Description
For the past decade, Brian Cambourne has been researching how learning, especially
literacy learning, occurs. He has conducted this research in the naturalistic mode
he prefers by sitting in classrooms for many hundreds of hours. It is from what
he has observed in those classrooms that this book arises.
In the opening chapter, Carnbourrre declares his prejudices about literacy and the
process of becoming literate. One is that learning to become literate ought to
he as uncomplicated and barrier-free as possible. The other is that, once learned,
the skills and knowledge that make literacy learning possible ought to endure beyond
the four walls of the classroom.
Cambourne argues that teachers who are dissatisfied and/or frustrated with the
methods they use to teach literacy are prisoners of a view of learning which is
based on quite invalid assumptions and which seriously complicates the process
of learning to read and write. The book then presents an alternate view of learning
and an approach to teaching literacy which liberates teachers. Furthermore, it leads
to the development of highly literate, critically aware, confident readers and writers.
These are liberated learners who will continue to read and write long after they
have left school.
A classroom teacher himself. Camhourne was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and
a post-doctoral Fellowship at Harvard University in the mid-seventies. He has been
a visiting Fellow at the Language Centre of Arizona University and at the Reading
Centre of Illinois University. Presently, he is Head of Centre for Studies in Literacy
at Wollongong Inivcrsirv where he has been working since 1982.
Originally sold for $29.95 at Bennetts.
208 pages
Softcover
In good preloved condition with minor wear along edge of spine. Originally held by Milson School (stamp inside).