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Literacy is one of the most highly valued cultural resources of contemporary American society, yet far too many children in the nation's cities leave school without becoming sufficiently literate. This book reports the results of a five-year longitudinal study in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, tracing literacy development from pre-kindergarten through third-grade for a sample of children from low and middle income families of European and African heritage. The authors examined the intimate culture of each child's home, defined by a confluence of parental beliefs, recurrent activities, and interactive processes, in relation to children's literacy competencies. Also examined were teacher beliefs and practices, and connections between home and school. With its broad-based consideration of the contexts of early literacy development, the book makes an important contribution to understanding how best to facilitate attainment of literacy for children from diverse backgrounds.

Gale Researcher Guide for: Comprehension and Meaning in Language is selected from Gale's academic platform Gale Researcher. These study guides provide peer-reviewed articles that allow students early success in finding scholarly materials and to gain the confidence and vocabulary needed to pursue deeper research.

The purpose of this study was to integrate domain-learning theory and goal theory to investigate the learning processes, achievement goals, social goals, and achievement of 141 college students. Cluster-analytic procedures were used to categorize participants at different levels of expertise based on their responses on knowledge, interest, and strategic processing measures specific to psychology. Results revealed two distinct levels of expertise: Acclimated and Competent. Three sets of findings enhance our understanding of college learning. First, results indicated students at different levels of expertise adopt different goals. Whereas, the Acclimated group adopted performance-avoidance goals, the Competent group adopted mastery, performance-approach, and social concern goals, indicating students at different levels of expertise have different reasons for achieving. Second, the results provide support for multiple goal theory: (a) interest, strategic processing, and psychology GPA were each positively correlated with mastery and performance-approach goals; and (b) mastery and performance-approach goals were each unique predictors of psychology GPA. Third, social goals were positively related to some academic outcomes and negatively related to others. Findings suggest that college students' goals relate to the development of expertise within a domain. Educators need to consider students' knowledge, interest, strategy use, and goal orientations when developing instructional environments to improve student learning. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.).