Literacy Now

Barbara Moore, who passed away in September, had a passion for life and education, a genuine commitment for social justice, and a willingness to put children at the centre of learning. She had a singular ability to work with people–to make each person feel special, to honour the work of people before her that contributed to her work, to instil a great sense of confidence in people, and to create a strong sense of cooperation rather than competition. Barbara became a raging virago when confronted with political and education injustices–and seeing this gentle woman "morph" was a sight to behold!

When I was asked to join the International Development in Oceania Committee Barbara Moore was an existing member, and she was very quickly promoted to chairperson. At that stage Barbara was in charge of the Reading Centre at the Institute of Education at the University of the South Pacific, in Fiji. She spearheaded the development of the South Pacific Literacy Education Project which was initially a joint venue between the Reading Associations of New Zealand and Australia, and then incorporated into the Oceania Committee work. She drew skilfully on the work of Warwick Elley and Francis Mungubai and captured to essence of the book flood learning and the importance of acknowledging and using community stories. Barbara showed incredible leadership across the Pacific–promoting effective practice in literacy and a love of learning, enhancing leadership, encouraging International Reading Association (IRA) membership, and supporting learning in and the publication of resources in children’s first languages.

IRA benefited immensely from Barbara’s commitment. She worked tirelessly to foster IRA’s goals, which she did with integrity and enthusiasm. She guided the International Development Coordinating Committee with co-chair Alistair Hendry, and worked to build positive and constructive relationships with the IRA Board of Directors–relationships that have continued to this day. At the first IRA International Leadership Conference in 1993 Barbara joined the NZRA "delegation" in presenting a very real view of New Zealand education that acknowledged our international links. At the traditional Committee Chairs breakfast at IRA conventions Barbara frequently shared her introduction with stories that were real and inspirational. Barbara’s love of literature and education was always a significant guiding influence.

Barbara was awarded the NZRA Citation of Merit in 1996. This is NZRA’s highest honour, given sparingly, to a person who has contributed significantly to local councils, to reading and to New Zealand (and international) education. One of the criteria was evidenced through Barbara’s participation in sponsoring Pasifika teachers to attend conferences–to set up specific programmes within conferences so that their time was focused and useful. For the 4th South Pacific Conference on Reading, held in Fiji, Barbara held the organisation together way beyond the planning. Pasifika teachers reported that Barbara’s intervention made their participation genuinely educationally productive.

The current highly successful initiatives of the Oceania Committee are based squarely on the work of Barbara.  She enhanced the concept of language experience with texts developed by local people in their first language.  Barbara was an educator ahead of her time. I am privileged to have worked with her and to have learned from her.

Barbara’s contribution to education is summed up nicely in her book, Rescuing the Castaways, written with Teraaka Biribo for the 12th IRA World Congress on Reading on the Gold Coast in 1988. This quote is from Chapter 7: “If you are literate, you feel like a human being, for you can learn about the world for yourself; and communicate with different people in different places. You gain through reading and become part of the wider world.” 

Thank you, Barbara Moore. 

 

Heather Bell is a member of the International Reading Association's Board of Directors. 

Today we begin our series of articles featuring the innovative projects coordinated by Special Interest Groups (SIGs) of the International Reading Association. In this debut feature, we highlight the Technology in Literacy Education SIG (TILE-SIG) who has been contributing weekly articles to Reading Today Online for the past few months. President Julie Coiro shares what makes the SIG unique and fun. 

1. Are you especially proud of any of your SIG's projects?
One SIG project I am especially proud of is our efforts to more actively involve conference attendees in our TILE-SIG annual session. Beginning in 2010, we decided to combine our regular large group presentation offering with more interactive small group roundtable sessions.  We’ve gotten positive feedback from our members about this format as it enables attendees to enjoy a 40-minute formal presentation made by the winner of our annual Computers in Reading Research Award and then meet in several small group 30-minute breakout sessions to talk more intimately with researchers and other teachers wanting to share their ideas about how technology can be used to improve the quality of reading instruction. At the 2012 IRA convention, we will host Renee Hobbs, our 2011 research award winner, and 18 different roundtable sessions, in three groups of six breakouts each. 

