A History of Literacy Education: Waves of Research and Practice

by Robert J Tierney, P. David Pearson

In this volume, two notable scholars trace the monumental shifts in theory, research, and practice related to reading education and literacy, with particular attention to what they consider the central goal of literacy―making meaning. Each section describes a specific epoch, including a brief snapshot of how the reader of that period is envisioned and characterized by researchers and teachers, as well as a deep discussion of the ideas and contextual events of that era. These developmental waves are organized in rough historical sequence by a series of shifts in underlying theoretical and scholarly lenses―from the behavioral to the psycholinguistic to the cognitive to the sociocultural to the critical to the multimodal to the global. The book closes with a discussion of the various research frames and methodological approaches that paralleled these developments. The common thread across all the chapters is making meaning. For each wave, the authors unearth and interrogate the assumptions about making meaning with text as well as the practices to promote it―whether the meaning making is inspired by print, image, sound, or some multimodal mash-up. This unique resource is a must-own for every literacy professor and graduate scholar. Book

400 pages, Paperback

Published June 18, 2021

Reviews

[lillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for a course in my master's program, CI 502: Intro to Reading. This text provides an overview of the history of reading research, and it presents it in "waves." In my opinion, the "wave" model oversimplifies the complex history of reading research in the United States. While this model makes the history more approachable, it inadvertently reduces the varying ideologies/methodologies of a period into a singular category and erases the diversity of reading research throughout its history. I learned a lot from this text (and it has many strengths), but as with most literature that seeks to present a linear "history" of any kind, it also has its shortcomings.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent review of the changes in literacy education over the last 150 years.