Literacy Now

The International Literacy Association (ILA) is a global community of literacy educators and advocates with a common goal: literacy for all. It is at the heart of our Children’s Rights to Read initiative, the core tenet of which is that every child, everywhere has the basic human right to read.

We at ILA will not tolerate the blatant disregard for the rights of the migrant children in border detention. In addition to having limited or no access to necessities such as hygiene products, sanitary living conditions, and basic health care, they are also being denied access to books, high-quality instruction, and recreational activities—all of which underscores the inhumane treatment the children are being forced to endure.

This is why ILA stands in solidarity with the American Library Association’s (ALA) Resolution on Library Service for Children in Detention at Migrant Detention Centers in denouncing the dire conditions for minors detained on the southern border of the United States. The resolution calls on libraries and the larger literacy community to provide and share resources that support education and enrichment.

This resolution speaks to the principles at the heart of our Children’s Rights to Read initiative: equity, access, and inclusion. We stand resolutely behind the idea that every child, everywhere, deserves these 10 rights, which include the right to access books and materials, to read texts that mirror their experiences and languages, and to read for pleasure. Furthermore, we believe that literacy educators must take responsibility for delivering on and protecting the promise inherent in these rights.

Our work is rooted in the belief that literacy empowers. That literacy has the ability to transform lives. That being able to read represents the difference between inclusion in and exclusion from society. That it allows people to develop their potential and participate fully in their communities and society.

We urge our network of educators to help us ensure the rights of these vulnerable members of society. Regardless of your political leanings, if you are committed to the mental health and well-being of children, you, too, must stand for ALA’s resolution and for ILA’s Children’s Rights to Read. 

ILA firmly believes that a thriving culture of literacy in a school relies on strong support and dedication from its principals.

We talk a lot about why principals should be leading the charge and how their focus on literacy is critical for establishing this culture. But how do principals become literacy leaders?

What can they do to set the tone in their school and make literacy the foundation for all learning? How can they leverage the talent and expertise of their staff and encourage horizontal leadership? And what if their background isn’t in literacy, reading, or English language arts?

We believe the solution lies in collaboration, which is the focus of our next #ILAchat on Thursday, June 13, at 8:00 p.m. ET: Collaboration Is Key: How Principals Become Literacy Leaders.

Our special guests for the chat include

• Mandy Ellis, principal at Dunlap Grade School in Illinois and author of Lead With Literacy: A Pirate Leader’s Guide to Developing a Culture of Readers (Dave Burgess Consulting). She also writes regularly for her blog, A Principal’s Decree: Reflections and Realities of an Elementary School Principal.
• Toni Faddis, principal at Chula Vista Elementary School District in California and author of The Ethical Line: 10 Leadership Strategies for Effective Decision Making (Corwin). She’s also the lead author of ILA’s latest literacy brief, “Principals as Literacy Leaders,” which was released on June 10.
• Stephen G. Peters, superintendent of Laurens County School District 55 in South Carolina. Peters is a frequent author and presenter on school leadership. His next project is a series of five books, beginning in January 2020, with iLead: Lessons on Leadership and the Impact on Education, Schools, Teachers, Students, and Community. Just last month, Peters, a current ILA Board member, was elected to serve as the next vice president of the Board. His term begins in July.

Follow #ILAchat and @ILAToday this Thursday to join the conversation with Ellis, Faddis, Peters, and ILA about what it takes for principals to become literacy leaders.

Colleen Patrice Clark is the editor of Literacy Today, ILA’s member magazine.

Last fall, Stephen Peters, superintendent of Laurens County School District 55 in South Carolina, declined a 2% merit increase in his annual salary because, as he said to the Index-Journal, “We are working diligently to raise the salaries of all employees and, until we have our teachers and support staff pay at appropriate levels, I feel it is best for me to decline a raise at this time.”

It is that fiscally responsible style of leadership, his dedication to educators, and his focus on the future that has defined Peters’s time on the ILA Board of Directors, which he has been a member of since 2016. Now, he’s ready to take on a new role with the organization.

Peters was elected vice president of the Board earlier this month and will assume the presidency in July 2020.

We spoke with Peters about how his early learning experiences helped shape the trajectory of his life, his goals for his presidency, and why he’s excited about the future of ILA.

