Emily Rodgers is an associate professor in the College of Education and Human Ecology at The Ohio State University. She has worked in schools as a reading specialist and special education teacher and now teaches graduate courses in early literacy and reading development at OSU. Her research focuses on the professional development of teachers and scaffolding literacy learning particularly for young children having great difficulty learning to read and write. Her co-authored volume, Coaching Conversations was published in 2007 by Teachers College Press.
The lines of inquiry that I am pursuing as an associate professor at Ohio State have their roots in my early professional career. As a teacher, I began to investigate questions related to struggling readers. I knew they could make progress, but could they catch up with their peers? How could I provide the instruction that would lead to accelerated progress?" These questions led me to my Ph.D. program and the two intersecting lines of inquiry that have been the focus of my academic work: scaffolding literacy learning for children having great difficulty learning to read and the professional development of literacy teachers. From this background of teaching experiences and early research, I developed several research questions related to identifying and describing critical features of expert literacy instruction. Specifically, I have investigated the role of language in scaffolding (or lifting) the literacy learning of children having difficulty learning to read. The following questions have guided this inquiry:
My research has led me to realize that in order to make a difference for struggling readers, we need to intervene as early as first grade, as soon as it becomes apparent that the child's trajectory of progress is off course. My review of the literature also led me to conclude that in order to catch up with their peers, children having great difficulty learning to read and write need to be taught by specially trained literacy teachers in a one-to-one setting. One of my major accomplishments thus far from this line of inquiry has been to develop a way to categorize teacher talk in terms of its function (to demonstrate, to direct, to question, to praise, to tell, or to confirm). I developed this tool as a result of my dissertation research for which I received a national award for outstanding student research from the National Reading Conference. We can not investigate effective instruction without inquiring into teachers' thinking and learning and this understanding leads to my second line of inquiry: the nature of effective professional development. My research in this area has been guided by the following research questions:
I have conducted 16 case studies on effective literacy tutoring. These case studies involve eight Reading Recovery teachers; five in Ohio and three in Auckland, New Zealand and 16 first grade students. My goal is to advance a theory of scaffolding literacy learning based on these case studies that can be tested in an empirically designed study.
The main goal of my professional activities has been to make a difference in the literacy lives of young children having great difficulty learning to read and write. Why is this important? For one, Juel (1988) showed with her longitudinal research that the children in her study who fell behind in first grade had about an 88% chance of still being behind in fourth grade, while average students had a 12% chance of struggling with reading later on. Through my research, publications, teaching, consultation, conference presentations, I have been working with teachers or literacy coaches (called teacher leaders) who all work directly with students, to make a difference to teaching and learning.
National Reading Conference's Outstanding Student Research Award, 1999
Reading Recovery Trainer Fellowship
Amount: $7,500 NZD
June 2002 - August 2002
This award was given to carry out research, "Scaffolding Reading Performance in Reading Recovery Lessons", in Auckland, New Zealand for which I was the principal investigator.
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