that the computer has launched: email, the instant message, the web page, the blog, social-networking pages like MySpace and Facebook, and communally-generated texts like Wikipedia and the Urban Dictionary, not to mention YouTube. Here then is a fascinating history of our tangled dealings with a wide range of writing instruments, from ancient papyrus to the modern laptop. With dozens of illustrations and many colorful anecdotes, the book will enthrall anyone interested in language, literacy, or writing. more...

Price: $18.95

Teaching basic language skills is an important educational priority. This blackline master activity book provides instruction and consolidation in basic English skills in a down-to-earth, practical way. more...

Price: $7.45

Offering the wisdom that only experience and expertise in the field can bring, this book takes a critical look into the present and the future of literacy as envisioned by leading reading researchers. The lead author of each chapter is a distinguished reading researcher elected by their peers into the Reading Hall of Fame. A key message in this book is that literacy professionals must take an active role to shape change. more...

Price: $44.95