ABSTRACT
In the preceding three chapters (6–8) I have taken a close look at literacy teaching in primary schools. As part of this analysis, I have compared the policies set out by education ministers and in national reviews (Chapters 2–4) with the practices of teaching and learning in the school in which I worked. Looking at these discussions, you will have noticed a few topics which were only mentioned in passing. For instance, I have spoken hardly at all about video games, websites and other digital literacies. And yet we do know that children take part in such digital practices from an early age, and engage with the multimodal texts these include. Multimodality was also mentioned in passing. While multimodal texts did form a part of the teaching and learning activities I discussed in Chapters 6 to 8, I have not looked in any detail at the inherently multimodal nature of contemporary literacy practices, both within and outside schools, and what this means for literacy teaching in schools. Also missing was a more detailed discussion of what is usually called ‘home’ or ‘out-of-school’ literacies. These are the reading and writing practices children engage with at home and with their friends and families. Finally, you may have noticed that critical literacy, apart from being introduced in Chapter 1 and being mentioned in relation to Australian and Scottish policies (Chapters 2 and 3), has not figured strongly in my discussions of literacy teaching.
