Seeing All Kids as Readers

This book discusses a social, dynamic model of literacy that is more desirable than a rigid definition of literacy. The author describes: 5 parameters of literacy for young children with significant disabilities: understanding that others have stories to tell; expressing meaning in one's own experience; communicating with symbols; interpreting others' symbols; deriving joy from engagement with printed language; the importance of local understanding to inclusion and how environments that support this understanding encourage the social model of literacy; and, the importance of literate citizenship - the idea that literacy makes one an active and proactive member of society.This book also discusses the 10 domains of the inclusive early childhood literate community, which foster imagination and an ability to abstract and relate concepts. The book highlights how inclusion of young children with significant disabilities promotes literacy development in children with and without disabilities. It examines how assessment and goal-setting can work within this model.