Website: www.ukla.org
Chairperson: Cathy Burnett
Vice-chairperson: Roger McDonald
FELA representative: Elizabeth Broad
UKLA was founded in 1963 as the United Kingdom Reading Association, changing its name to the United Kingdom Literacy Association in 2003, to reflect more accurately its wide remit. UKLA seeks, through education and advocacy, to promote research and good practice in language and literacy teaching. It is energetic in its work to influence UK education policy. Its sub-committees promote research, international relations, publications, conferences and awards. It has a strong publications section, with two refereed journals, Literacy and Journal of Research in Reading. It also publishes, in conjunction with the English Association, English 4-11, as well as a broad range of books, position papers, practice and planning guides. The full range of titles can be viewed on our website.
Our awards programme is extensive and includes the UKLA Book Award, the Brenda Eastwood Award for good practice in teaching for diversity and inclusion, the John Downing Award which celebrates a class’ response to one of the UKLA is a member of FELA and part of Elinet and is further strengthening its ties with colleagues across the world through an International Ambassador scheme. It supports a number of literacy projects in Africa.books shortlisted for the Book Award, the UKLA Digital Book Award, the UKLA Wiley-Blackwell Research in Literacy Award, the UKLA Academic Book Award and the UKLA Literacy School of the Year. Further details are again available on our website.
Recent activities:
Despite the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, UKLA has remained very active on virtual platforms, responding to current events and providing webinars to support professional development. Our Twitter account is lively and we have recently held two very successful events: in December national and international members contributed to daily Winter Poems, and in March we ran Bookworlds with members reading aloud from a favourite text and providing a short explanation for its choice. Our Regional Reps have regular #UKLAchat sessions which are lively and current, and our range of webinars is ever increasing. Many of our resources can be found on the public pages of our website.
Recently published research includes The Impact of the Systematic Synthetic Phonics Government Policy on ITE in England.
Upcoming events:
Follow UKLA on Twitter and find out about #UKLAchats and #UKLAconversation webinars.
- 2-4 July 2021: UKLA 56th International Conference, Oxford: ‘We need to talk about literacy’: why spoken language matters in literacy learning and teaching [Online]Details on the website