Children's Emergent Literacy
Children's Emergent Literacy. Edited by David F. Lancy. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1994
This publication, which grew out of an emergent literacy conference held in May 1991, begins with a poignant foreword by James Moffett. The book's underlying concept is that children should not be categorized as haves and have-nots in regard to acquiring early reading and writing success. Rather, their efforts should be considered along a growth continuum of literacy development. The focus shifts to what a child can do rather than what he or she can't do.
This concept is quite important for supervisors and curriculum developers who are now immersed in whole language, writing across the curriculum, interdisciplinary thematic units, and others practices that integrate literacy, speaking, reading, and writing with content subjects. Editor David Lancy, a professor of anthropology, has organized the book's 18 chapters into two sections: (1) research in literacy acquisition and development, and (2) learning and intervention strategies primarily for children at risk for literacy acquisition.
As Lancy aptly points out, emergent literacy needs to be viewed as a dramatic paradigm shift, particularly in the teaching of beginning reading and writing. For example, although educators have traditionally viewed letter recognition as central to the teaching of reading, proponents of emergent literacy consider it tangential. More important, emergent literacy educators view the production of invented spelling, traditionally considered trivial or even dysfunctional, as a critical literacy event.
Many in the educational/publishing establishment, who have developed methods and materials for sequentially presenting doses of literacy, may view the emergent literacy view and requisite paradigm shift as hostile. Most supervisors, language arts curriculum developers, early childhood specialists, and teachers, however, will see this book as consistent with modern views of how children acquire literacy both in and outside of the classroom.
Published by Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Rd., West, P.O. Box 5007, Westport, CT 06881-5007. Price: $65.
—Reviewed by Richard Sinatra, St. John's University, Jamaica, New York.
The Learning Revolution
The Learning Revolution by Gordon Dryden and Jeannette Vos. Torrance, Calif.: Jalmar Press, 1994.
The “learning revolution” in this title is concerned with discovering effective ways to use the human brain. The authors, for example, purport to teach people foreign languages in 4 to 8 weeks and turn weak readers into effective ones in 10 weeks.
Their means of teaching foreign languages are unoriginal and simplistic. The main suggestion is to teach a limited vocabulary so that students can function in a language context, an age-old method. They teach reading-deficient students to be selective in what they focus on by skimming and scanning, well-tried techniques of most reading teachers.
Although the book—a best-seller in New Zealand and elsewhere—adds little to what is already known about learning, it does gather into one place many techniques that elementary and secondary teachers can use effectively. In addition, the book's layout illustrates effective ways of formatting material that students need to master: most left-hand pages present posters of controlling ideas related to the accompanying right-hand text.
The book offers suggestions for mental mapping that aid significantly in improving some people's memories. This technique is well known and has been widely used for years. The Dryden-Vos version, borrowed (with acknowledgment) from Nancy Margulies's Mapping InnerSpace (1971), is visually strong. The book also contains a solid bibliography of reading suggestions and a comprehensive index.
Published by Jalmar Press, Skypark Business Center, Suite 204, 2675 Skypark Dr., Torrance, CA 90505. Price: $29.95.
—Reviewed by R. Baird Shuman, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Responsive Assessment
Responsive Assessment: A New Way of Thinking About Learning by Mary Henning-Stout. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1994.
Far too often, assessment has not been directly responsive to the needs of the learner. Children take tests, and the evaluator tabulates and reviews the results. The learner discovers only that he or she did or did not perform as anticipated. In Responsive Assessment, Mary Henning-Stout offers a direct challenge to make assessment responsive to the needs of the learner, not solely to the needs of teachers, administrators, and politicians.
She offers arguments and techniques for shifting the focus of assessment away from conventional practices, pointing out the weaknesses associated with previous and current school assessment practices, as well as the politics driving many traditional forms of assessment. She also examines the nature of learning and various ways that academic assessment can effectively support, respond to, and facilitate a child's learning.
Henning-Stout's strongest argument for the development of practical, realistic assessment practices rests with how to engage learners in their own assessment and in the instructional process. Responsive Assessment is for the teacher, the administrator, and the politician interested in directing assessment to be responsive to the needs of the primary customer of education: the child.
