From the Editors

Dear Colleagues, In this issue, we continue our pledge to publish meaningful work that builds on current literacy understandings in ways that make a difference to research and practice. These articles are united in their consideration of important nuances that make a difference to literacy learning and instruction. They represent a range of quantitative and qualitative analyses that consider readers and literacy instruction within a variety of contexts, cultures, and countries. They cover a range of topics, yet in searching for a theme, we note that as a group, one of the ways they push our thinking is in considering the powerful and problematic nature of labels and identities, both of readers and of the instruction that supports readers. They also highlight the careful ways that we need to consider labels and support healthy literate identities. We describe some of these ideas below. In the first article of the issue, “‘I'm Always Kind of Double-Checking’: Exploring the Information-Seeking Identities of Expert Generalists,” Kohnen and Mertens highlight the potential power of information-seeking identities. Based on interviews with experts in three information-seeking professions, the authors found that academic librarians, journalists, and nonfiction children's book authors shared themes of doing, knowing, and being that were employed when they encountered information. For example, as shown in Table 2 in the article, experts are curious, skeptical, and persistent. They know how to explore a topic. They critically consider new information or ideas and use tools to find information (and people with that information), dig deeper for information, and then synthesize and evaluate that information. Kohnen and Mertens argue that the “more deliberate processes of librarians, children's book authors, and journalists may be better for developing an identity, including the dispositions that motivate one to want to fact-check.” These authors push us to think about how expert identities can guide instruction to build similar identities in students. Building on this work, Macedo-Rouet, Potocki, Scharrer, Ros, Stadtler, Salmerón, and Rouet identify ways to support the development of skepticism and consideration of the quality of an information source, particularly a web-based information source. In “How Good Is This Page? Benefits and Limits of Prompting on Adolescents’ Evaluation of Web Information Quality,” the authors identify the wide-ranging challenges that adolescents face in determining the quality of web-like information sources. The authors then show that prompts can be used to support students in assessing quality criteria. When prompted, “participants distinguished poorer from better documents in relation to each criterion, except for author competence.” As such, when developing the tools that an information-seeking individual needs, prompts to consider quality can be helpful. These prompts can be considered labels in that they give students categories to consider when evaluating quality. Another example of the potential support of identity can be found in the third article, “Preservice Teacher Knowledge, Print Exposure, and Planning for Instruction.” Kozak and Martin-Chang investigated links among planning of literacy lessons, knowledge, and personal reading experiences as evidenced by exposure to texts. The researchers found that preservice teachers who had more exposure to children's and young adult literature knew more about literacy terms and could better evaluate effective literacy instructional practices. Exposure to books of all types (storybooks, children's and young adult literature, and adult fiction) was related to their professional knowledge and to the time they allocated for student reading. This suggests that having the identity of a reader may be important for preservice teachers. As Kozak and Martin-Chang note, if the goal is to teach reading skills and a love for reading, then teacher preparation must include the necessary content knowledge required to plan, and eventually enact, rich literacy instruction….After all, who better to get students motivated to read than teachers who are motivated to read themselves. The fourth article highlights the negative consequences of labels such as the label “struggling reader.” In “Who Gets to Read What? Tracking, Instructional Practices, and Text Complexity for Middle School Struggling Readers” by Northrop and Kelly, differences in instructional time allocation and instructional practices for eighth graders is examined. Findings suggest that the label of struggling reader is problematic: Struggling readers placed in low-track classes spent a larger portion of class time on skills and strategy instruction, completing worksheets, watching videos, and reading aloud than students in grade-level classes. Students in high-track classes spent more time on literature analysis, comprehension instruction, and group projects….these adjustments in class time allocation, instructional practices, and text complexity go above and beyond what would be expected based on student achievement alone. Here, being a good reader in the high track is supportive of literacy learning, whereas being a struggling reader results in being placed in the low track, which is associated with pitfalls. The fifth article highlights the multifaceted nature of identities and the importance of considering identity with nuance at the cost of misinterpretation. In “Citations of Norms and Lines of Flight in One Immigrant Boy's Performances of Masculinities and Reading Identities” by Qin, the identity of Omar, a Muslim boy of Libyan origin, and his relationship with reading practices, space, and time are explored. Qin shows that using gender as a singular identity lens can be problematic, as Omar's masculinity performances varied in relation to his reading practices. In other words, he navigated multiple and seemingly conflicting reading identities across time and space. As such, identity should be considered interactionally and situated socially. As Qin notes, “Teachers, schools, and educational programs should decenter the relations of power and control to create spaces and opportunities for boys like Omar to ignite and sustain those lines of flight: their alternative understanding of doing gender and being a learner.” The sixth article, “Do Resources Matter? Effects of an In-Class Library Project on Student Independent Reading Habits in Primary Schools in Rural China” by Yi, Mo, Wang, Gao, Shi, Wu, Abbey, and Rozelle, highlights “efforts to challenge those long-held and thus difficult-to-change societal misconceptions” that are part of one's cultural identity. The societal misconception being targeted is the lack of value placed on independent reading, which until recently has not been emphasized in Chinese culture, particularly in rural areas. The randomized control trial of providing in-class libraries to schools in need of such resources resulted in some changes but lacked transfer to reading and academic achievement improvements. However, students’ attitudes toward reading and their reading habits improved, so the authors argue that “given the societal prevalence of the misconception that independent reading harms students’ academic performance in rural China, this study provides new insights for researchers around the globe who function within a different set of cultural expectations and beliefs.” This provides an additional lens with which to consider identity and labels. The last article in this issue suggests the promise of instructional labels when they are well understood and well researched. In “Preschoolers’ Alphabet Learning: Cognitive, Teaching Sequence, and English Proficiency Influences” by Roberts, Vadasy, and Sanders, the label paired-associate learning was successfully used to give early educators a way to think about effective alphabet-learning instruction. “The pairing of verbal labels (names and sounds) and letter forms” best supported alphabet learning, and no additional supports, such as orthographic learning or articulatory learning in combination with paired-associate learning, were needed. Hence, this label, paired-associate learning, conveys a category of instruction that teachers can now equate with effective alphabet instruction. With that said, dual-language learners did not find any condition additionally supportive, suggesting that further research is needed with such learners and that instructional labels need to be considered with nuance, especially considering how such instruction supports different types of learners. Overall, these articles drive deeper understandings of the complexities necessary to understand reading. They draw attention to the ways that readers’ backgrounds and experiences frame their learning, as well as ways that labels affect readers’ context. Such findings can be translated into research, theory, and practice to critically position readers and writers as central. Amanda Goodwin Robert T. Jiménez