After researching the characteristics of adult literacy students in the U.S., the authors reject the implications that the cognitive perspectives of Jeanne Chall and the social perspectives of James Gee are independent and incommensurable. The primary goal of this volume is to reconnect the two perspectives of social and cognitive researchers and, hopefully, provide a better account for literacy development...The authors [argue] that adults learn to read and write through instruction that builds on the literacy worlds in the classroom and in their social worlds.
   --D. Pellegrino, Choice

This book powerfully advances the argument that becoming literate involves much more than learning a set of skills in school. The authors skillfully weave many threads--child literacy, social literacy, use of authentic materials, in school learning and out of school literacy practices--into a complex, clear, convincing case. Important for literacy theorists, readable by practitioners, this is an academic book that one might actually read on a beach.
   --Hal Beder, Rutgers University

Victoria Purcell-Gates is Canada Research Chair in Early Childhood Literacy at the University of British Columbia.

Erik Jacobson is an Assistant Professor at Montclair State University.

Sophie Degener is a Research Associate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Read More by Victoria Purcell-Gates:

• Other People's Words: The Cycle of Low Literacy