Make Way for Literacy!: Teaching the Way Young Children Learn

With Literacy Through Play, Gretchen Owocki revealed to thousands of early childhood educators what a virtual gold mine play is for facilitating literacy learning. Now, with Make Way for Literacy!, Owocki offers effective guidelines for creating a classroom community that supports children's developing literacies.

Make Way for Literacy! starts with a brief explanation of how literacy begins to develop, first in a child's home and neighborhood. Owocki points out the various individual traits, family activities, and basic literacy practices that can be so influential - and then focuses on preschool, kindergarten, and the primary grades. Next, the book offers four key principles for understanding and facilitating literacy, along with easy-to-follow techniques for starting - or refining - teacher research and inquiry in the classroom.

The bulk of the text is devoted to practical, curriculum-enhancing literacy engagements. For each type of engagement, Owocki explains how it fosters language and literacy development; provides ideas for instruction, assessment, evaluation, and teacher research; offers practical methods and materials for getting the engagement started; suggests related activities involving art, drama, movement, writing, drawing, talk, or play; and includes actual teaching and learning examples from classrooms.

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Literacy learning is described from a developmental and sociocultural perspective in this guide with the notion that by developing a classroom community all children will learn. Owocki (education, Saginaw Valley State U., University Center, Michigan) provides guidelines and suggestions based on her own teaching experience and study to train instructors in teaching methods and activities to increase literacy. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

For more than 15 years, Gretchen Owocki has helped teachers find researched-based practices that improve learning by letting students experience curriculum as part of their own development. In popular Heinemann titles like The RTI Daily Planning Book, K-6, Comprehension, Make Way for Literacy, and Time for Literacy Centers, she has shared teaching that engages students through authentic, meaningful tasks and challenges them to grow as readers. A professor at Saginaw Valley State University, Gretchen is a Heinemann Professional Development Services provider. EC0210