Product Review

''Kathryn Au continues to lead teacher educators and researchers in addressing culturally relevant pedagogies...After completing this 'must-read' book, you will gain new understandings about yourself, about others, and about culturally relevant pedagogies. You will see that it is indeed possible to close the literacy achievement gap.'' --From the Foreword by Patricia A. Edwards, President of the International Reading Association, 2010-2011, and coauthor of Change Is Gonna Come: Transforming Literacy Education for African American Students
''In this important book, Kathryn Au shares a lifetime of invaluable contributions and insights on the successful education of all students, with a special focus on students of diverse backgrounds. By pulling together work that spans her career, Au makes a compelling case that by engaging students in high level thinking and building on their cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and by developing school-wide professional learning communities, educators CAN close the achievement gap and bring all students to high levels of literacy.'' --Barbara M. Taylor, Guy Bond Professor of Reading Education, University of Minnesota
What can educators do to improve the literacy learning of students of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds? This book highlights four keys to success that educators can use. It shows that it can be done--the literacy achievement gap can be closed, and culturally responsive instruction is an important part of the solution. Students of diverse backgrounds can achieve high levels of literacy, in classrooms where learning can be joyful, and in schools where educators have a strong sense of community and purpose.