ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a description of the research site and the reasons why the particular school was selected to participate in the research. The study investigates the range of home, school, and classroom factors that can interact and impact on literacy achievement in a high-poverty urban setting. Through collaboration with a school it set out to design and implement a research-based, balanced literacy framework that would build childrens motivation, engagement, agency, and creativity and raise their literacy achievement. Teachers were mindful of the range of diversity within their classrooms and reported using a range of supplemental texts in addition to the classroom basal reader recognizing that having children on a basal reading series was limiting and inappropriate for some children. With a clear picture of childrens strengths and difficulties and the school and classroom context, the teachers and researcher turned their attention toward change.
