In this commentary, drawing from reviews of research on literacy teacher preparation, the authors discuss points of leverage in preparation of literacy educators for deans and associate deans. Categories that leaders might attend to include: mediated field experiences, faculty development, and external reputation.

Reading by third grade is a hot topic. Dozens of state legislatures have passed laws aimed at improving early reading, many of them mandating retention if the job is not done by the end of grade 3. Everyone from philanthropists to publishers, from parents to the press, have fixed on it. And setting aside too many people's assumptions to the…

Drawing on the work of Paulo Freire, Morrell argues for critical, humanizing inquiry spaces in which literacy teachers learn with and from one another. However, he points to critical race theory and poses important questions, for example, wondering whether empowered spaces for teachers are transferred into empowerment for students.

Cahnmann-Taylor draws on Boalian Theatre of the Oppressed to offer a practice for literacy teachers and coaches that can open up multiple perspectives and multiple levels of intentions and motivations for a teacher's decision making. She challenges coaches and teachers to engage in artistic examinations of multiplicity to move toward performing…

Twenty-first century teachers working with diverse readers are often faced with the question of how to integrate technology in reading instruction that meets the needs of the techno-generation. Are today's teachers equipped with the knowledge of how to effectively use Assistive Technologies (AT) for reading? This position paper discusses AT for…

Teachers know that establishing a robust independent reading program takes more than giving kids a little quiet time after lunch. But how do they set up a program that will maximize their students' gains? Teachers have to know their students' reading levels inside and out, help them find just-right books, and continue to guide them during…

Marjorie Y. Lipson is professor emerita and research associate with Vermont Reads Institute. Her work focuses on assessment and instruction of students with reading difficulties, comprehension instruction, and school reform. She is widely published and has received many awards for teaching. In this "Ask the Expert" she replies to questions posed…

In this webinar, Janice A. Dole, Professor and Director of the Reading and Literacy Program in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Utah, discussed different strategies for delivering literacy instruction to meet a range of student needs, including the ways in which teachers can collaborate with reading specialists to…

Can you teach another person to read? For readers, this may seem a redundant and unnecessary question. However, it is a perfectly logical query and one that is much more profound than one might imagine. Most reading teachers have had the experience of nurturing and guiding a young person from infancy as a reader through maturity with the printed…

This column brings to the attention of "RT" readers the hot topic of redesigning teacher education programs. Featured are interviews with professionals involved in a statewide redesign initiative in Tennessee, the Ready2Teach (R2T) program. The interviews highlight major changes in how teacher education programs are being transformed to…

Discusses the importance and responsibility of reading teachers and professionals in the field to speak out in a professional voice. (MG)

As a result of the Reading First Program of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the view of reading has narrowed. Individual state's Reading First professional development programs, and hence reading teachers across the United States, have spent the six years since the funding of the program in 2002 focusing beginning and developmental reading on…

Describes how Edmund Burke Huey's "The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading" helped shape and change the author's concepts of reading. (DD)

It is the transformation and fusion of the reader and text into something greater than each alone that makes reading a mysterious, visionary process. (HOD)

Reflects on some of the issues that have been raised in this column over the past six years, including readability formulae, reading assessment, and the use of basal readers. (MM)