The standards-based initiatives that dominate educational policy and practice today typically focus only on the surface skills of reading, isolating teaching and learning from the social and cultural contexts that are a part of every classroom. Fortunately, in this excellent volume edited by Catherine Compton-Lilly, you will enter classrooms in which literacy is treated as more than just as set of skills, and discover solutions and possibilities for providing culturally responsive teaching. You'll learn how to create classrooms that reflect and honor the social and cultural worlds of children, how to make instruction relevant to your students, and how to create home-school partnerships with diverse families. Especially helpful are a rich variety of practical resources that you can use in your classroom: • Examples and vignettes from actual classrooms that illustrate how you can apply the insights from each chapter to your daily instruction • A "Recommendations for Educators and Classroom Applications" section that translates theory to practice for busy teachers • A list of suggested resources• Sidebars with tips and recommendations can use immediately with your students