Abstract of

Looking Back, Looking Forward: A Conversation About Teaching Reading in the 21st Century

Richard L. Allington

Anne McGill-Franzen

Two researchers, frequent collaborators on studies of policy for learners at-risk of school failure, talk about what they learned about teaching reading—appropriate instructional texts, for example—from studies conducted during the past century. They identify themes that were significant at various points in time that have surfaced again as the century comes to a close, such as the need to evoke and define scientific inquiry in reading by the research community. As these researchers look to the future, they discuss their views on particular policy instruments, namely, school choice, teacher development, and mandated instructional material, as strategies for building school capacity for teaching reading to learners at-risk in the new millennium. (Note: This article is reprinted as chapter 1 in the fifth edition of Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading, http://www.reading.org/publications/bbv/books/bk502/.)

Abstract from Allington, R.L., & McGill-Franzen, A. (2000). Looking Back, Looking Forward: A Conversation About Teaching Reading in the 21st Century. Reading Research Quarterly, 35(1), 136–153. doi: 10.1598/RRQ.35.1.10