In this highly acclaimed revision, grammatical descriptions and teaching suggestions are organized into sections dealing with Form, Meaning, and Use. THE GRAMMAR BOOK  helps teachers and future teachers grasp the linguistic system and details of English grammar, providing more information on how structures are used at the discourse level.

Readers will find this practical and comprehensive guide to spelling invaluable. Day-to-day advice on how to help those with difficulties is underpinned by information on the development of the English language and its spelling rules with explanations of common language problems. Chapters cover:

• spelling processes
• teaching and learning phonics
• individual cognitive and learning styles
• assessing and monitoring spelling progress
• teaching strategies and techniques.

This is an essential companion for teachers, SENCos, and dyslexia specialists alike, as well as anyone interested in spelling and language difficulties.

Evaluation is a way of understanding and developing language programs: the thematic and background section sets out the decision-making, quality management, and learning functions of evaluation. Case studies illustrate the diversity of evaluation contexts, functions and approaches, documenting the ways in which evaluation processes and outcomes inform and facilitate program development, and contribute to explaining how language and teacher education programs constitute opportunities for learning. The ways in which evaluation practice can be researched and developed to maximize policy, institutional and program effectiveness is included, and a comprehensive set of resources for those commissioning, undertaking or researching language program evaluations concludes the text.

This book provides a unique description of teacher-pupil interaction during the Literacy Hour in good schools. It is based on detailed observations in inner-city primary schools that were recognised as effective and improving. The analysis is informed by contemporary research into the development and teaching of early literacy.

  Throughout the world the number of working mothers with young children has continued to grow. This has important consequences for social policy decisions, particularly in the fields of parental leave, childcare and pre-school services provision. Some countries are far more successful at combining high quality early childhood services with high percentages of mothers in employment, whereas others continue to struggle. This edited volume examines the ways in which different countries across the world are tackling early childhood services and how these services affect young children’s experiences and development, for better and worse. Some of the recurring questions of childcare provision are tackled, including:

• Is pre-school childcare detrimental to children?
• Does the quality of childcare matter?
• Why are some countries succeeding in providing quality childcare services, and others are not?
• How can we best organise parental leave, employment regulations and childcare provision?