ABSTRACT
A central theme of Talking Texts is the argument that oral classroom discourse plays a central and pervasive role in shaping students' learning, their cognitive and language development, and their construction of knowledge and meaning in school. The introduction of written texts into situations of focused interactive classroom discussion is seen as facilitating the development of coherent oral discourse structures. The structure and organization of such focused interactive classroom discourse is complex, reflecting an interaction of at least three levels of discourse processing activity: the cognitive level, the social and interactional level, and the situational level. Classroom discourse provides an environment for developing skill both in critical reading, and in mastering styles of discourse communication and thought associated with effective learning in classroom situations and academic domains. A significant issue for educators is to learn how to better capitalize on children's oral discourse competencies to enable them to become skilled both in oral classroom discourse and reading.
