Overview of Chapter 4

            by Jeff Sapp

    Working alone all the time is not much fun.  Educators are often isolated in the profession of teaching.  Yet, it is in collaborative efforts that they are stretched to learn the most.  The first article in chapter four is a dialogue be two well-known literacy experts, Lea McGee and Victoria Purcell-Gates.  The chapter begins with this dialogue as a reminder of how much we can learn from each other.  Using a narrative form, the authors synthesize current research in the field of emergent literacy.  One of the major findings is that in recent years the focus of emergent literacy research has shifted from a cognitive focus to a socio-cultural focus.

    The 2000 report of the National Reading Panel is a comprehensive view that considers phonemic awareness instruction, phonics instruction, guided oral reading, independent silent reading, vocabulary instruction, and text comprehension instruction.  The goal of the panel was to contribute reliable, valid, and trustworthy information to the body of knowledge that already exists.  The article that follows the report reinforces the panel’s findings:  a combination of methods is the most effective way to teach reading.    

    The last article in this chapter considers the concern with emergent literacy instruction in the upper elementary grades.  It examines the crisis of older children falling behind in reading.  Louisa Moats points out that reading failure begins early, takes root quickly, and affects students for life.  What can be done to support older struggling readers?

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