180 Days in Second Grade: Knowing and Growing Together.

A university reading educator exchanged jobs with an elementary school teacher for a full year of teaching and research in a second-grade classroom. The educator's perspective on teaching and learning literacy was based on the 3-part principle that immersion in a rich literate environment, explicit teacher instruction in literacy skills and strategies, and daily massed practice in literate activities are essential for success in reading, writing, and oracy. During the school year, the children grew in their knowledge and appreciation of children's literature. Students' interest and enjoyment of books were evident in their spontaneous writing, and they demonstrated their growing knowledge of authors in their journals. Children's writing ability grew in concert with their reading, and they demonstrated strategic reading development in various daily reading tasks and in a series of one-to-one interviews. Students also demonstrated growth as readers through an informal reading inventory. By the end of the year, the university educator was more in touch with the realities of day-to-day teaching and realized he had just begun to learn again what it means to teach. (RS)