Writing for The Reading Teacher

The Reading Teacher is a peer-reviewed journal that provides research-based teaching ideas to literacy educators worldwide. RT’s articles cover topics such as applying research to classroom practice, developing strategies to help struggling learners succeed, and using technology to enhance literacy development.

Full-length articles and brief Teaching Tips are accepted for consideration for publication, as are pieces for two themed issues described below.

RT welcomes well-written, original descriptions of research-based instruction that improves the literacy of children through age 12. Manuscripts must provide an appropriate blend of practical classroom application and solid theoretical framework. The journal editors will not consider book reviews, literary analyses, class projects, term papers, dissertations, endorsements of commercial products or services, previously published work, or manuscripts under consideration elsewhere.

Your manuscript will be judged on its contribution to the field, timeliness, freshness of approach, and clarity and cohesiveness of presentation. The acceptance rate is approximately 15%.

Before submitting your manuscript, familiarize yourself with articles published in RT to gain insight on the voice, tone, and format appropriate for the journal’s audience. Also, read the editors’ thoughts on their vision for the journal and some ideas for topics.

Manuscript Types

Manuscripts for full-length articles should run between 5,000 and 6,000 words, including all references and other materials. These should provide RT’s practitioner audience with classroom ideas for literacy development, based on sound theory and research.

Teaching Tips, which are 1,500 to 2,500 words in length, focus on a single, research-based application for improving literacy that can be readily implemented by readers.

Special Call: Articles for Themed Issue

The editors welcome manuscripts for a themed issue to be published in 2010:

"Reading in Grades 4–6: Focus on Expository Reading" is scheduled for fall 2010. Deadline for submissions is February 1, 2010.

Manuscripts must provide an appropriate blend of practical classroom application and solid theoretical framework and must appeal to RT's broad audience of classroom teachers, university researchers, literacy consultants, coaches, and policymakers. All manuscripts will be subject to peer review with no guarantee of acceptance. 

All submissions should conform to the style outlined in the fifth edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Authors of accepted manuscripts must also provide written permission releases for use of material from another source (including student’s writing samples, text or figures excerpted from another published work, etc.). Releases must also be provided for use of any person’s words or likeness. Refer to IRA’s copyright information for details.

All manuscripts must be submitted electronically. Prepare the following files for uploading to our online manuscript tracking system. Text should be presented double-spaced in 12 point font, preferably in Microsoft Word; images should be submitted in tif or jpg format.

• Cover letter, including your name and affiliation (as you would have them published) and your mailing and e-mail addresses. Any coauthors should be listed in preferred order, with name, affiliation, and contact information.
• Abstract of 150 words, written in the third person and without citations.
• Complete manuscript. Note that all in-text citations and corresponding references must be in standard APA format. Footnotes and appendixes should not appear. Instead, incorporate such material into the article text.
• One blinded copy of the manuscript. To prepare this version, remove author names and affiliations from bylines, replace references to your own and to coauthors’ published work simply with “Author (year)” in text and in reference list (that is, delete publication titles), and mask any city, state, institutional affiliation, or links to personal websites.
• Tables and figures in separate file(s), but with their content included in the total word count.

All manuscripts must be submitted online through IRA’s Manuscript Central tracking system.

• Go to the Manuscript Central site
• Create an account (if you haven’t done so already)
• Log in to your account with your username and password, and select the appropriate publication from the drop-down "journal" menu
• Click the Author Center link
• Click on the blue star and follow the instructions provided
• A confirmation e-mail will acknowledge our receipt of your manuscript

You can follow the progress of your manuscript by accessing your Author Center.

All submissions receive an initial evaluation to determine appropriateness. If the manuscript is deemed appropriate for the journal, it is then reviewed by two members of the editorial review board; full-length manuscripts are reviewed by an additional guest reviewer. The journal editors adjudicate reviews and make publication decisions, with acceptance determined by the reviewers’ recommendations, available space, and balance of topics in upcoming issues. A decision is typically rendered eight weeks from the date of submission. Publication date of accepted manuscripts is determined primarily by the amount of material already awaiting publication.

Authors of accepted manuscripts are required to assign their copyright to IRA so that the Association can register copyright to the journal as a whole and administer requests for reuse. (Authors are invited to read IRA's rights and permissions policies, which do not restrict authors' own reuse of their work.)

Accepted articles are edited to meet IRA style guidelines. Page proofs are sent to the author for final approval approximately six weeks prior to publication. Authors receive complimentary copies of the published journal issue in which their article appears.