The causes of reading failure are numerous and complex. If instruction provided by the school is ineffective or insufficient, even some otherwise capable learners will have difficulty learning to read. Improving literacy instruction through professional development is an ongoing process involving all of the members of a schoolwide literacy team in activities that will help them become more effective in what they do. The National Invitational Conference "Improving Reading Achievement Through Professional Development" was convened in Washington, DC, November 13-14, 2002. Cosponsored by Rutgers University, The Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the The Laboratory for Student Success (LSS), The Mid-Atlantic Regional Educational Laboratory at Temple University, the purpose of the conference was to bring together teachers, principals, reading specialists, teacher educators, and other education professionals to discuss the current best thinking of what teachers and administrators need to know and do to provide quality literacy instruction for optimum student performance. Recommendations are organized into five topics: (1) Teacher Preparation; (2) Content and Process; (3) Tailoring Professional Development; (4) Building a Community of Learners; and (5) Role of Administrator. This issue of "The LSS Review" contains the following articles: (1) Improving Reading Achievement through Professional Development: Reports and Recommendations from a National Invitational Conference (Dorothy S. Strickland, Michael L. Kamil, Herbert J. Walberg, and JoAnn B. Manning); (2) Teachers Who Improve Reading Achievement: What Research Says about What They Do and How to Develop Them (Gerald G. Duffy); (3) Sources of Standards for Teacher Preparation (Cathy M. Roller and James V. Hoffman); (4) Establishing the Basis for Improved Reading Achievement (M. Susan Burns and Robert A. Stechnick); (5) Professional Development for K-3 Teachers: Content and Process (Janice A. Dole and Jean Osborn); (6) What Expert Teachers in the Intermediate Grades Need to Know and Be Able to Do in the Teaching of Literacy (Kathy Ganske and Joanne K. Monroe); (7) Salient Content for the Professional Development of Reading Educators at the Middle- and High-School Levels (Donna Alvermann and Allison Nealy); (8) Building Capacity for the Responsive Teaching of Reading: Strategic Inquiry Designs for Middle- and High-School Teachers (Cynthia L. Greenleaf and Ruth Schoenbach); (9) Re-Engaging Struggling Young Readers and Writers by Means of Innovative Professional Development (Susan Florio-Ruane, Taffy E. Raphael, Kathy Highfield, and Jennifer Berne); (10) Professional Development in the Uses of Technology (Elizabeth S. Pang and Michael J. Kamil); (11) Reflective Inquiry as a Tool for Professional Development (Gay Su Pinnell and Emily M. Rodgers); (12) Professional Development at Benchmark School (Irene W. Gaskins); and (13) Distributed Leadership for Instructional Improvement: The Principal's Role (Michael Aaron Copeland). ["The LSS Review" is a product of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Educational Laboratory, the Laboratory for Student Success (LSS), one of ten regional educational laboratories funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education. For Volume 2, Number 3 of "The LSS Review," see ED497157.]