Change Over Time in Children’s Literacy Development presents a comprehensive account of young literacy learners constructing networks of interacting systems for processing information, an account extending from the time of the children’s first engagement with reading and writing tasks to their development of a self-extending system of literacy expertise.
To show how children’s initially simple sets of responses become controlled, accurate, and coordinated, Marie Clay has drawn on research evidence and theoretical constructs from developmental psychology, neuropsychology, information processing theory, and linguistics.
This book is a theoretically rich, informative, and compellingly readable account of children’s literacy learning with wide professional relevance. Teachers, educators of teachers, researchers, and students will return to it often to advance their understandings and guide their work with young literacy learners.
Marie Clay presents her theoretical perspectives on learning, intervention, and the prevention of literacy difficulties with reference to:
- detailed observational studies of young children learning to read and write
- theoretical models of literacy processing
- understandings from neurological sciences
- her thirty years of experience with the successful literacy intervention Reading Recovery.
She directs particular attention to the often neglected topics of children’s writing, visual learning, and self-correction and also alerts readers to the limitations of current explanations and poses provocative hypotheses for ongoing exploration.
Challenging, thoughtful, and vitally relevant, Change Over Time in Children’s Literacy Development will continue to be essential reading for literacy professionals around the world.
