Volume 46, Number 2 (2021)

Overview of Articles in This Issue of LPR-Online

In this issue we offer four articles. Our highlighted article for this issue authored by Hughes, Scales, and Scales, is entitled, Writing for Comprehension: How Does Writing Influence Informational Reading Comprehension in the Elementary Classroom? The three researchers conducted a quantitative study in the context of a university-school partnership in which they explored third graders’ improvements in reading as they received five weeks of simultaneous instruction in writing and reading. The authors provide explicit Units of Study that include teacher modeling, before, during, and after reading strategies, and levels of scaffolding assistance.

The second article in this issue, authored by Joyce Fine is entitled, Moving to a Virtual Literacy Practicum: Challenges, and Solutions. Fine describes her wonderments prior to the initiation of the practicum and tells how after watching a webinar on youtube.com (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxNwTzecc7Y), she learned she could submit her letter written in English to parents of children in the practicum to Word and have the letter translated into Spanish, after which she asked her Hispanic students to check the letter for accuracy.

In the third article in this issue, entitled, Critical Awareness for Literacy Teachers and Educators in Troubling Times, Smith, and Warrican, scholars noted for their understanding of diversity issues and cultural awareness, provide astute reflections and information in an essay about teachers’ unpreparedness to address students’ diversity in languages and cultures. They note the field of literacy has increasingly attempted to consciously address cultural and linguistic diversity in classrooms but also emphasizes the barriers to these movements.

In the last article in this issue entitled, Empowering Higher Education Students to Take Charge of Their Writing, Richards, begins by quoting Fletcher who observes, “Good writing isn’t forged by magic or hatched out of thin air. Good writing happens when human beings take particular steps to take control of their sentences, to make their words do what they want them to do” (2000, p. 5). Richards includes the Stages of Writing and a practical list of Academic Writing Principles for students to follow. We suggest all article submissions follow these guidelines, especially the use of active voice.

Richards, J. C. (2005-2025). Supporting and Publishing the Journal of Reading Education (Literacy Practice and Research) Online in the Department of Childhood Education, College of Education, University of South Florida. Funded by the Verizon Reads Endowment, University of South Florida.