A second TILE-SIG project that I am proud of speaks to the amazing amount of expertise that lies within our membership. Our newsletter now boasts regular columns such as Voices from the Field (by Denise Stuart), Educational Blog Watch (by Mike Putman), Book Reviews (by Brenda Stein Dzaldov), and Summaries of TILE-SIG Presentations for SIG members unable to attend IRA’s annual convention. Elsewhere, this past August, seventeen TILE-SIG members volunteered to contribute to a blog series featured in Reading Today Online that posts weekly segments on topics including online composing tools, exemplary classroom websites, technology tips, research briefs, and professional development initiatives around infusing technology into the literacy curriculum. Recent posts by Jill Castek, Rick Ferdig, and Marjie Podzielinski, for example, illustrate just a few of the many ways that IRA and TILE-SIG members seek to support classroom teachers. 

2. What are the benefits of joining your SIG? 

The biggest benefit to joining the TILE-SIG is having regular access to formal and informal professional development opportunities and the insights of our over 190 members. Our membership is distributed mostly between classroom teachers and literacy researchers, although some hold positions as technology specialists, school administrators, or educational consultants. IRA members seeking to be more actively involved in initiatives related to technology and literacy are highly encouraged to join us and think about how you can help the SIG to better meet your needs. In addition to these networking opportunities, registered members receive our SIG newsletter two to three times each year; they can submit proposals to present at our annual TILE-SIG session; they work closely with members of IRA’s Technology Committee to assist with technology-related charges; and they can become more active as a SIG committee member. We are currently investigating opportunities to partner up with other SIGs for a social event at the annual convention as well.

3. Are there any future projects in store for your SIG?

One exciting new venture that TILE-SIG members Denise Stuart, from The University of Akron, and Paula Saine, from Miami University, are heading up this fall involves coordinating efforts to more formally connect our members who have volunteered to serve as liaisons between the TILE-SIG and their local/state reading associations. The TILE-SIG has members in almost every state in the United States as well as in at least six countries. Our hope is to find more ways to effectively share our resources and learn how our SIG can better meet the needs of classroom teachers seeking to improve the quality of reading instruction through the use of new technologies. Through these liaisons, we also hope to meet teachers doing exciting things in their classrooms and invite them to share their work with our members.

And finally, I think our most exciting future venture involves developing a professional, peer-reviewed journal for sharing research and teaching ideas related to literacy and technology. Beth Dobler, from Emporia State University, and Denise Johnson, from the College of William and Mary, have volunteered to head up this project and are hoping for the online publication for the inaugural issue of the Journal of Technology In Literacy Education to appear early summer, 2013.

4. How does one join your SIG? 
The easiest way to join our SIG is to visit IRA’s TILE-SIG website. From here, you can download the one page registration form and mail it with your $10 annual registration fee to our membership chair, Joan Rhodes, at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her contact information is included at the bottom of the form. Please note that you must be a member of IRA in order to join the TILE-SIG. There is also space on the form to indicate your interest in serving as a TILE-SIG committee member or liaison with your local reading association.

5. Is there a website, newsletter, or another way to find more information about your SIG? Is there a person that prospective members can contact?
To get a sense of our TILE-SIG offerings, you can download a recent newsletter or access several previous newsletters by selecting the Newsletters link at our TILE-SIG wiki. From the wiki, you can also explore handouts and presentation materials from previous TILE-SIG annual conference sessions and relevant resources connected to several years of Technology Pre-Conference Institutes, which are hosted collaboratively by members of TILE-SIG and IRA’s Technology, Communication and Literacy Committee. You do not need to be a member of the SIG to view the wiki; however, only SIG members will be given access to the wiki as content contributor.  To learn more about our SIG, you can contact me (Julie Coiro, President of the TILE-SIG) at jcoiro@mail.uri.edu or our membership chair Joan Rhodes at jarhodes2@vcu.edu. For more information about our newsletter, you can contact our co-editor Michael Putman at michael.putman@uncc.edu. 

 

If you would like Reading Today Online to feature your SIG, please contact readingtoday@/. 

 

This feature is the sixth and final article in a series that celebrates the accomplishments of National Affiliates of the International Development in Europe Committee (IDEC) of the International Reading Association (IRA). Their member organizations’ activity reports are compiled twice a year (in January and July), and we have summarized excerpts from these reports. Visit www.literacyeurope.org for more information and a list of national websites.