On literacy

“ILA means so much to me because it’s personal. I think that my life is what it is today because literacy was a foundation in the home that I was raised in. Literacy was always around me. As a child, we would read about families taking vacations during the summer and my family couldn’t afford family vacations, but it didn’t mean that I couldn’t go places. I went places because of reading. Because I had those experiences during my developmental years, my children had those experiences and now my grandchildren have those experiences.

“Yesterday, I tweeted a picture of my 5-year-old granddaughter reading a book to her 5-month-old brother. She does it every day after school. It’s never too early for those books to become a foundation for everything to grow from.”

On the ILA conference

“As a practicing superintendent, I am faced with budget shortfalls and funding cuts. One of our main anchors is our annual conference. At our annual conference, we’re able to share the spokes that we have on our umbrella. But with budget shortfalls all over the country, schools aren’t sending teachers away to conferences like we used to. I think there’s a direct correlation to the economy and the strength of funding for school districts around the country and the world.

“On the flip side of addressing that challenge and meeting it, we need to provide such powerful conferences, resources, and materials that our members and future members are convinced that we’re the best at what we do.”

On the ILA Children’s Rights to Read campaign

“As a working superintendent, I’m not only talking about Children’s Rights to Read, but employing initiatives in my district. Seeing is believing and I think showing people how this is embedded in the normal daily practices in a school is very powerful.

“As vice president and president-elect, I plan to continue to challenge those who are working with me and around me to continue to be innovative and creative in ways concerning literacy so we can have a model for other people to see. Perhaps it won’t be able to be implemented with 100% fidelity in terms of what we’re doing, but perhaps it can be embedded in their communities and places of work in ways that fit their needs. We face so many challenges every day around the world and I think those closest to those problems deserve a seat at the table to help solve those problems.

“I’m a strong believer in Children’s Rights to Read. I get up excited every day about the possibilities that we have as an association—the chance that we have to launch this in a huge way to impact millions around the world. This should be more than an initiative—this should be a movement. I see that happening at ILA. Children’s Rights to Read should anchor all our work at ILA.”

On the ILA network

“We already have a great association, but we want to make it greater and we want to make it bigger, both globally and at home. I see that happening in a number of ways.

“We need to increase membership. More members means more voices. More voices means more action. We need to reach back out to the past presidents of ILA who’ve dedicated their lives to this work. I’m sitting at my desk and there’s a picture of [former ILA Board President] Bill Teale next to me. I say good morning to him every day. Just looking at him reminds me that there’s more work to do; the work never ends. The more people ILA has in the process, the more we can get done.

“I’d also like to see us get more involved with colleges and universities because those are our future members. If we can engage [educators] early, then we have them as members for a lifetime. That should be our focus—attracting lifelong members of ILA—because literacy is a lifestyle and we need members who are committed for a lifetime to help us fight this war against illiteracy.

“Adding to that, we want to make sure we create networking opportunities for our members to be in touch with those who are doing things they want to do. Why reinvent the wheel when there are people who are already implementing literacy practices that are effective? We need to make sure we are tapping into the voices of membership and our staff. We will become the leading literacy authority of the world—I think we’re already on our way to doing that—but we need to increase membership and make sure we’re fiscally stable. We also want to identify others who are doing great things around the world to highlight, thus providing opportunities for expanding creative literacy practices around the world. 

“We believe that we are the best at what we do and that we work very hard and will continue to work very hard to involve our members. There’s a saying that great leaders don’t create followers, we develop more leaders. I think our strategic plan facilitates multiple pathways to that end. We’re looking to develop literacy leaders around the world.”

Alina O’Donnell is the communications strategist at ILA and the editor of Literacy Daily.

ILA released yesterday the 2019 Choices Reading Lists, an annual best-of selection of children’s and young adults’ books, handpicked by students and educators themselves.

Each year, Choices empowers 25,000 children and young adults across the United States to enjoy newly published children’s and young adults’ trade books and vote for the ones they like best and that had an impact on them as readers. Teachers, in turn, identify high-quality books that enrich the curriculum and, most important, excite and interest students.

