ED257113 CS208958
Title: Language Stories & Literacy Lessons.
Author(s): Harste, Jerome C.; And Others
Pages: 252
Publication Date: 1984
ISBN: 0-435-08211-6
Available from: Document Not Available from EDRS.
Availability: Heinemann Educational Books Inc., 70 Court St.,
Portsmouth, NH 03801 ($15.00, paper).
Language: English
Document Type: Book (010); Information Analysis (070)
Geographic Source: U.S.; New Hampshire
Journal Announcement: RIEOCT1985
Target Audience: Teachers; Practitioners
As a result of a program of research about cognitive processes
involved in learning to read and write among 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year
old-children, this book attempts to get teacher-researchers to think
through the implications of recent insights into literacy and literacy
learning. The first section examines instructional assumptions;
proposes a new view of language development; presents a language
lesson from a 3-year old; suggests a new perspective concerning the
relationship between literacy and race, sex, and socioeconomic status;
and examines literacy assumptions. The second section presents key
patterns in language and language learning that were seen in the
language stories of the children, and examines the organization of the
writing, the intentionality of the children as language users, the
generativeness of language, risk taking as being central to cognitive
processing, writing as a form of social action, the text as the basic
unit of language, how language is learned, and new patterns in
literacy. The third section deals with the conceptual implications
and the methodological implications of literacy and literacy learning.
Research task directions and a bibliography are appended. (EL)
Descriptors: *Cognitive Processes; Early Childhood Education;
*Language Acquisition; Language Patterns; *Language Processing;
*Language Research; Language Skills; *Literacy; Reading Instruction;
Verbal Communication; Writing Instruction
