Creating Support for Effective Literacy Education: Workshop Materials and Handouts

In helping others to understand how reading and writing flourish in whole language classrooms, have you ever wished for materials that clearly convey what we know about effective teaching and learning of literacy? This indispensable resource provides everything you need, including just the right transparencies, brochures, and fact sheets.

It's been proven that by treating reading and writing as gradually emerging processes rather than skills to be taught and mastered in isolation, children not only become proficient, but also develop a lifetime love of reading and writing. But when parents and administrators hear only about literacy activities without details on how teachers "teach" children to read and write, they understandably become concerned. "What about phonics and spelling?" they ask. This book addresses the need, then, to help others understand the nature of learning and the processes of language and literacy development, as well as some of the specific things teachers do to nurture independent and competent readers and writers.

Part I contains eight sections, made up of materials that can be copied directly onto transparencies, on learning theory, language acquisition, the reading process, teaching and learning reading, phonics, reading strategies, writing, and assessment. Each set is accompanied by suggestions for using the transparencies, relevant anecdotes about the authors' experiences using them, background information from research, and sources and resources. The transparencies can be selected and organized in any order to fit your individual needs. Part II includes fliers, letters, brochures, and fact sheets on various topics relating to emergent literacy and teaching practice, all of which can also be copied and distributed as needed.

Though designed primarily for workshops and weekend courses, Creating Support for Effective Literacy Education is also appropriate for regular college courses focusing on professional development and inservice teacher training.

Connie Weaver is a teacher, writer, and speaker on whole language, reading process, and related topics. She is a Professor of English at Western Michigan University and a former director of the Commission on Reading of the National Council of Teachers of English. Recently she has co-founded Michigan for Public Education, a citizens' group advocating educational equality and excellence. She has also received the Charles C. Fries award for outstanding leadership to the profession. Connie has done keynote presentations focusing on myths about whole language, success for all students in the whole language classroom, a balanced approach to reading, and understanding the phonics-whole language controversy. Topics for workshops and/or breakout sessions have included phonics in whole language classrooms, understanding and educating students with an attention deficit disorder in whole language classrooms, reconceptualizing dyslexia through miscue analysis, theme exploratiLORRAINE GILLMEISTER-KRAUSE, a teacher for more than twenty-five years, teaches thirty miles west of Montreal, Canada, in a one-room schoolhouse, which received the NCTE Center of Excellence in English language Arts Award in 1989. She has been active in the whole language movement and has been a member of the board of directors of the Whole Language Umbrella.GRACE VENTO-ZOGBY has taught children ages six through thirteen for seventeen years. She is an active member of several professional organizations, including the Whole Language Umbrella and IRAs Whole Language Special Interest Group, and she is founder of the Utica Area TAWL. Currently Grace is a reading specialist at Sauquoit Valley Elementary School, Sauquoit, New York.