Advocating for Children: Not All Literacy Interventions, Approaches and Resources are Equal

Abstract

Teachers are advocates for children in teaching and selection of literacy interventions, approaches and resources. Teachers serve an essential role as members of an informed school team with responsibility for decision making about literacy learning within their local context. In the workplace of schools, colleagues engage with others within a set of shared assumptions that create the culture of learning and teaching. The advocacy role of teachers will be discussed along with criteria for critically appraising teaching approaches and resources that facilitate literacy processing. Empirical research, context, children’s competences, and a teacher’s theories of learning comprise criteria for selecting interventions, approaches and teaching resources. Which ones are worth the effort? Which ones are worthy of children’s time? Why does it matter? In complex systems, a change in one part of the system will have ripple effects at every other level of operation—expanding or limiting optimal learning of each child.