Dear Discussion List Participants, 

Today, the National Institute for Literacy is moving the Family Literacy discussion list to a fully moderated format. Our goal is to enhance professional development for educators and practitioners through ongoing opportunities to learn, discuss, and reflect on critical literacy issues. 

There will be no significant changes in the way you receive your discussion list mail.  Each list will have a moderator who will facilitate dialogue about the latest literacy research and its applications to instructional practice; promising policies and practices -- in addition to promoting the exchange of ideas, resources, and experience.  The moderator will review messages posted to the list daily, prior to releasing it to subscribers.  Please review the Discussion List Guidelines at http://www.nifl.gov/lincs/discussions/list_guidelines.html for more information.  

As subscribers, you can continue to post to the list, the list email address is: familyliteracy at dev.nifl.gov

The purpose of the Family Literacy list is to provide an on-going professional development forum for adult and early childhood education instructors, parent educators, family literacy practitioners, administrators, researchers, policy developers, and others interested in family literacy to discuss topics such as: parent-child interaction, recruitment and retention, family literacy in the workplace, infant/toddler learning and programming, family literacy in the school setting, parent information, home visits, adult learning, early childhood learning, program integration, assessment and evaluation, training and professional development, transition, and technology.  The list moderator is Gail Price at the National Center for Family Literacy www.famlit.org <http://www.famlit.org>. 

We encourage discussion list participants to focus your contributions to the Family Literacy list. Your comments, suggestions, references, and ideas posted to the discussion lists continue serve as resources for enhancing the field's capacity and knowledge base.  We encourage open discourse and an exchange of information, ideas, and practices among all list subscribers.  As in the past, differences in perspectives and ideas are welcome, especially when they are voiced in the spirit of inquiry, curiosity, and mutual respect.  

Thank you for your dedication to this online community.  We look forward to sharing and learning with you.   

Sincerely, 
Tanya Shuy and Mary Jo Maralit 
National Institute for Literacy