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news
Literacy
campaign steps closer to Long Beach
By Joe Licavoli
On-line Forty-Niner
The International
Reading Association, an organization dedicated to improving
reading and literacy, comes closer to Long Beach with the
recent vice-presidential election of Mary Ann Voit, a professor
of teacher education and director of the graduate reading
program at Cal State Long Beach.
"The main goal is literacy worldwide," Voit said.
The association consists of 350,000 members in 99 countries,
Voit said.
Advocacy, professional development, research, global literacy
development and partnerships are the main goals of the IRA,
Voit said.
Advocacy is done by working with the federal government by
helping write legislation for reading development.
Professional development consists of IRA counsels that conduct
workshops and conferences to promote reading and literacy,
such as working with poverty in inner-city schools.
Research is done to encourage information-gathering at all
levels of reading education and coordinating research efforts.
Global literacy development is to focus on significant leadership
issues.
The goal of partnerships is to establish national and international
alliances with organizations, such as government, community
agencies and businesses, said Voit.
The U.S. government continues to work on the program: to teach
reading. President Bush recently signed legislation for "Reading
First," which will result in millions of dollars to improve
children's reading K-12, Voit said.
The goals of the program are very similar with the personal
goals Voit has for the association.
"My goals are to continue our work in countries throughout
the world," Voit said. "Another goal is to strengthen
our culture structures to support the thousands of new teachers
coming in and help them to become good teachers in reading
and writing."
Voit is very excited about her new role as vice president
of the association.
"It's a huge honor but also a huge responsibility to
lead this group through the next three years," Voit said.
Joan Leikam Theurer, a fellow professor of teacher education
at CSULB said she was optimistic about Voit's new position
in the IRA.
"I believe that Dr. Vogt's election as vice president
of IRA will have positive benefits for CSULB. It is quite
an honor to hold such a high office in such a prestigious
organization," said Theurer.
"As vice president, and ultimately as president of IRA,
Dr. Vogt will have the opportunity to represent the IRA internationally,"
Theurer said. "She will meet with and discuss issues
of literacy with educators and influential policy makers."
In her travels and presentations she will not only be representing
IRA but also CSULB.
Theurer went to a conference last weekend for the IRA in San
Francisco.
"The annual IRA conference is always a high point of
the year for the people interested in literacy," Theurer
said.
The conference gave Theurer the opportunity to discuss literacy
and be exposed to the most recent research with 20,000 people
from around the world, said Theurer.
The hope for the future of the IRA as a body of teachers,
educators and researchers is to have a positive influence
on the future of he reading instruction, said Theurer.
"We will see the growing need of the new teachers and
to continue to advocate to continue with the goals of the
IRA," said Voit.
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