Reading, Writing, and Talk

This new edition of the bestseller Reading, Writing, and Talk responds to the urgent need for creating language and literacy pathways that are inclusive, intentional, and center wholeness and belonging. The authors explain, show, and offer critical reflections on the development, teaching, and learning of reading, writing, and talk from preschool through the early grades—across language practices, dis/abilities, and contexts. This second edition troubles whose reading, writing, and talk belongs in schools, offering insights into and examples of fostering belonging in the classroom. It elucidates the racialization of academic language and analyzes school-sponsored language and literacy curricula to demonstrate the power of expansive literacies and linguistic justice in practice. Readers will enter classrooms where teachers learn from and alongside children, families, and communities about identities, practices, values, funds of knowledge, and more. This thorough update of the popular text offers a wealth of knowledge and examples to help educators truly and fully teach reading, writing, and talk for equity and justice.

Book Features:

• Offers a warm invitation to shift mindsets and consider possibilities for furthering language and literacy development with young children.
• Brings to light powerful concepts like linguistic justice and communicative belonging through powerful classroom scenarios. 
• Centers Black, Indigenous, and other children, teachers, families, and communities of color. 
• Explains how oral language, reading, and writing develop and can be taught in the early grades across languages (bilingual, multilingual), abilities, and contexts. 
• Focuses on constructing classrooms that foster belonging and on teaching for equity and justice.

Mariana Souto-Manning is president of the Erikson Institute. Jessica Martell and Benelly Álvarez are educators in New York City’s public schools.

"Souto-Manning once again demonstrates that it is never too early to help our students understand the complexities of inequity linked to race, class, gender, and other social markers. This is the text that early childhood educators need."
—Gloria Ladson-Billings, professor emerita, University of Wisconsin–Madison

“At a time when literacy instruction has been reduced to top-down phonetic approaches, the authors provide us with an essential reading that unpacks the complexities and richness of language, literacy, and culture needed by every early childhood educator. Rooted in assets-based, sociocultural approaches to racialized literacies and disrupting harm, this is the book that is desperately needed for real reform for literacy in equity-minded schools.”
—Tyrone C. Howard, Pritzker Family Endowed Chair, School of Education and Information Studies, UCLA

“A timely and powerful reminder of why reading, writing, and talk must be understood and valued through the evolving identities, cultural practices, assets, and overall genius of young people, beginning in the very early years of their learning and development. We need this second edition more than ever before as educators, families, communities, advocates, and policymakers intensify, and not shy away from, equity in education.”
—H. Richard Milner IV, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Education, Vanderbilt University

"This compelling new edition of the bestseller Reading, Writing, and Talk boldly tackles the urgent need to create language and literacy-rich pathways that are fully inclusive, purposeful, and centered on promoting a sense of wholeness and belonging. The authors provide powerful demonstrations and insightful reflections on the teaching of reading, writing, and oral language development in the early grades across diverse language strategies, cultural contexts, and inclusive practices for all students. It is a must-read for all early childhood teachers."
—Lester W. Young Jr., Chancellor, Board of Regents, University of the State of New York

“Souto-Manning, Martell, and Álvarez invite us back to the table they have set to engage in a timely discussion of literacy and equity in the early grades. In this second edition, our guides take us through the lessons we learned, unlearned, and need to relearn as children, their families, and teachers have navigated a global pandemic and continue to live with great uncertainty and challenges. A tool for classrooms and beyond, Reading, Writing, and Talk offers starting points and opportunities to reinvent shared practices in the service of young children.”
—Maisha T. Winn, professor, Stanford Graduate School of Education, and director, Equity in Learning Initiative in the Stanford Accelerator for Learning

"Souto-Manning, Martell, and Álvarez give readers an unflinching and unapologetic look into how linguistic and racial inequities have been perpetuated in early childhood and the early grades. This book is the North Star for teaching for equity and justice in the early grades, and it guides us in radically imagining a future where Black, Indigenous, and other children of color are linguistically and racially free."
—April Baker-Bell, Associate Professor, University of Michigan, author of Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy