Author(s): Gretchen Owocki

Language and Literacy

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 influentialand 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 startingor refiningteacher 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.