The Missouri Reader Vol. 40, Issue 1 | Page 5

So Long...Farewell!

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Ways to Connect

https://www.facebook.com/mscira - Look for information about upcoming events, new book releases, and links to interesting literacy information

Please join Dr. Bommarito as he talks about articles in this issue on twitter! @doctorsam7 #TheMissouriReader

Visit our website

http://www.missouri reading.org/

Find a local council and join!

http://www.missourireading.org/membership/zones

Dates to Remember

Literacy for All Conference Oct. 15, 2016

Missouri Early Learning Conference Nov. 10-11, 2016

Write to Learn Conference Feb. 16-18, 2017

International Literacy Association Conference July 15-17, 2017

We are entering another period of change, both in the world of literacy and within our own organization. The age of information and the knowledge explosion we are in makes it hard for teachers to keep up with all that is going on. Sometimes it is good to have an anchor we can depend on in this ever changing world.

The Board is striving to make The Missouri Reader just such an anchor. The Missouri Reader has been publishing for over four decades. It is peer reviewed and has many readers in Missouri, the USA, and around the world. The newest edition is free and available on line to everyone. One article in the current edition shows how a classroom teacher successfully used a strategy often reserved for university students to help her 2nd grade students in an urban classroom grow in their literacy skills. In another, David Harrison reminds us that writing poetry can and should be fun. We are especially proud of the article about the Read and Feed project in which 1,500 new trade books were given to students in the Title One summer reading program in the Ferguson-Florissant district. Something we’ve learned over the years is that reading involves teaching students how to think not what to think. We hope the articles selected for this edition will give teachers visions of how that might be done. Several of the articles were created by university professors and teachers working together on a literacy project. That kind of collaboration produces articles that are well worth reading.

Because of its long tradition of being peer reviewed, The Missouri Reader belongs to us all. The MSC Board wants to encourage each of our members to take as active a part in this journal as they can. On the final page we say that we need you. We really do! It is your ideas, your willingness to share, your willingness to help your students succeed that can and will make this journal a continuing success. We want our journal to be a tool that helps you and a tool you can count on. Please join us and help us help each other become that teacher that everyone remembers, that teacher who makes a real difference for a real child. Happy readings. --President Tammy Rhomberg and the MSC Board

Message from the Board

We are delighted to be the new editors for The Missouri Reader! After long careers as classroom teachers, college teachers, reading specialists, staff development specialists, and literacy leaders, we have both retired and are (almost) full-time literacy volunteers. When we are not working on The Missouri Reader, we fill our time supporting literacy as members of the Missouri State Council (MSC) Executive Board and through our local reading council – St. Louis Suburban Reading Council. We both are active in the MSC Read and Feed Project through ILA and spent many hours preparing and sharing 1,500 books with students in the Ferguson-Florissant Summer School (See article on page 24). When MSC activities are not keeping us busy, we both volunteer in our grandchildren’s schools to support children and their teachers.

We have LOVED the articles sent to us by teachers and educators around the country. Glenda receives the articles, sends them to the Review Board, and communicates with authors. Sam handles the technology involved with getting the issues laid out, published, and posted. This is our first edition to edit, so we have relied on continuing support from our past SUPER EDITORS – Julie Bryant and Jennifer Fox and we send them a BIG THANK YOU! We hope you enjoy reading this edition of The Missouri Reader and gain as much from it as we did.

Happy Reading,

Dr. Sam Bommarito and Glenda Nugent