Category: Stories

Call for Nominations: Arthur Applebee Award for Excellence in Research on Literacy

Please take a moment to submit a nomination for an article for the Arthur Applebee Award for Excellence in Research on Literacy.  The deadline is Tuesday, September 5, 2023. The Arthur Applebee Award for Excellence in Research on Literacy is presented annually to honor an outstanding article in literacy research published in a refereed journal in the previous calendar year. The award is presented in memory of University at Albany – SUNY Distinguished Professor Arthur N. Applebee, internationally renowned for his seminal scholarship in the fields of literacy and language learning,  Eligibility: In order to be considered for the Arthur Applebee Award, an article must meet

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February 23, 2023

Dismantling the Biases Imposed on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color

Catherine Compton-Lilly, University of South Carolina Marcus Croom, Indiana University Mary McVee, University at Buffalo, SUNY Allison Skerrett, The University of Texas at Austin   As the 2022 LRA Conference came to a close, members gathered to attend the annual integrative review of literacy research. Panelists pursued a shared goal; as literacy scholars, we intentionally and systematically sought to dismantle the biases often imposed on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color through four review-oriented projects that – each in its own way – attempted to counter the systemic whitewashing that has characterized review scholarship in literacy. Significantly, scholarly

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January 30, 2023

The Science of Reading and the Media: How Do Current Reporting Patterns Cause Damage?

The Science of Reading and the Media:  How Do Current Reporting Patterns Cause Damage? Maren Aukerman, University of Calgary   In the field of reading education, we are in the midst of what can fairly be characterized as a media crisis. In my first previous Critical Conversations contribution, I documented how reporting on the “science of reading” suffers from bias errors, that is, errors where a journalist takes sides and/or pushes an agenda rather than communicating a nuanced story. In my second piece, I detailed specific errors of insufficient understanding, that is, errors that reflect inadequate grasp of

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December 14, 2022

The Science of Reading and the Media: Does the Media Draw on High-Quality Reading Research?

The Science of Reading and the Media: Does the Media Draw on High-Quality Reading Research? Maren Aukerman, University of Calgary   Recent stories about the “science of reading” in the popular press have often distorted how children learn reading. Reporting can be biased, as my last Critical Conversations piece discussed.  But there is another problem, equally grave: reporters telling these stories may have only a partial grasp of reading research. To be fair, developing deep proficiency in a research domain can be elusive and take years of intense study. For example, to report well on astrophysics news, science

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December 7, 2022

The Science of Reading and the Media: Is Reporting Biased?

The Science of Reading and the Media: Is Reporting Biased? Maren Aukerman, The University of Calgary   At least two questions are critical for assessing journalistic quality. First, does the writing exhibit bias that distorts the truth? And, second, does the writer understand the topic deeply enough to report on it accurately? In the field of reading education, these issues have come to the fore with a recent explosion of journalism about the “science of reading.” Teachers, policymakers, and parents hunger for information about good reading instruction, yet journalism on the topic can be grossly oversimplified. In a

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November 23, 2022