The Meaning Makers is about children’s language and literacy development at home and at school. Based on the Bristol Study, “Language at Home and at School,” which the author directed, it follows the development of a representative sample of children from their first words to the end of their primary schooling. It contains many examples of their experience of language in use, both spoken and written, recorded in naturally occurring settings in their homes and classrooms, and shows the active role that children play in their own development as they both make sense of the world around them and master the linguistic means for communicating about it.

Additionally, this second edition sets the findings of the original study in the context of recent research in the sociocultural tradition inspired by Vygotsky’s work and includes examples of effective teaching drawn from the author’s recent collaborative research with teachers.