Spain
The Spanish Reading and Writing Association, known as Asociación Espaňola de Lectura y Escritura (AELE) is in the midst of preparing for their Ibero-American Forum of Learning and Literacy that will take place in University Federal Minas Gerais (Belo Horizonte, Brazil) from October 26 to 28, 2011. The AELE collaborates with Research Group Literacy Literary (GPELL) linked to the Literacy Center, Reading and Writing (CEAL) in Brazil, and Association Portuguese for Literacy (Littera) to organize this forum with the theme “Where is literature?"  The forum proposes a broadening horizons of the discussion about the world and the literary texts, spaces, and discourses that give the forms to see where renewed transitions literature. This event will be attend by people from Brazil, Portugal, Spain, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay and more. AELE and the Research Group of University Complutense of Madrid have created the Iberoamerican Network Research “Speaking, reading and writing practices: interrelationship between consigns and development of linguistic communicative competence”. This network is composed of researchers and teachers from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Spain, and Uruguay. Telemaco´s Writing Club “Write as readers” social project is in development in four countries: Argentina, Chile, Peru and Spain. The main aims are: a) Implement proposals that encourage, in children and adolescents, the interaction “reading and writing texts" from a book and work with its author; and b) Supporting teachers in the educational development of proposals related to the processes of reading-writing-literature (process shared). The AELE has created a network between towns and cities of the different Spanish Autonomous Communities (CPLE Network) with the following aims: a) To facilitate inter-institutional actions allowing the advance towards the right to appropriate the language as a fundamental tool for active and democratic participation in knowledge society, and b) To provide places and tools for the interaction between towns and cities through reading and writing, helping in this way to increase the reading and writing rates in our societies. At this point, there is around 20 towns and cities in this Network. Visit www.asociacionaele.org for more information about AELE. 

Sweden
Most activities of the Swedish Council of International Reading Association (SCIRA) are arranged in the local groups and include lectures, in-service courses, study visits at different institutions, and writing competitions for students. Local groups have working relationships with various institutions, organizations, and professional associations that promote literacy, such as universities, public libraries, and teacher organizations. SCIRA’s journal Läsning (“Reading”) is published twice a year, in March and October, and carries articles by renowned researchers as well as practitioners, and information about a variety of activities within the area of literacy, on national and international level. SCIRA is proud of their sucessful Autumn two-day conference held in Umea on October 15 and 16. The program was published in the Spring edition of Läsning and on the website (www.scira.nu). The conference focused basic skills, including reading and mathematics, from different perspectives. The annual meeting and the Spring board meeting took place in Trollhattan on April 2 and 3. Now, SCIRA is focusing on the 2013 European Conference, “New Challenges – New Literacies,” which will be held in Jonkoping on August 6 to 9, 2013. 

The United Kingdom
The United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) has an extensive professional development program that recently included an international conference entitled Empowerment Through Literacy: Literacy Shaping Futures on July 15 to 17. National conferences included Talking to Learn: developing thinking in and through dialogue in London on June 24, New Methods for New Literacies in Sheffield on July 8 to 9, Writing and Writers in Schools in Birmingham in March, as well as the regional conferences Purpose and Pleasure in Writing in the Eastern Region in March, Talk to Underpin Digital and Traditional Literacies in Huddersfield on May 21, Learning Outside the Classroom in Cambridgeshire on June 23. In February, the Association  held a research symposium in London entitled Exploring Synergies in Literacy Research. The publish Literacy, Journal of Research in Reading, and English 5-11, as well as other publications available through a catalog found on their website. UKLA continues to support literacy projects in Zanzibar and Malawi and funds many other literacy projects. Visit www.ukla.org for more information about the United Kingdom Literacy Association. 

 

This feature is the fifth article in a series that celebrates the accomplishments of National Affiliates of the International Development in Europe Committee (IDEC) of the International Reading Association (IRA). Their member organizations’ activity reports are compiled twice a year (in January and July), and we have summarized excerpts from these reports. Visit www.literacyeurope.org for more information and a list of national websites.

Romania
The Romanian Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking Association (RO RWCT), or AsociaŃia Lectura şi Scrierea pentru Dezvoltarea Gândirii Critice România, is working on a lot of strategic directions, included developing the LLPKA2 languages multilateral project Assessment and Evaluation in CLIL (www.aeclil.eu). The project included implementation, assessment, and evaluation of CLIL modules in primary school and secondary school, with the in-service teacher-training curriculum “Training CLIL through CLIL.” Their other projects include are the reaccreditation of the Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking teacher training programme and developing the LLP Grundtvig multilateral project “Create—Motivate—Learn” under the umbrella of the Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking International Consortium (www.cremole.eu). They advocate for the provision of mentoring support for disenfranchised young scholars within the Scholarship for Roma Highschool Students project (conference and publication) and for the introduction of critical thinking skills in the school curricula of Malawi and Zambia (done by three members of the organization). Members of the RO RWCT Association contributed to the Diagnosis Study: Factors with influence on the development of children’s literacy competences in Romanian primary education developed in a partnership led by the Romanian Ministry of Education. Visit www.alsdgc.ro for more information. 

