The editors discuss the transformative possibilities of literacy through a collection of 12 articles originally published in Primary Voices K-6.
Based on a view of literacy as social practice, this book highlights the ways in which classroom teachers and educators have practiced and imagined teaching literacy in everyday classrooms. The twelve essays published here originally appeared in the NCTE journal Primary Voices K6 and highlight four key issues essential to literacy practice in elementary classrooms: access, meaning making, inquiry, and transformation. The individual essays challenge us to go beyond a view of literacy as a simple matter of skill and help to realize its transformative power. In providing a contemporary conceptual framework and further resources, the editors have looked not only back to Primary Voices K6 but also forward, noting that the practices reported in the book represent only the tip of what is possible and including throughout the volume discussions of what the future might look like and how particular sets of social practices might mature and evolve.
