Instructional Practices

Student Learning Introduction

The Student Learning category, focused on engaging student support, offers ways to explore various topics surrounding student literacy, learning, and engagement. Readers will discover issues involving opportunities for student to learn, access information, or ways to engage students with learning.

Practices focused directly on student support are "Helping Parents Mobilize Social Resources to Promote Literacy Success" by Guofang Li and Tanya Christ, "Digital Divide" by Jennifer Rowsell and Ernest Morrell, "Instruction That Works With Emergent Bilingual Students" by Amanda P. Goodwin and Robert Jiménez, and "Practice-Based Literacy Teaching" by James Hoffman.

Practices focused on engagement are "The Power and Potentialities of Play in Literacy Learning" by Tori K. Flint, "Stressing Engagement in Literacy Pedagogy" by Seth A. Parsons, "Powerful Literacy Learning Through Gaming and Imagination" by Antero Garcia, "Integrating Diverse Literature for Youth in Literacy Learning Experiences" by Denise Dávila, "Engaging Students With Graphic Texts" by Stergios Botzakis, and "Engaged Reading for Adolescents" by Gay Ivey.

This collection of short, focused practices will allow readers to better understand ways to think about student support. The practices may focus on topics like the digital divide with the result of a better understanding of issues that contribute to this divide. Or readers may choose to focus on specific ways to support students in using diverse literature. By exploring this category, readers will gain knowledge of specific strategies and issues that directly affect student learning.

—Diane Barone, Emeritus Foundation Professor of Literacy Studies, University of Nevada, Reno, and Jo Worthy, Professor, University of Texas, Austin