New Research Center to focus on Digital Literacies

A new research center has been authorized by Congress to help develop innovative ways to use digital technology for teaching and learning at schools and universities.  The National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies was included in the recent reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.  More information can be found at these sites:  Education Week,  Federation of American Scientists, and Digital Promise.

Lundeberg Awarded Grant from NSF

Mary Lundeberg, a co-director and principal investigator in the Literacy Achievement Research Center at Michigan State University, has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to develop computer simulations of laboratory procedures employed by research scientists, along with a series of cases for investigative, problem-based learning involving bioinformatics (i.e., the study of how individuals, organizations, and systems process information).   The four-year, multi-institution project will focus the designing cases on biomedical problems like cancer, malaria, STDs, and food-borne pathogens such as E. coli.

Amazon to Market New E-Reader to Colleges

Amazon plans to enter the student textbook market with a new version of its Kindle e-book reader.  Publishers now offer online versions of their textbooks, but a portable, workable e-book reader has not yet drawn publishers to design their textbook content for this niche of the marketplace.  The new model of Kindle is likely to include student-friendly features like an  annotation maker.  Read more in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Educational Fellowships Nurture Research Talent

Hundreds of education researchers across the country are getting the gift of time through fellowships aimed at nurturing young talent in the field.  Since 2000, at least half a dozen such programs have appeared.  For more information, read a recent article on fellowship programs that help young educational scholars develop research expertise, which appeared in Education Week.

New Comprehension Assessments Available

Nell K. Duke, co-director of LARC and associate professor of teacher education and educational psychology, has developed two new assessments of informational reading comprehension for grades one through three:  the Concepts of Comprehension Assessment (COCA) and the Informational Strategic Cloze Assessment (ISCA).  Both assessments are designed to measure four contributors to reading comprehension:

    • comprehension strategy use

    • vocabulary strategy use and knowledge

    • knowledge of informational text features

    • comprehension of graphics in the context of text

The COCA and ISCA were developed with generous  support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Literacy Achievement Research Center.  Both are available for free from the LARC website.

2008 National Geographic/LARC's Literacy Institute

The National Geographic Society/Literacy Achievement Research Center's Literacy Institute 2008 was held in Washington, DC on July 9 & 10 at NGS headquarters.  Handouts and presentation slides from the keynote speakers can be downloaded from the Institute's website.  Plan now to attend Literacy Institute 2009 on July 8 & 9 in Washington, DC.

Janine Certo Awarded Spencer Foundation Grant

Janine Certo, a principal investigator in the Literacy Achievement Research Center and assistant professor of language and literacy at Michigan State University, has been awarded a prestigious Spencer Foundation grant to study urban preadolescents' poetry knowledge and development.  The one-year study, titled Genre Knowledge and Development:  Urban Preadolescents Writing and Performing Contemporary, Hip Hop & Slam Poetry, will focus on forty 4th and 5th graders in an urban elementary school as they learn the elements and craft of composing and performing poetry from local and national poets.  The study is part of a larger line of research that Certo is conducting that examines the acquisition and development of genre knowledge in preadolescent youth.

Commercial Reading Programs Don't Make WWC Grade

Two well-known commercial reading programs--Open Court and Reading Mastery--have not earned approval from the What Works Clearinghouse because there are no studies that satisfy the agency's rigorous evidence standards.  Both programs have been adopted by some of the nation's largest school districts and have meet the strict requirements for research-based programs under the federal Reading First initiative.  For more information, read Kathleen Kennedy Manzo's article in Education Week.

Patricia Edwards Elected to IRA Presidency

Patricia A. Edwards, a principal investigator in the Literacy Achievement Research Center  and distinguished professor of teacher education at Michigan State University, has been elected as the incoming vice president of the International Reading Association.  Dr. Edwards will serve as vice president of the Association in 2008-2009, as president-elect in 2009-2010, and as president in 2010-2011.

Definition of 21st-Century Literacies

The NCTE Executive Committee adopted  a Definition of 21st-Century Literacies for use by classroom teachers, curriculum developers, and policy makers.  Among the skill sets that 21st-century readers and writiers need to develop, are to:

   • Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information

   • Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts

   • Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by complex literacy environments

2008 Kids & Family Reading Report

A new study conducted by Yankelovich and Scholastic, the 2008 Kids & Family Reading Report, finds that kids age 5-17 believe technology will supplement--not replace--book reading and say they will always want to read books printed on paper.  The study also found that tweens and teens who participate in online activities are more likely to read books for daily fun.

Rand Spiro Quoted in NY Times on 'Future of Reading'

This article is the first in a series of New York Times articles that will look at how the Internet and other technological and social forces are changing the way people read.  LARC researcher Rand Spiro is quoted in the article, citing his work on reading and learning online.

'Reading First' Interim Report

This report, which is an interim evaluation of Reading First, found that the program did have positive, statistically significant impacts on the total class time spent on the five essential components of reading instruction promoted by the program. The study also found that, on average across the 18 study sites, Reading First did not have statistically significant impacts on student reading comprehension test scores in grades 1-3. A final report on the impacts from 2004-2007 (three school years with Reading First funding) and on the relationships between changes in instructional practice and student reading comprehension is expected in late 2008.