Literacy Begins With Early Education

Early childhood education is the key to the betterment of society. (Maria Montessori) With the end of this volume year, we celebrate the 70th anniversary of The Reading Teacher. The journal has a long history of excellence, and we dedicate this issue to teachers worldwide. Literacy Begins With Early Education is the theme of the last issue in this volume, but it may be the most important. The quote that opened this column, from renowned Italian educator Maria Montessori, is a reminder that early childhood education is imperative in making our world a better place. Research over the past 20 years has shown that children who attend quality early childhood programs are less likely to be retained, more likely to graduate from secondary schools, and more likely to have greater success later in school (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997; U.S. Department of Education, 2015; Yoshikawa et al., 2013). Yet, across the world, early childhood education is not available for all children. According to the United Nations (n.d.), 57 million children remain out of school, with an estimated 50% of primary school-age children living in areas under conflict. Just as disconcerting is that 103 million children worldwide lack basic literacy skills—primarily girls, who often lack access to education in some countries (United Nations, n.d.). For all of these reasons, educators must continue to advocate for quality early childhood education. In this issue's The Inside Track, Renée M. Casbergue provides a compelling article describing developmentally appropriate practices in preschool that invite students to deeply explore text. In her piece, “Ready for Kindergarten? Rethinking Early Literacy in the Common Core Era,” Casbergue takes us into a preschool classroom in Louisiana and shows us exemplary practices of a preschool teacher. This teacher provided attention to print, effective practices for learning about print and exploring rich literature, and a variety of free-choice centers. The articles in this issue contain many examples of young students engaging in meaningful literacy activities. In “Do Text-Dependent Questions Need to Be Teacher-Dependent? Close Reading From Another Angle,” Diane Santori and Monica Belfatti explain what happens when teachers encourage students to ask their own text-dependent questions. Readers will learn strategies for supporting students’ text-based inquiries and ways to develop close reading of narrative and information texts. In “Self-Regulated Learning: A Touchstone for Technology-Enhanced Classrooms,” Ruth McQuirter Scott and Nancy Meeussen describe a third-grade class in Canada. They explore students’ self-regulated learning as the teacher embedded technology throughout her program. In this, she reinforced the skill of self-regulation, and in turn, students developed independence as they used technology to share their learning. In the next feature article, “Student Experiences With Writing: Taking the Temperature of the Classroom,” Sharon Zumbrunn, Eric Ekholm, J.K. Stringer, Kimberly McKnight, and Morgan DeBusk-Lane describe a qualitative study of fifth graders across two different elementary schools in which the students were prompted to draw a picture of a recent experience with writing and how that experience made them feel. The study's findings describe positive and negative student experiences with writing. Then, Judith Dunkerly-Bean, Thomas W. Bean, Kristine Sunday, and Raleta Summers offer “Poverty Is Two Coins: Young Children Explore Social Justice Through Reading and Art.” This article details a study in which global children's literature, drawing, and dramatic plays were used to build understanding of poverty and fairness. This study took place in a preschool class where students were introduced to social justice issues, and the authors detail how a teacher mediated personal bias while approaching issues of global justice. “MODEL2TALK: An Intervention to Promote Productive Classroom Talk,” another fascinating feature article, is provided by Chiel van der Veen, Femke van der Wilt, Claudia van Kruistum, Bert van Oers, and Sarah Michaels. The MODEL2TALK intervention promotes students’ oral communicative competence through classroom talk. The article provides examples of ways that teachers can promote productive talk as part of the classroom culture. Next, Sarah K. Clark and Kimberly Lott offer “Integrating Science Inquiry and Literacy Instruction for Young Children.” Literacy and science instruction are combined in this article to show how such science and literacy experiences engage and stimulate young students. The last feature article in this issue is “Using Children's Literature for Dynamic Learning Frames and Growth Mindsets.” Grace Enriquez, Summer R. Clark, and Jessica Della Calce describe a kindergarten teacher's use of children's literature to develop her students’ mindset, as well as their understanding of social justice. The Teaching Tips section includes a variety of innovative articles, from creating multimodal stories to using Pokémon GO in the classroom. In “Children Creating Multimodal Stories About a Familiar Environment,” Lisa Kervin and Jessica Mantei detail a collaborative literacy strategy to allow students to create multimodal stories about their school environment. They use images from Google Maps and the Puppet Pals app as resources. In “Pokémon GO: Implications for Literacy in the Classroom,” Emily Howell provides practical literacy applications for the popular game Pokémon GO, including how to use the game to teach multimodality in upper elementary classes, and provides theoretical perspectives on this practice. The next teaching tip is “Considering Visual Text Complexity: A Guide for Teachers.” Marva Cappello explains that 21st-century literacy requires students to analyze images across disciplines. In this piece, she offers support to teachers about images to embed in their practice and connects the teaching practices to the Common Core State Standards. Finally, in “Preschoolers’ Author-Illustrator Study of Donald Crews,” Sohyun Meacham, Shuaib Meacham, Gloria Kirkland-Holmes, and Myae Han highlight the use of Donald Crews's books for author study in a preschool classroom during a unit on transportation. In the Voices From the Classroom piece, Tracy Driver, a library/media specialist, describes the importance of every voice being heard during a read-aloud. She illustrates the importance of turn and talk, an oral language strategy that can be used in read-alouds. This strategy is a way to engage all students to think critically and develop oral language skills. There are two departments in this issue. For Research Into Practice, Timothy Shanahan's column “Why You Need to Be Careful About Visible Learning” presents important information for educators to be educated consumers on research. He explains that he uses meta-analysis when determining what works—and advises readers to do the same. Shanahan provides helpful recommendations to teachers on using research to inform their practices within the classroom. For the Writing department, Lester Laminack's column “Mentors and Mentor Texts: What, Why, and How?” reminds readers that we have heard a lot about mentor texts over the last few years. Often, the term may be overused, and as a result, it has the potential to lose some of its focus and power. Laminack provides readers with helpful advice on using mentor texts, as well as a list of resources. Many of the articles in this issue focus on our youngest learners. Literacy learning is important for every single child, at every age; when our very youngest learners are supported with access to books and quality early childhood literacy instruction, their future is much brighter. As new politicians begin terms of office throughout the world, many of us worry. We worry about change, we worry about policies enacted, and we worry about decisions that we may not agree with. In these uncertain times, we are reminded of the importance of the work that we do with young children and of the wise words of Montessori: “Early childhood education is the key to the betterment of society.”

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