Editorial introduction.

Unsworth, Len

This issue deals with a range of subjects, all of which are very topical at present. In the context of the first year of national testing of basic literacy and numeracy in Australian schools, the first article by Kathy Mills draws our attention to the curricular implications of this kind of large-scale basic literacy assessment, including the extent to which it may impact on the need to reconceptualize the nature of literacy and literacy learning, and indeed what counts as basic literacy skills, in the age of globalised, digital, multimedia information and communication technology.

The second article by Kieran Abel and Beryl Exley is significant from a number of perspectives. It focuses on the difficulties experienced by children in the early years of schooling in negotiating 'worded' mathematics learning and assessment tasks. The authors use systemic functional grammar and discourse to elucidate the nature of the textual difficulties by relating the linguistic structures of these maths tasks to the required syllabus outcomes dealing with the grammatical understandings expected of children of this age. The paper importantly addresses the area of literacy in early mathematics learning and emphasizes the efficacy of functional grammatical concepts as tools for investigative enquiry and pedagogic practice. This paper also exemplifies the importance of teacher critical reflection as a productive form of applied research and the capacity of pre-service teachers to adopt a scholar-teacher role in contributing to such research in the context of effective mentorship by teacher educators.

In the third paper Susan Roberts, Emilia Djonov and Jane Torr address the 'new literacies' experiences of pre-school children in the context of their interaction with computer games. This work contributes to the little-known area of how pre-school children respond to electronic texts and draws attention to the socially constructed nature of new literacies and their development in young children. The final paper by Karen Moni and Ann Jobling also deals with popular culture and associated literacies, but here discussing the interaction of teenagers and young adults with Down Syndrome with popular culture and the importance of taking this into account in the design and implementation of literacy learning programs for these students.

This is the last issue of the AJLL to be edited by the team from the University of New England. We have found our work for AJLL both enjoyable and challenging. We would like to thank our many loyal reviewers who provided incisively thorough and constructive feedback to authors who submitted to the journal. It has been pleasing to see the number of first-time authors and emerging researchers who have chosen the AJLL as a forum for the publication of their work. It is hoped that more established, high profile Australian and international scholars will be encouraged to increase their contribution to the journal. Finally, we wish to express our appreciation and best wishes to the incoming editorial team.