Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, humans in literate societies have sets of practices for producing and consuming writing, and they also have beliefs about these practices. Reading, in this view, is always reading something for some purpose; writing is always writing something for someone for some particular ends. Beliefs about reading and writing and its value for society and for the individual always influence the ways literacy is taught, learned, and practiced over the lifespan.
Children's culture includes children's cultural artifacts, children's media and literature, and the myths and discourses spun around the notion of childhood. Children's culture has been studied within academia in cultural studies, media studies, and literature departments. The interdisciplinary focus of childhood studies could also be considered in the paradigm of social theory concerning the study of children's culture.
Living Books is a series of interactive read-along adventures aimed at children aged 3–9. Created by Mark Schlichting, the series was mostly developed by Living Books for CD-ROM and published by Broderbund for Mac OS and Microsoft Windows. Two decades after the original release, the series was re-released by Wanderful Interactive Storybook for iOS and Android.
The Dollywood Foundation is a non-profit organization founded by Dolly Parton, with headquarters in Sevierville, Tennessee. Shortly after the opening of the Dollywood theme park in 1986, the Dollywood Foundation was created in April 1988, and began by offering scholarships to local high school students. From there it grew into the Imagination Library, started in 1995, which distributes free books to children monthly, up until the age of 5. The Dollywood Foundation grew again into the My People Fund, which started in 2016 after wildfires ripped through Tennessee. The current President of the Dollywood Company is Craig Ross. Today, the foundation continues to grant scholarships and awards, and provides support to numerous non-profit organizations that aim to improve the quality of life of children and others in need.
An interactive storybook is a children's story packaged with animated graphics, sound or other interactive elements. Such stories are usually published as software on CD-ROMs. They have also been referred to as computer books, picture book programs, books-on-disk, talking books, or living books.
Socioeconomic status (SES) is an economic and sociological combined total measure of a person's work experience and of an individual's or family's economic access to resources and social position in relation to others. When analyzing a family's SES, the household income, earners' education, and occupation are examined, as well as combined income, whereas for an individual's SES only their own attributes are assessed. Recently, research has revealed a lesser recognized attribute of SES as perceived financial stress, as it defines the "balance between income and necessary expenses". Perceived financial stress can be tested by deciphering whether a person at the end of each month has more than enough, just enough, or not enough money or resources. However, SES is more commonly used to depict an economic difference in society as a whole.
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch.
Mark Schlichting is a publisher, author, and digital pioneer of children's multimedia and interactive design software. He is best known as the creator and subsequent Design and Art Director of Broderbund's Living Books series, one of the first lines of children's interactive book software on CD-ROM. Schlichting was Design and Art Director for Living Book's first interactive CD-ROM book adaptation, Mercer Mayer’s Just Grandma and Me, which was one of the first software titles accredited as a school textbook and used as a product demonstration by Apple CEO John Sculley.
Susan Neuman is an educator, researcher, and education policy-maker in early childhood and literacy development. In 2013, she became Professor of Early Childhood and Literacy Education, and Chair of the Department of Teaching and Learning at NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
Nell K. Duke is a contemporary educator and literacy researcher with an interest in informational text, early literacy development, and reading comprehension instruction, with an emphasis on children living in poverty. She is currently a professor of language, literacy, and culture and a faculty associate in the combined program in education and psychology at the University of Michigan.
ABCmouse.com Early Learning Academy is a subscription-based digital education program for children ages 2–8, created by Age of Learning, Inc. Subscribers can access learning activities on the ABCmouse.com website or mobile app. Subjects covered include reading and language arts, math, science, health, social studies, music, and art.
Literacy is a peer-reviewed academic journal published thrice annually by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the United Kingdom Literacy Association. The journal was established in 1967 as Reading and obtained its current name in 2004. It covers research on the study and development of literacy, including topics such as phonics, phonology, morphology, and language. The editors-in-chief are Natalia Kucirkova and Diane Collier.
Mobile Literacy in South Africa refers to a range of informal education projects and initiatives that support the development of literacy and enable digital fluency while using mobile devices, especially mobile phones. Mobile literacy is also known by the abbreviation mLiteracy.
The Department of Information Studies is a department of the UCL Faculty of Arts and Humanities.
Bonny Norton,, is a professor and distinguished university scholar in the Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia, Canada. She is also research advisor of the African Storybook and 2006 co-founder of the Africa Research Network on Applied Linguistics and Literacy. She is internationally recognized for her theories of identity and language learning and her construct of investment. A Fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), she was the first recipient in 2010 of the Senior Research Leadership Award of AERA's Second Language Research SIG. In 2016, she was co-recipient of the TESOL Award for Distinguished Research and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
The African Storybook (ASb) is a multilingual literacy initiative that works with educators and children to publish openly licensed picture storybooks for early reading in the languages of Africa. An initiative of Saide, the ASb has an interactive website that enables users to read, create, download, translate, and adapt storybooks. The initiative addresses the dire shortage of children’s storybooks in African languages, crucial for children’s literacy development. As of September 2020 website had nearly 6,700 storybooks in 222 languages spoken in Africa, consisting of nearly 2000 original titles and translations of those titles.
Patricia A. Edwards, a member of the Reading Hall of Fame, is a Distinguished Professor of Language and Literacy in the Department of Teacher Education and a Senior University Outreach Fellow at Michigan State University. She is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in parent involvement, home-school-community partnerships, and multicultural, early, and family/intergenerational literacy with a focus on poor and minority children. She served on the International Literacy Association Board of Directors from 1998–2001, as the first African American President of the Literacy Research Association from 2006–2007, and as President of the International Literacy Association from 2010–2011. Edwards also served as a member of the Board of Directors for the American Educational Research Association's (AERA) Family, School, and Community Partnerships Special Interest Group (SIG) from 2014–2016 and was elected to serve as its President-Elect/President from 2016–2020.
Laura M. Justice is a language scientist and expert on interventions to promote children's literacy. She is the EHE Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology at Ohio State University, where she also serves as the Executive Director of the A. Sophie Rogers School for Early Learning.
Carol McDonald Connor was an educational psychologist known for her research contributions to the field of early literacy development in diverse learners, in particular for work on individualized student instruction interventions and the lattice model of reading development. She held the position of Chancellor's Faculty and Equity Advisor in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine.
Dieter Wolke is Professor of Developmental Psychology and Individual Differences at the University of Warwick, Department of Psychology, and at the Division of Health Sciences at Warwick Medical School since 2006. In 2020, he was named by the British Psychological Society for Distinguished Contributions to British Developmental Psychology award. He has also been named as a highly cited researcher, ranking in the top 1% of citations in Web of Science by Clarivate every year since 2018.
