Local Literacies: Theory and Practice

While many books have been written about basic literacy, few offer detailed information on how to plan and carry out a community literacy project. Fewer still give guidance in tackling the additional barriers of language, culture, and logistics in developing countries and in treating the local community as an active partner rather than a passive recipient in the literacy process. In Local Literacies: Theory and Practice, Glenys Waters includes these elements and presents a practical guide for developing a literacy program.

Beginning with a discussion of the theories of learning and reading, the author provides a detailed description of how to plan and organize a literacy program when the practitioner has little to go on but wit, knowledge, and determination. With approximately one half of the book given to the development of instructional methods and materials in reading, writing, and basic math, Local Literacies will be especially helpul to those doing literacy work in linguistically diverse settings in much of the developing world. The reader will quickly discover that this is a book written by a person who has been there and done that.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 How Learning Takes Place
1.1 How children learn
1.2 Informal learning styles
1.3 Formal learning styles
1.4 Encouraging purposeful learning
1.5 Helping students construct meanings effectively
1.6 Two case studies on learning
1.7 Strategies for building a good learning environment

2 The Learning Context
2.1 The learner
2.2 The facilitator or teacher
2.3 The context
2.4 The learning task

3 Planning a Literacy Programme
3.1 Determining the needs
3.2 Designing a literacy programme: Some factors to consider
3.3 A typical programme
3.4 Literacy for adults
3.5 Literacy for children
3.6 Literacy for youth
3.7 Transfer materials

4 Reading

5 Reading Readiness

6 Principles of Primer Construction
6.1 Look at the sound system of the target language
6.2 Consider principles from reading research and experience
6.3 Choose a method and design a layout
6.4 The primer as part of the reading lesson
6.5 The primer as part of the literacy programme

7 Phonics, Syllable, Word, and Sentence Approaches
7.1 Phonics approach
7.2 Syllable approach
7.3 Word and sentence approaches

8 Whole Language Approaches
8.1 What is the whole language approach?
8.2 Shared reading
8.3 Literature-based reading programmes for Papua New Guinea
8.4 Big Books for sharing enjoyable reading experiences
8.5 Whole language approach case studies
8.6 Language experience approach
8.7 Implementing a whole language programme

9 Integrated Approaches
9.1 Eclectic methods
9.2 Interactive whole language
9.3 Teaching language development using themes
9.4 Samples of activities for primer lessons

10 Assessment of a Literacy Programme
10.1 Assessment of programmes
10.2 Assessment of materials
10.3 Assessment of students reading
10.4 How to do case studies
10.5 Involving students in assessment

11 Materials Production
11.1 Writers workshops
11.2 Writing good stories
11.3 Materials production workshops
11.4 Puffing books together

12 Teaching Writing
12.1 Formation of letters
12.2 The process of writing
12.3 The reading-writing connection

13 Mathematics
13.1 School mathematics versus real mathematics
13.2 Working with numbers
13.3 Telling the time
13.4 Practice problems using money

14 What Is Literacy?
14.1 The many definitions of literacy
14.2 Literacy within the culture
14.3 The literacy system

References
Index