Investments in girls' education in developing countries support U.S. foreign policy, demonstrate U.S. compassion and generosity, drive development efforts, and help reduce extreme poverty. The US Agency for International Development's (USAID's) programming takes into account the gender-related constraints that prevent access of both boys and girls…

While social justice models of service-learning improve on volunteerism that ignores structural inequality, they often neglect the critical role of local environments in which the service occurs. I argue that a place-based model of service-learning enables a diverse student body to move beyond compassionate service to social justice activism. In…

These days it seems like school librarians are under attack, if not already an endangered species. After eight years of the No Child Left Behind Act--which, paradoxically, chipped away at many library positions--recent state and local budget shortfalls have led to rounds and rounds of layoffs for school librarians. While things are tough in the…

Over the last 10 years the higher education sector has undergone a myriad of changes both in student demographics and the influx of international students. With these changes, concerns about the ability of students to meet the English language and academic demands of tertiary study have come to the forefront. This paper reports on a project of…

In order to systemically improve student achievement in elementary literacy, a large urban school district partnered with a local university to develop a model for high-quality professional development that hopefully would result in long-term changes in teachers' literacy instructional/practices. Schools were selected based on their Adequate…

This article reports on the results of 11 interviews conducted as a follow-up to a survey that examined the perceptions of university faculty regarding the importance of graduate programs preparing reading specialists for leadership roles. The results of the interviews indicate that programs require a leadership course that has reading specialist…

A respected literacy-research organization is asking that a process be put in place to make more transparent potential conflicts of interest that writers of the common national academic standards might have, and to address them. The Literacy Research Association sent a letter Oct. 21 to the groups overseeing the development of common standards…

At Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, an innovative program promotes lifelong literacy skills for university physical-plant employees and, in turn, helps these adult learners support their children's education. Instructional activities link families through children's literature, work-related readings, and personal literature. To…

As educators we talk a great deal about theory to practice, and we hope our candidates will understand and make the connections needed in order to apply their theory to practice. Often though, we do not spend enough time helping our candidates discover what their own theory base is and thus that theory to practice (praxis) connection gets broken.…

The development and implementation of a tutor training program designed to eliminate adult illiteracy in one area of North Carolina are described in this paper. Various sections of the paper provide information about (1) the history of the program, which was initiated by staff members at the learning center of the Blue Ridge Technical College in…

This book contains 29 essays which grew out of presentations delivered at a conference on the right to literacy whose participants were invited to consider differing definitions and historical understandings of literacy and the political, pedagogical, and theoretical implications of the many approaches to literacy education that have been taken…

A study investigated the impact of an intergenerational approach on: (1) the literacy development and literacy use of adult learners enrolled in an adult basic education program; and (2) the emergent and developing literacy of their children. The project is one of several that have been implemented under the Boston University/Chelsea Public…

The proceedings of the eleventh annual meeting of the College Reading Association with a theme of "Professional Focus on Reading," consisted of the following papers: (1) "President's Address" (W. H. Cooper); (2) "What Lies Ahead in Primary Reading?" (M. C. Austin); (3) "The Causes and Correction of Verbalism in…

Focusing on new frontiers in college and adult reading, the papers in this volume were drawn from the fifteenth annual meeting of the National Reading Conference held in 1965. Among the topics covered in the 26 papers are the following: reading in the Guatemalan environment, the use of instrumentation in reading, correlates of concentration, the…

Compares the reading and comprehension ages of children who were in Reading Recovery at age 6 to those in a comparison group as they enter their fifth and sixth years in school. Reports that the ex-Reading Recovery children were 12 and 13 months superior in terms of reading and comprehension ages, respectively. (CMK)