Once again- Happy New Year! We’re getting off to a good start this year. The newest issue of The Missouri Reader is out and it is dedicated to teachers and educators. It includes a special section on teaching literacy virtually. There are a lot of nuts-and-bolts tips on how to implement an on-line literacy program. As some of you may already know, I am the Co-Editor of this journal along with Glenda Nugent. The Missouri Reader has been around for almost 50 years. It started out as a “paper journal”. Now we publish digitally. We have two to three issues each year. We are peer-reviewed, and our editorial board has many highly qualified people (see the sidebar on the Table of Contents). We publish many articles by well-known experts in the reading field. However, we also encourage teachers to publish, especially action research, book reviews, and app reviews. The last page of each issue explains how to submit an article for review. We are an official publication of the Missouri Literacy Association. Missouri Literacy Association is an ILA affiliate. Anyone with the following link can read the current issue for free:
I want to share with you my Chairman’s message, which can also be found in the current journal.
To Teachers and Educators
Well Done in 2020: You are Superheroes!
I found this posting on Twitter in December:
Notice that this tweet got over 65 thousand likes and over 10 thousand shares. People know what teachers like you are doing. In spite of what some nay-sayers have said, people know that what you are doing is helping a lot of kids. As Diane Ravitch’s blog just reminded us, we are working through a pandemic. We are helping kids. We continue to do what it takes to scaffold the kids into becoming lifetime readers and writers. We continue to understand just how important that goal is.
The Missouri Literacy Association (MLA) is doing its best to support you as a teacher. We have a Facebook page where you can find daily information and inspiration. The Missouri Reader, which has been published by MLA for almost 50 years, provides you with informative articles. Some of them come from well-known folks in the literacy field, but many of them come from practicing teachers like yourselves. They are not well known (yet), but they are exactly the kind of superheroes Dan Rather was talking about.
MLA has been growing this year. We already have several hundred new members. We now have three active regional councils in three locations: St. Louis, Springfield, and Kansas City. Joining MLA automatically makes you a member of the council of your choice at no extra cost, or you can choose an “at large” membership if you wish. We’re offering book clubs, webinars and are a part of many wonderful literacy projects in our state, such as the Believe project of the St. Louis Black Authors. We have a webinar series by Tim Rasinski that is free to all. Tim’s next webinar is on Jan. 26th, 2021. Do have a look at our webpage- we’d love for you to become the newest member of MLA and to join in the many activities currently going on in our state.
In closing I want to wish all of you the best in the New Year. Like all of you I’m glad to put 2020 behind us and I am hopeful for what the new year will bring. We did make it through 2020. Actually, we did more than that. We got through 2020 in a way that has folks like Dan Rather saying we are “superhero’s who have even another year of awesomeness”. Well Done Indeed- Teachers and Educators. All the best in the coming New Year.
Dr. Sam Bommarito
Chairman of Missouri Literacy Association
Co-Editor of The Missouri Reader
Part of our way of distributing The Missouri Reader is the use of what we call “word of cyberspace.” We ask our readers to share the link to the magazine with other readers. As a result, we are now read all around the world. So, if you like what you see please share the link. It’s free. THANKS!
You can help to support The Missouri Reader by joining the Missouri Literacy Association- membership is open to all. Here is a link where you can join:
https://mla31.wildapricot.org/
Here is a screen capture of the front cover of the journal:
Until next week-
Happy Reading and Writing
Dr. Sam Bommarito (Co-Editor of an authentic teacher’s journal)
Copyright 2021 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely the view of this author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.
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