Published by Jossey-Bass Publishers, 350 Sansome St., San Francisco, CA 94104. Price: $32.95.
—Reviewed by Frank D. Adams, Wayne State College, Wayne, Nebraska.
Non-Fiction for the Classroom
Non-Fiction for the Classroom by Milton Meltzer, edited by E. Wendy Saul. New York: Teachers College Press, 1994.
This collection of essays by distinguished author and teacher Milton Meltzer goes directly to the “why” of social studies and, more specifically, the reasons to study history. More important, Meltzer challenges and stimulates new and experienced teachers to explore the “so what” of historical study. He links a wide-ranging knowledge of history, western and nonwestern, traditional and revisionist, to the student by raising questions like: Why are things this way? Can they be changed? If so, in what direction? Who gains and who loses?
History, in the hands of Meltzer, becomes a student-centered examination of what has been in order to better design what might be. The past, present, and future merge into a tight continuum; students “rethink past thoughts,” but with a purpose of examining human fragility, foible, and fulfillment. History moves beyond the often sterile lists of what students should know into issues that they need to think about. Nothing is shallow; nothing is simple. Complexity is often the key to understanding challenging issues like: What should we do about racism? war? How have people dealt with these issues in the past? What have been the triumphs and failures? How can we achieve more of the former, less of the latter?
Meltzer's volume raises these questions about people, from Columbus to Dorothea Lange; issues, from racism to terrorism; and events, from medieval to modern. The content is the opening door to the significant questions students need to ask. The connection of students to the past is through each person's humanity.
“Knowing what is wrong does not necessarily move us to action. We have to believe that something else is possible, that what we do can make a difference.” What a profound observation for students, and what a significant thought for any teacher. This, indeed, is the “so what” of history instruction. Teachers and students of history will be enriched by this volume.
Published by Teachers College Press, 1234 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY 10027. Price: $18.95, paper; $40, hardcover.
—Reviewed by James Hill, Upland High School, Upland, California.
Education on the Internet
Education on the Internet by Jill H. Ellsworth. Indianapolis: SAMS Publishing, 1994.
Some bolt on with aerobic-quality speed; some come hindered by years of technophobia; some come only when pushed—but they come. Many stretch their online hands around the world to create an electronic community, the impact of which we are only beginning to fathom.
At whatever speed or for whatever reasons, the on-ramp to the electronic highway is crowded with newcomers (“clueless newbies”) many of whom are teachers, principals, researchers, and parents of schoolchildren. Education on the Internet is designed to be both easily read straight through and used as a reference. The text is a “hands-on book of resources, projects, and advice.”
If you know nothing about the Internet and are embarrassed to admit it, you will benefit from this book. The text is organized to facilitate quick acquisition of information. The first section considers why the Internet is important to K–12 educators. Issues of security and ethics are also addressed. Classroom projects abound, even for the harried teacher in search of tomorrow's class-act lesson plan—like “Global Grocery List,” which compares the prices, exchange rates, and health values of foods internationally; “Kids Weathernet,” which collects and shares weather and climate data; and even “dts-L” for the Dead Teachers' Society.
The first third of the book organizes hundreds of resources, projects, and conferences according to subject matter. Subjects include agriculture; business and marketing; computers; English language arts; fine arts; health-related fields; journalism; mathematics; science; and world languages. One editorial oversight: the social studies guide was left out, but is available by writing the editor. Researchers will appreciate a complete discussion of ERIC clearinghouses and non-ERIC support services.
Need more help? Browse to the end of the book, where you will find an introduction to the information highway called Internet 101. Then you can explore the second section, “Off to College and Graduate School,” a look at Internet and higher education. Should you feel this may take a lifetime to learn, it's all right. The last section, “Lifelong Learning and Self-Study,” addresses distance learning, self-paced study, and worldwide windows and webs. Ah, cyberspace! I cruise; therefore, I am.
Published by SAMS Publishing, 201 W. 103rd St., Indianapolis, IN 46290. Price: $25.
—Reviewed by Vicky Dill ( vsdill@tenet.edu ), Schreiner College, Kerrville, Texas.
