Editorial.
Rennie, Jennifer
Welcome to the October edition of AJLL. The issue comprises a
variety of articles that report on national and international literacy
research. In the first article, The discourse of drama supporting
literacy learning in an early years classroom, Annette Harden reports on
a study which examined how drama facilitates literacy development in the
early years. The second article Praxis and the theory of practice
architectures: Resources for re-envisioning English Education by
Christine Edwards-Groves and Peter Grootenboer examines practices in
English education through the lens of praxis and the theory of practice
architectures. The authors show how a view of praxis and practice allows
English educators to re-imagine the nature of their pedagogical work. In
the third article, Discretionary Space: English Teachers Discuss
Curriculum Agency, Mary Weaven and Tom Clark report on a study which
explored teachers' reluctance to engage with poetry teaching in the
senior secondary years of school. Amongst other things the data revealed
a series of complex and apparently contradictory attitudes towards
teacher agency and curriculum more generally. The fourth paper, Language
knowledge and its application: A snapshot of Australian Teachers'
Views, by Kristina Love, Mary Macken-Horarik and Stefan Macken-Horarik,
also focuses on teachers and reports on a national survey of 373 English
teachers who expressed their views on linguistic subject knowledge and
linguistic pedagogic subject knowledge. In the fifth paper, Examining
the interpretations children share from their reading of an almost
wordless picture book during independent reading time, Jessica Mantei
and Lisa Kervin report on a study which reports on students engagement
with the picture book Mirror by Jeannie Baker. In the final paper,
Relating students' spoken language and reading comprehension, Ann
Daly reports on her doctoral research that investigated the relationship
between students' spoken language and their reading comprehension
test scores. We hope that you enjoy reading these articles and look
forward to receiving contributions from teachers and researchers.