Richard Allington

Dr. Richard Allington was an elementary school classroom teacher, reading specialist, director in poor rural schools, and federal programs administrator before beginning his career as a teacher educator and instructional researcher. His research interests include reading/learning disabilities and effective instruction, especially in classroom settings.

Now a professor of education at the University of Tennessee, Dr. Allington served as the president of the International Reading Association in 2005-2006 and as president of the National Reading Conference in 1996-1997. He received the Outstanding Dissertation Award from the International Reading Association for his study of perceptual processing in young children.

Dr. Allington currently serves on the editorial boards of several journals. He is an author of over 100 research articles and several books, including: What Really Matters for Struggling Readers; Reading to Learn: Lessons from Exemplary 4th Grade Classrooms; Big Brother and the National Reading Curriculum: How Ideology Trumped Evidence; Classrooms That Work: They Can All Read and Write, and Schools That Work: Where All Children Read and Write, both co-authored with Pat Cunningham; and No Quick Fix: Rethinking Reading Programs in American Elementary Schools with Sean Walmsley.