The National Literacy Strategy is at the heart of the government drive to raise the standards in literacy in schools. Based on a research project conducted in classrooms during the first year of the National Literacy Strategy (NLS), this book provides a practical analysis of the ways in which successful teachers have implemented the Literacy Hour. Taking a reflective approach, it chronicles how teachers have changed their attitudes and practice over the first year, and questions why these changes have occurred. With various descriptions of teachers' practice and examples of children's writing throughout, this is an in-depth, yet down-to-earth reflective analysis of effective literacy teaching. Ros Fisher looks in detail at issues such as; improving the teaching of literacy; researching classroom practice; children's learning in the Literacy Hour; changing practice at Key Stage One and Two and mixed age classes and literacy for four-year-olds.