Society
for the Scientific Study of Reading
This
edition of the SSSR Newsletter contains a look back at the 2003 meeting,
information about the 2004 meeting in Amsterdam, the 2005 meeting in Toronto,
and additional information about SSSR, including SSSR membership, new voting
members, plans for updating the SSSR web site, a note from Frank Manis, our SSR
Editor, and my reflections on the 10th anniversary of SSSR.
SSSR
held its 2003 meeting in Broomfield on June 12-15. The Board regretted moving
the meeting from Toronto in response to the WHO travel advisory regarding SARS,
and we look forward to holding our 2005 meeting in Toronto (see below).
The
Renaissance Suites at Flatiron Hotel was available on short notice and provided
a remarkably inexpensive but high level of luxury and convenience for our 2003
meeting. Some enjoyed the world-class shopping across from the hotel, while
others traveled to Boulder for hiking and our group dinner at Chautauqua
Mountain Park.
The SSSR scientific program, skillfully coordinated by Joanna Williams, included 81 posters and 66 oral presentations. The total registration count was 236, reflecting a remarkably high level of participation under the circumstances of our moving the meeting from Toronto. The presidential address included some reflections on the tenth anniversary of SSSR that are attached at the end of this newsletter.
The
2004 SSSR meeting will be held in Amsterdam, June 27-30, organized by Pieter
Reitsma. The call for papers was sent out on the list serve on September 17.
Proposals are due by December 7. See the Call for Papers on the Society Home
Page http://www.ed.utah.edu/edst/sssr/ . Pieter would like to encourage submissions
of proposals for symposia. He will soon announce, on the list serve and SSSR
web page, the specific location for our meeting in Amsterdam, and he will
provide the names of hotels in the area that will offer special rates for SSSR
members.
Please
forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested in presenting
at or attending the 2004 SSSR meeting, but may not have received the call for
papers through the SSSR list serve.
There
was strong support from the Board and membership to hold our 2005 meeting in
Toronto. We are close to finalizing a contract with the Marriott Eaton Centre
Hotel for June 24-26, 2005. A note will be sent out on the list serve and
posted on the SSSR web site when arrangements are completed.
To
join SSSR, please go to the SSSR Web Page (http://www.ed.utah.edu/edst/sssr) and follow the procedures there,
downloading a form for membership. Membership in the Society includes a
subscription to the Society's Journal, Scientific
Studies of Reading, published by Lawrence Erlbaum.
Voting Membership
At its 2003
meeting, the Board approved the applications of 3 new voting members. They are
Stephanie Al Otaiba (Florida State University) Frances Martin University of
Tasmania), and Teresa Roberts (California State University). Congratulations to
all!
The Board strongly encourages current Active members
to examine the criteria for Voting membership and apply for consideration at
the 2004 Board meeting. The criteria and Voting membership forms can be found
at the bottom of the Conference page on the SSSR home page.
You may notice that when you access the SSSR web
site at http://www.ed.utah.edu/edst/sssr
, your browser switches immediately to http://www.umkc.edu/education/sssr.You
should update your favorites list to reflect this change, though the Utah URL
will continue to work until further notice. The SSSR web page is currently
being updated with a number of new features, including the capability for web
payment of dues and registration, and member access to the electronic SSR
Journal. We hope to have the new web page completed by the end of the year.
Scientific Studies of Reading continues to prosper, and to
attract outstanding research contributions, as we finish off volume 7 and move
into volume 8. The SSSR membership has responded by sending its best work
in to the journal and we are attracting contributions from reading researchers
around the world. The journal is becoming available in more libraries,
but this is a slow process, given the reluctance of libraries to add new
periodicals. To the extent possible, it is important for members to
cajole the libraries they use to adopt the journal. Libraries have the
option of buying the journal as hard copies or both hard copy and electronic
copies.
There
is other work to be done to further the cause of the journal. The Society
is working to make the journal electronically accessible to all members.
The journal is not yet in the Social Science Citation Index, as some members
pointed out, but the publisher is aware of this and is engaged in the sometimes
arduous process of getting that approved.
The
upcoming issues have a lot to offer. We have a special issue on
Morphological Processes (edited by Verhoeven and Perfetti) that came out late
this summer, and a special issue on brain imaging and reading due out in Fall,
2004. There are other outstanding papers due to come out in the last
issue of 2003, as well as the first two issues of 2004. I have some interesting
proposals for special issues for the 2005 volume under consideration in October
by the Editorial Board.
I
would like to express my thanks to the membership of SSSR for continuing to
produce high quality research studies, and to consider SSR as an outlet for
their work. My sincere appreciation also goes to the Editorial Board and
to the many ad hoc reviewers who have given generously of their time and
scientific acumen, in reviewing the 30-40 papers (along with revisions) that
come our way each year. You have been an invaluable resource to me.
Keep
up the good work, and keep sending it to SSR first!
Frank
Manis
Editor
SSSR Board and Elections
The
composition of the current SSSR Board is as follows: President, Richard Olson;
President-elect, Joanna Williams; Vice-President, Pieter Reitsma;
Past-President Chuck Perfetti; Secretary, Lesly Wade-Wooley; Treasurer, Don
Compton; Historian, Anne Cunningham; International Coordinator, Victor van
Daal; Publications Chair, Hollis Scarborough. Elected Board Members are Marilyn
Adams, Benita Blachman, and Hugh Catts.
Voting members will soon receive a ballot for the election of a new Vice President and a Board member. Joanna Williams will take over as President, and Pieter Reitsma will become President Elect on January 1, 2004. As I leave the office of President, I would like to thank the Board for all their help in guiding SSSR.
Reflections
on the 10th Aniversary of SSSR
(The following is the first section of my presidential address paper titled SSSR, Environment, and Genes, now in press in SSR.)
It
has been more than 10 years since I received a letter from Ron Carver inviting
me to be a charter member in a new organization titled the “Society for the
Scientific Study of Reading.” Ron’s letter caused two immediate reactions: The
name of the organization seemed a bit odd (do we really have to say we are
“scientific”?), and the last thing I needed at the time was another conference
to attend. AERA, IRA, NRC, SRCD, IDA, BDA, BGA, and the Psychonomics Society
were quite enough, thank you. On further reflection, the list of 88 invited
charter members included many of the top researchers in reading, and I was
honored to be on the list. Meeting with this group in a small organization
could be fun. Another thing that intrigued me about the list was that it
included a very broad range of research perspectives, including those from
general education, special education, psychology, linguistics, and
neuroscience, though I was the only person on the list with research related to
the potential contribution of genes to reading. Such a broad range of
perspectives on reading research was unmatched in my other organizations, and
this is still true today. So, I signed on, and many thanks to Ron Carver and
the first Board for starting SSSR.
Another
characteristic of Ron’s list of proposed charter members was its international
representation. That representation has grown significantly over the last 10
years. Our first meeting outside the U.S. was a very successful one in Montreal
(1999), followed by a successful but smaller meeting in Stockholm (2000), and
we look forward to our 11th annual meeting in Amsterdam (2004). In
my view, our broad international representation is just as important and unique
as our interdisciplinary perspective. While the majority of our membership is
still from the U.S., we benefit greatly from learning about research and
developing collaborations with SSSR members from other countries, cultures, and
languages. My hope is that our international perspective in SSSR will continue
to grow, and that more of our U.S. members will participate in SSSR meetings
outside the U.S. and Canada. If a name change for SSSR is ever to be
considered, “International” should be part of it.
Finally, it has
been an honor and a pleasure to serve as president of SSSR, but I do look
forward to having less responsibility and more time to hear talks, view
posters, and chat with SSSR members at our annual meetings.