Introduction

We made this book because we wanted preservice teachers to have free access to information about early literacy development and instructional methods.  When students have to purchase books, they often return them and lose valuable reference information. With this open access resource, preservice teachers will be able to turn to the information in this book whenever they need to. Another advantage of open access is the ability to update and edit the book easily.

Our approach

Our approach to this book was as an introduction to the topic of early literacy development. This book is targeting pre-service teachers who are taking their first literacy methods courses. Therefore the scope is a wide view of literacy topics instead of a deep dive into literacy development.  We anticipate pre-service teachers will continue their coursework in literacy, deepening their conceptual knowledge. At the same time, we included topics that are not often included in early literacy texts such as technology, family literacy, supporting diverse students and multicultural literacy.

The content

The book begins by exploring multiple definitions of literacy with varying perspectives. Literacy is explored through the critical literacies’ framework as a human right and a meaning-making experience involving digital tools and technologies through the lens of new literacies. The second chapter explores the foundations of literacy instruction. In subsequent chapters, each literacy component is further developed and discussed with concepts, strategies, and reflective practice. One chapter focuses on trauma-informed instruction, dyslexia, ELL, culturally relevant pedagogy, and multicultural literature. Lastly, we introduce disciplinary literacy for young readers. While we recognize that these are not the only topics that could be introduced in an early literacy textbook, we chose to focus on the topics we felt were essential for pre-service teachers to begin their study of early literacy.