Colleen Patrice Clark
Managing Editor
cclark@reading.org
EDITOR’S
NOTE
or many readers, July is marked by endings
and beginnings. Here in the U.S., for example,
school is on break, vacations are underway,
and it’s time for professional learning and
reflection.
July is also the start of a new volume for
Literacy Today. It’s an opportune time—right
at the midpoint of the year—to take a step
back and reflect. We all know how easy it can
be to chug along “business as usual,” but it’s
important to stop and ask questions. This year,
that meant evaluating the magazine’s annual
themes and features. What are the mainstays
and what should change? What topics aren’t
getting enough attention, and what topics are
getting too much?
The latter sounds familiar. It’s the
framework of ILA’s 2018 What’s Hot in Literacy
Report. What topics are hot, and what topics
are truly most critical?
So it made sense to update the magazine’s
issues for this volume year to mirror the
common important themes uncovered in
our 2018 report: Equity Issues, Personalizing
Literacy Instruction, Building 21st-Century
Skills, Excellence in Literacy Instruction, and
Community–Literacy Connections.
We begin with this July/August issue,
in which we tackle important topics such as
questioning the classroom status quo, living
in and teaching in “the gap” and, perhaps
most important, how to check our bias at the
door. These three components, found in the
feature package beginning on page 16, are
critical for literacy educators who want to
best serve all students.
Let the articles in this issue be
opportunities for reflection and conversation
starters. And let us work together to be the
best advocates we can be for our students.
Warmly,
TIME FOR
REFLECTION
Explore the Latest
Topics and Trends in
Literacy Education
With ILA
Get our research-based perspectives on assessment, diversity,
early literacy, education policy, equity in literacy education,
teacher preparation, and more at literacyworldwide.org/statements.
Interested in ILA’s views on
current topics and trends in
literacy education?
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literacyworldwide.org | July/August 2018 | LITERACY TODAY