Russia 
Reading Association of Russia (RAR) is continuing its successful national project “National Programme for Reading Promotion and Development in Russia” project, now in its fifth year, as well as developing project SWLT and the research project “Reading from Print and Screen.” They participated in the methodological seminar about the “PISA 2009 Results: Reading and Literacy Problems and Perspectives in Russia” in association with Russian Academy of Sciences and Russian Academy of Education in Moscow in February 2011 and held a round table with the theme “Innovations in Reading Promotion” in association with The Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications in Moscow in March 2011. Their annual conference was be held in March 2011, and they held a conference entitled “Family Reading Past and Future” in April 2011, both in Moscow. Their conference with the theme “Reading in Education and Culture” will be held on November 22 and 23, 2011, in Moscow. The began a new Scientific Board on Reading in association with Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Education, Pedagogical Library, and they are on their fifth issue of their publication, Homo Legens. For more information, visit http://www.rusreadorg.ru. 

Slovenia 

BRALNO DRUŠTVO SLOVENIJE, the Slovenian Reading Association, organized a seminar and a round table on September 8, 2011, with the theme “Razmerje med besednimi in slikovnimi sporočili (Relation between textual and visual communication)” and will also published collection of scientific papers. The members of the Slovenian Reading Association collaborate with The Ministry of Education on reading promotion. The members of the Association's branches organized meetings for promotion of Slovenian writers and to promote reading on educational programs on local TV. 

 

This feature is the fourth article in a series that celebrates the accomplishments of National Affiliates of the International Development in Europe Committee (IDEC) of the International Reading Association (IRA). Their member organizations’ activity reports are compiled twice a year (in January and July), and we have summarized excerpts from these reports. Visit www.literacyeurope.org for more information and a list of national websites. 

Israel

The Israel Reading Association has fruitful alliances with the wide range of associations in Israel who have shared interests in literacy and reading: The Associations of Teachers of English, Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Ethiopian, Yiddish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, and Chinese; The Script Group for Language Tests; and The Center of Educational Technology. They continued to promote the research projects in the content area of “Mother Tongue and Second/Foreign Language Reading” in seven Teachers’ Colleges and five Schools of Education and through their Ministry of Education. The National Committee continued to examine Mother Tongue teachings both in Hebrew and Arabic. The Hebrew-Arabic Bilingual Reading Project (HARP) is developing very well and a new Bulletin of the National Academy for Arabic language was established. The 39th volume of the Journal of Teachers of Arabic in Hebrew-Speaking-Schools came out in January 2011. The 40th volume will be released in October 2011. The Association held many regional in-service conferences in 2011, including a conference on the topic of “Women in the Middle East” in Ramat Rachel in December 2010 with an attendance of about 260 members. They hosted a study tour of International Reading Association (IRA) members in November 2010 and the winter IDEC/FELA meeting in January 2011. (IRA members can read more about the IRA member delegation to Israel in the October/November 2011 issue of Reading Today.)

Latvia 
In the past year, Latvijas Lasīšanas asociācija, or the Latvian Reading Association (LatRA), organized seminars and workshops for teachers, parents, and school librarians on latest developments in children’s and youth literature and the implementation of critical thinking approach in the educational process at school. They participated in the Latvian radio programs on the development of literacy, joined in the Days of Book in March, and cooperated with the Latvian Association of Book publishers. They also participated in the LLP Grundtvig multilateral project “Create—Motivate—Learn” under the umbrella of the Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking International Consortium (www.cremole.eu). The Association partners with the Education Development Centre to organize professional training courses for different target audiences aimed at developing the critical thinking skills and for further development of Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking program in Latvia. Visit www.iac.edu.lv for more information about the Latvian Reading Association.

 

Norway
The Norwegian Reading Association (NoRA) arranged a seminar for teachers in Bergen in April 2011. The theme of the seminar was “English as a second language in dyslexic students,” and the English 2 Dyslexia test was presented. NoRA is planning a seminar for teachers in November 2011 with the theme “Computer writing–learning to read.” They publish the NoRA Bulletin twice a year and have Inter-Nordic cooperation and exchange bulletins. To learn more about NoRA, visit www.nora-les.no.