Improving literacy engagement: enablers, challenges and catering for students from disadvantaged backgrounds

Engagement is critical to students' growth as readers and writers as well as to their voluntary and continued use of literacy skills to meet future demands in a wide array of contexts both in and outside of school. This special issue focuses on the role of engagement in literacy as well as enabling factors, conditions and processes that promote such engagement, particularly for students who are disadvantaged. Six studies are presented that examine literacy engagement and/or one or more factors that promote literacy engagement and performance.