Change Over Time: In Children's Literacy Development

I live in a perpetual state of inquiry, finding new questions to ask, then moving on.
- Marie M. Clay

When early literacy interventions work with young, low-achieving children, just why they work is often poorly understood. With Change Over Time, you can join Marie Clay as she takes a step back from the concepts of reading failure, disability, and dyslexia, and considers a new way to view literacy learning difficulties.

You begin by asking questions about the changes that occur in the cognitive processes of proficient children as they learn to read. You call what they do "constructive" and discover how you can interact daily with low-achieving children so that they too conduct literacy tasks constructively and independently. Then you consider some provocative alternatives: How do you describe children's progress? Do you check book levels off a list? Do you count the letters, the sounds, the correct spellings? Or is there another option? What if you give prime attention to processing - how the brain works with the text to get the message? Are the children shifting from simple processing to more complex ways of working? Are they initiating more independent problem solving on harder texts and getting better at it day after day?