2011 National Reading Recovery &

K-6 Classroom Literacy Conference

February 5-8  ●  Columbus, Ohio

Keynote Speaker Biographies
 

Linda Dorn
Linda Dorn is Professor of Education and Reading Recovery Trainer at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock, AR, where she teaches courses in reading theory and assessment, and directs the Early Literacy Center. She has over twenty years of experience in education, including eight years as an elementary classroom teacher. Her most recent work includes the development and implementation of the Arkansas Literacy Coaching Model. Dr. Dorn conducts summer early literacy institutes for teachers across the United States, and she is a popular conference speaker. She is co-author of Apprenticeship in Literacy (Stenhouse 1998), Shaping Literate Minds (Stenhouse 2001), and Literacy Task Cards (Teaching Resource Center 2001), and author of the four-part video staff development series Organizing for Literacy (Stenhouse 1999).

Lucy Calkins

Lucy Calkins is the author of Units of Study for Primary Writing and Units of Study for Teaching Writing, Grades 3–5, as well as the companion DVD Big Lessons from Small Writers. In addition, she is the author of numerous foundational professional texts with Heinemann, including The Art of Teaching Writing and One to One. She is also the author of The Art of Teaching Reading. She is the Founding Director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University's Teachers College, a think tank that develops state of the art teaching methods and provides professional development. In these capacities, the Project has supported hundreds of thousands of educators. As the leader of this world renowned organization, Dr. Calkins works closely with policy-makers, superintendents, district leaders and school principals to instigate and sustain school-wide and system-wide educational reforms. But above all, she works closely with teachers and with their classrooms full of wise and wonderful children.  Dr. Calkins is also the Richard Robinson Professor of Children's Literature at Teachers College, where she leads the Literacy Specialist program.

Joy Cowley
Joy Cowley’s first published works were short stories and novels for adults. In the late 1960s, when one of her sons had difficulty learning to read, Joy began writing for him and children with similar difficulties. By the late 1970s, Joy and editor June Melser were working on Wendy Pye's Story Box reading program. Since Story Box, she has written more than 600 early reading titles. Joy now travels the world attending conferences and events where she meets teachers, children, parents and other story lovers. She enjoys mentoring writers and is a patron of Storylines, an initiative to promote awareness of the importance of reading for all children, and support writers and illustrators of children's literature in New Zealand. She also runs writing workshops for people whose culture is not adequately represented in their children's books, and has edited stories to make them accessible to new readers. She believes that children need to see themselves and their own culture in their literature. She has run these workshops in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Brunei, South Africa, Iceland, and the United States.