LITERACY TODAY | July/August 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
Where We Stand
The following literacy leadership briefs from
ILA are now available or will be published soon.
Check out literacyworldwide.org/statements
for these new pieces:
Published in June, Principals as Literacy Leaders
presents a framework, consisting of challenge,
clarity, and feedback and their related indicators,
that principals can employ to “ensure equitable
practices that nurture students’ self-efficacy and
lead to comparable academic
outcomes.”
Meeting the Challenges
of Early Literacy Phonics
Instruction, which will be
published in July, describes
key characteristics of effective
phonics instruction as well as
common obstacles related
to instruction and how to
overcome them.
Advocating for
Children’s Rights to Read
In May, ILA published an advocacy manual to
guide literacy partners in protecting the right to
read. The manual is an extension of ILA’s Children’s
Rights to Read campaign, which launched with
the goal of ensuring every child, everywhere,
has access to the education, opportunities, and
resources needed to read. Categorized into five
audiences (teachers and
reading/literacy specialists,
administrators, librarians,
families and caregivers,
and policymakers), the
manual includes targeted
action items for each
audience and concrete
next steps they can take.
Download the advocacy
manual at rightstoread.org/
takeaction.
With great sadness we announce the passing of
Alan N. Crawford, emeritus professor of education
at California State University, Los Angeles.
Crawford leaves behind a long legacy
of championing best practices in literacy
instruction, especially for English learners. A
longtime member of ILA, he served as president
of the California Reading Association from
1986 to 1987, as a representative of the
International Reading Association (IRA)
to UNESCO for many years, and on
the editorial review board of Lectura
y Vida, IRA’s former Spanish-
language journal.
In 2018, Crawford and his
colleague, Charles Temple,
were awarded the ILA Constance
McCullough International Research
Grant. The two used the funds to launch
the Reading-Krio project, an effort to promote
native language literacy instruction in Sierra Leone.
Working with local authors, they translated more
than 20 books into Krio, the local language.
They were also developing a training program to
prepare first-grade teachers to teach beginning
reading in Krio and other local languages.
Through his work, Crawford hoped to
strengthen collaboration between ILA and other
global literacy institutions.
“He deeply cared that ILA be international and
that it be a real two-way street,” Temple says.
“There really are things you learn about
literacy and about teaching when you
travel to other countries.”
Temple will most remember
Crawford’s dry, understated sense
of humor and the kindness he
extended to everyone he met.
“He was not the one to put
himself forward, but he was just
genuine and kind. If a group of us went
to some foreign place, he was the one who
made a personal connection with everyone in the
room,” Temple says. “I don’t know how he did it,
but he did.”
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