Making Literacy Real is the essential reference text for primary education students at undergraduate and graduate level who want to understand literacy theory and successfully apply it in the classroom. Doctoral students will find this a useful resource in understanding the relationship of theory to practice.

The authors explore the breadth of this complex and important field, orientating literacy as a social practice, grounded in social, cultural, historical and political contexts of use. They also present a detailed and accessible discussion of the theory and its application in the primary classroom.

The book covers:

o Defining literacy: multimodalities and new literacies

o Digital literacies

o New literacy studies

o Critical literacy

o Sociocultural-historical theory

o Connecting theoretical frameworks

o Implications for teacher education and literacy research

Each chapter examines a theoretical model, accompanied by a discussion of case study material with a leading proponent of the field, including Barbara Comber, Michele Knobel, Colin Lankshear, Barbara Rogoff and Brian Street.