This year’s lists exemplify the project’s continued commitment to diversity and representation in children’s literature. Books such as Finding Langston, Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story About Racial Injustice, and Sewing the Rainbow: The Story of Gilbert Baker and the Rainbow Flag offer powerful launch points for discussion around the social justice issues of racial bias, police violence, and the LGBTQ rights movement.

The 2019 lists also include “own voices” texts—those in which the author shares the marginalized identity of a book’s protagonist. Authors such as Lesa Cline-Ransome, Duncan Tonatiuh, and Aisha Saeed challenge dominant media narratives and provide more authentic perspectives.

Educators can use the Choices lists to conscientiously expand their libraries, supporting children’s rights to choose what they read and to access window, mirror and sliding glass door texts.  

“No one better understands the tastes and preferences of children than students themselves and the teachers who observe their responses firsthand,” says ILA Executive Director Marcie Craig Post.

“These lists help educators connect students with books they can’t put down, books in which they can see themselves represented, and books that instill in them a lifelong hunger for reading and learning.”

The Choices projects are run by ILA members who volunteer as team leaders to recruit participants, distribute books, and oversee the reviewing and voting process. The number of book submissions continues to grow annually across the three Choices projects.

Download the annotated 2019 Choices reading lists and find more information on these projects at literacyworldwide.org/choices.

Alina O'Donnell is the communications strategist at ILA and the editor of Literacy Daily.

Although there are numerous resources available to help educators find new tools and strategies to use in their classrooms, translating these resources into practice is not always easy. For this reason, the editors of ILA’s Reading Research Quarterly (RRQ), Amanda Goodwin, an assistant professor in language, literacy, and culture at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, and Robert T. Jiménez, professor in ELL and literacy education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, recently created two platforms to make new information more accessible to educators.

A new podcast, Bridge Research to Practice: Live With the Author, and Facebook group support ILA’s mission to deepen understandings in ways that impact research and practice.

Bridging research to practice

Launched in January, Bridge Research to Practice: Live With the Author features in-depth interviews with authors of key RRQ pieces. Literacy thought leaders dive deep into their background, how they became interested in their article topic, and their RRQ study. The interviews culminate with important takeaways as well as tangible steps that educators can take to make positive changes in their own classrooms.

Goodwin says they chose podcasts as the medium because episodes can be accessed anytime, anywhere—making them a convenient option for a time-strapped audience. As fellow educators, Goodwin and Jiménez understand that the standard school schedule allows little time for teachers to engage in professional learning. Podcasts—which can be played via smart phone, computer, or smart speakers such as Alexa—allow listeners to get personalized professional development while driving or cooking dinner.

The editors choose recent RRQ articles that present meaningful, relevant information so educators who follow the discussions can not only use the information presented by the researcher but also initiate conversations on the basis of on their own understanding. So far, they have interviewed authors on topics such as the impact of vocabulary intervention, second-language reading difficulties, and evaluating the credibility of online science information.

Goodwin says she hopes the podcast will be an effective tool to reach new audiences and “convey research findings in a real way to help make an impact in classrooms, homes, and schools.” 

“[We are] making the effort to bridge research to practice,” she says.

Authors of our own experiences

Another way to encourage discussion around these research findings is through the group’s new Facebook page, open to RRQ subscribers and nonsubscribers, where the editors highlight excerpts and takeaways from recent articles to help educators better digest the information and apply it to different contexts. The editors also post outside articles, questions, and discussion starters so members of the community can deepen their knowledge as well as share new information with peers.

Goodwin describes the RRQ Facebook page as a platform for collaborative learning and conversation. Using hashtags such as #MeetTheResearchMonday, #TalkAboutItTuesday,  #WhatDoYouThinkWednesday, #TheoryToPracticeThursday, #FindOutMoreFriday, the editors facilitate dialogue around important topics and encourage members to build connections, exchange ideas, and share their own experiences.

Goodwin says the space “let’s all of us be authors of our own experiences.”

A growing community

Although these new platforms have created opportunities for learning and discussion among teachers and educators, there is still room for growth. The next step is for RRQ readers and podcast listeners to bring these conversations to their schools, districts, and communities.

Spreading the word about these resources can help to further grow this community and extend the reach of research. This network is for the benefit of students everywhere because, according to Goodwin, “What’s the point if you don’t change the lives of children?”

Bailee Formon is an intern at the International Literacy Association.