Advocating for All Children

Abstract

To reach real peace in the world, we will have to begin with the children. (Gandhi) Gandhi's quote is a reminder that a quality education is crucial for our world's children. We chose Advocating for All Children as the theme for this issue because all children need an advocate, whether that is a parent, a classroom teacher, or a professional organization that takes a stand to support children's literacy. The verb form of advocate, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary of English (Stevenson, 2015), means “to publicly recommend or support.” Many educational professional organizations as well human rights organizations advocate on behalf of children. They do this through the professional papers they publish, declarations they make, and laws they help pass. The International Literacy Association (ILA) is a global advocacy and membership organization that offers its members a wealth of resources to support children, such as Where We Stand (www.literacyworldwide.org/about-us/where-we-stand). This section of ILA's website provides child advocates with resources for important literacy topics, such as assessment best practices, Common Core standards, and educational policy topics. One recently published item is a position statement on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the reauthorized ESEA, formerly known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), is important for all Americans to know because ESSA was signed into law in 2015 by President Obama. ILA provides a helpful tool kit for understanding ESSA on the Where We Stand section of its website. Providing resources, professional development to support teachers, and comprehensive literacy programs is essential for the literate future of the next generation. In this issue, you will read pieces from authors who are literacy advocates; they connect theory to practice and are determined to find new and innovative ways to increase our children's literacy levels. In this issue's Inside Track, “Learning From the Past: What ESSA Has the Chance to Get Right,” Danielle V. Dennis takes a stand—advocating for educators and scholars to work with other stakeholders to understand the new ESSA. She calls for advocates to redefine NCLB and ESSA to include best practices for literacy education. Dennis explains that ESSA may provide opportunities to move away from NCLB models and toward a curriculum that supports the development of teacher expertise and children's reading behaviors. Educators, and those who advocate for children worldwide, need to pay attention to this legislation. There is a lot we can learn from past legislative challenges, and mistakes, to build on a brighter and more literate future for our children. There are many fascinating and timely feature articles in this issue. The first is “E-Books and E-Book Apps: Considerations for Beginning Readers” by Celeste C. Bates, Adria Klein, Barbara Schubert, Lea McGee, Nancy Anderson, Linda Dorn, Erin McClure, and Rachael Huber Ross. In this article, the authors provide useful considerations for teachers as they select e-books and e-book applications for beginning readers. The authors' suggested framework for making such selections is helpful to teachers who seek to include e-books and e-book apps in their classrooms. Cathy A. Toll presents a critical article for all schools and districts with literacy coaches. Her article, “A Problem-Solving Model for Literacy Coaching Practice,” provides details of literacy coaches' plans for their collaborations with teachers. In this problem-solving model, Toll notes key tasks for literacy coaches that will benefit them in assisting their teacher partners. Tessa Daffern offers “What Happens When a Teacher Uses Metalanguage to Teach Spelling?” In her case study, Daffern describes a year 4 Australian classroom teacher and one student in the class. This case study illustrates the importance of teacher knowledge in spelling and linguistics as this teacher applied her pedagogical knowledge to encourage children to talk about the spelling strategies that they use. Sarah C. Lightner and Ian A.G. Wilkinson remind us to think about the importance of talking about text in their article, “Instructional Frameworks for Quality Talk About Text: Choosing the Best Approach.” Lightner and Wilkinson provide nine discussion frameworks from which teachers can select to engage students in conversations with their peers. These conversations build reading comprehension while also addressing the Common Core standards. Lynn M. Watanabe Kganetso presents a fascinating article titled “Creating and Using Culturally Sustaining Informational Texts.” In this article, she reports on the results of a research study in Botswana. From this study, she outlines suggestions for making and using culturally sustaining informational texts with young children. Anne Håland offers an intriguing article in the context of a Norwegian classroom. Her article, “Disciplinary Literacy in Elementary School: How a Struggling Student Positions Herself as a Writer,” provides teachers with ways that model texts can scaffold students' disciplinary writing. We hope the Teaching Tips in this issue will inspire you as much as they inspired us. In Nancy P. Morabito's “Science in Writing Workshop: Enhancing Students' Science and Literacy Learning,” readers will learn how to promote the writing workshop with writers' notebooks and authentic literacy activities. In “Math Word Problems: Reading Math Situations From the Start,” Khristine Sherman and Rachael Gabriel explain the similarities between essential math reasoning skills and fundamental cognitive reading processes. The authors provide examples of the connection and problem-solving strategies for young mathematicians. Elaine Wang, Lindsay Clare Matsumura, and Richard Correnti provide an intriguing teaching tip on how to teach children to use text evidence to support their claims in their article, “Making a CASE: Improving Use of Text Evidence in Students' Writing.” Jessica Mantei and Lisa Kervin provide helpful ideas on how to use short films in the classroom. Their article, “Using Short Films in the Classroom as a Stimulus for Digital Text Creation,” will motivate readers. The last Teaching Tip in this issue is written by Jennifer Zoski and Karen Erickson and reminds us of the importance of morpheme-based instruction in kindergarten. In their article, “Morpheme-Based Instruction in Kindergarten,” Zoski and Erickson describe activities for building children's awareness of suffixes. This issue's Voices From the Classroom pieces offer readers important perspectives from the field. Susan J. Chambré, a doctoral student in New York, discusses ways to use technology to manage writers' workshop for students who struggle. Jacqueline Leathers, a reading specialist in New Hampshire, discusses the connection between fluency and audience. Leathers explains how providing an authentic purpose in working on fluency helped motivate her as a teacher. There are two departments in this month's issue: Digital Literacy and Research Into Practice. Sandra Schamroth Abrams wrote an intriguing column, “Emotionally Crafted Experiences: Layering Literacies in Minecraft.” In it, she focuses on cross-disciplinary learning in a digital environment and explains that Minecraft can serve as a tool to develop students' critical thinking skills—but most important, students can apply affective relationships in their Minecraft worlds. Timothy Shanahan authors the Research Into Practice column, and this issue's is titled “Reading Research: The Importance of Replication.” He describes the importance of replication, which is a fundamental basis of our science. He reminds us to look for repetition when we are trying to understand research. Replication is important in our field, and as we advocate for children and for better literacy instruction worldwide, we need to closely examine those literacy studies that have been replicated. In closing, most of us in the field of literacy advocate for a child, or many children, in multiple ways throughout the school year. We do this by serving as a contributing member of a professional literacy organization, and in our classrooms, we advocate to make sure our students receive the best possible literacy instruction we can provide them. With this issue, we challenge you to think beyond your communities to national and global literacy advocacy. How can you advocate at a national or global level for children? Investing in our world's children, and in their education, is the greatest investment we can make.