Editorial introduction.

Unsworth, Len ; Buckland, Corinne

This edition of AJLL provides a stimulating mix of theory and practice. The first article presents a broad overview of research into literacy standards in rural Australia and soberly reflects on the data and their long-term implications. Our other contributors investigate specific literacy approaches in a variety of settings which range from emergent literacy at home to the secondary English writing classroom.

John Pegg and Debra Panizzon's comparison of metropolitan versus rural literacy achievement is a timely follow-up from the previous edition of this journal. For all the wonderful work that was reported there about the Special Forever literacy project in the Murray Darling Basin, this particular review of research data points clearly to the significant inequalities that exist in rural education. The authors examine the results of both national and international literacy achievement surveys and find that although Australia overall is well positioned in the international scene, all is far from well for students in rural communities. The authors acknowledge the complex factors that contribute to such inequality, and insist that because of its importance, this issue must be placed on a national agenda before a real improvement in rural students' performance can be achieved.

Ian Hay and Ruth Fielding-Barnsley investigate two major intervention strategies that make use of the home school literacy connection to help children with existing or potential learning problems. These interventions are based on dialogic frameworks used within parent shared reading time. One strategy encourages reading motivation for children with language delays; the other targets children with a family history of reading disability, encouraging talk that facilitates children's understanding of print concepts, phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge. Both strategies have some level of success, both increase the amount of home reading, and the authors suggest that they could be usefully combined into a single intervention that could be adapted according to situational needs.

Kirsty Young has researched the efficacy of assessing children's spelling proficiency through the lens of developmental stage theory. Her paper examines the application of these stages using case studies of six Year 3 children from a Sydney classroom. Her research reveals that developmental stage theory is both relatively accurate and useful, as the children in her study showed remarkable consistency in the way in which their performance corresponded to the stages over a range of spelling practices. This research has led her to believe that understanding these stages is far more relevant to the successful teaching of spelling than norm-referenced testing, and she speculates that children could be told of the rules and expectations that characterise these stages in order to enhance their spelling progress and proficiency.

The last two articles move into the secondary school arena. Lorraine Graham, John Pegg and Lynn Alder report on the design and implementation of a rigorous intervention strategy, QuickSmart, designed for students with learning difficulties in the middle years of schooling. Their paper reviews research on learning difficulties in reading, particularly the role of working memory, and describes the benefits of automaticity (fast, efficient recall) in improving the reading scores of these under-performing students. The recent institution of the QuickSmart program in a NSW high school has resulted in an outstanding improvement in students' performance in a variety of test measures, including the ELLA secondary English literacy assessment. The students' success in reading has also had a considerable positive impact on their school and home lives.

Frances Christie and Shoshana Dreyfus present a framework for the explicit teaching of writing, in acknowledgement of the crucial role writing plays in the secondary curriculum. This article is relevant to both secondary and primary teachers, as it builds on the genre theory that is already firmly in place in most primary curricula. Through a detailed analysis of two examples from Year 10 students required to write a literary response, one successful and one not so successful, they show how an understanding of genre requirements, and in particular the use of the concept of 'theme' and its variants in systemic functional grammar, can greatly facilitate writing of quality. Their method, as they say, 'lets the secret out'.

This edition concludes with two book reviews by Andrew Simpson. The first book, Reading the Web: Strategies for Internet Inquiry by Maya Eagleton and Elizabeth Dobler (2007), constructs a model for teachers wanting to use the Internet to develop students' reading skills and web literacy. The second, Making Literacy Real: Theories and Practices for Learning and Teaching by Joanne Larson and Jackie Marsh (2005), is written for teacher education students. It examines four formidable models of literacy and shows how they can be applied to classroom practice.

Finally, we would like to alert readers to an error in the previous edition of this journal, Special Forever. The second of the two introductions was incorrectly attributed to the AJLL editorial team, when in fact it was written by contributors: Phil Cormack, Bill Green and Helen Nixon. We offer our sincere apologies for this glitch that slipped through final proofreading.