This contributed text is intended to serve three primary functions. First, it examines and reflects upon the Language Experience Approach (LEA) as an educational approach, reviewing its history and offering different perspectives. Second, it provides practical classroom applications for early childhood, primary and middle school teachers and learners. Some examples include a scrapbook project, the use of nursery rhymes, the writing and telling of family folklore stories, and methods through which to develop a voice through writing.

Finally, the text helps readers understand the purposes of language experience and how far one may take the process. Classroom teachers and reading specialists describe strategies in use in a variety of classroom settings and describe ways to integrate current assessment techniques with LEA.

The book is divided into five major sections. In the first section, the authors attempt to conceptualize language experience and examine its historical evolution. In the second and third sections, the authors provide practical classroom applications for early childhood/primary grade and intermediate grade teachers and learners. In the fourth section, the authors explore sensible language experience processes and scenarios that meet the needs of special learners (ESL, bilingual, learning disabled). In the final section, the authors examine the big picture of the over-riding purposes of education, consider the continually swinging pendulum of approaches, and provide insight into language experience as an enduring and evolving approach.