Emily Rodgers

Emily Rodgers is a professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning. She is affiliated with the Reading and Literacy in Early and Middle Childhood Area of Study, and the Literacies, Literature, and Learning specialization where she mentors graduate students and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses related to early literacy. Emily studies educational policies and practices that influence the reading development of young students who are having difficulty learning to read and write; lines of inquiry that have their roots in her early career as a classroom teacher, a reading specialist and a special education teacher in Newfoundland, Canada. Her research examines the nature of effective scaffolding in early literacy instruction, effective coaching of teachers, and challenges of reforming, implementing, scaling and sustaining effective literacy intervention practices.

Emily has been co-investigator or principal investigator on funded research that totals over $75 million.  She is currently the co- investigator on a study to develop an effective literacy instruction intervention called HEROES, designed for beginning readers having unexpected difficulties with learning to read. The external evaluation by Litwok et al. (2025) can be found here https://doi.org/10.1080/19345747.2025.2570286.

Emily is pleased to serve two professional organizations which have in turn, served her well over the years:

Chair of American Educational Research Association’s Special Interest Group 11 (Research in Reading and Literacy) https://www.aera.net/SIG011/Research-in-Reading-Literacy-SIG-11

Program Co-chair, Area 11, Research Theory, Methods, and  Practices, Literacy Research Association https://literacyresearchassociation.org/

Emily’s first professional priority is, and always has been, the graduate and undergraduate students whom she advises and teaches at Ohio State. Visit https://u.osu.edu/rodgers.42/ to e-meet Emily. Send an email to rodgers.42@osu.edu to make an appointment.

• PhD, Language Arts, Children's Literature and Reading, The Ohio State University
• MA, Language Arts, Children's Literature and Reading, The Ohio State University
• Additional Qualifications in Reading, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario
• BS. (Special Education), Memorial University (St. John's, Newfoundland)
• BA. (Primary Education), Memorial University (St. John's, Newfoundland)

• Achievement
• Early Childhood Education and Teaching
• Elementary Education and Teaching
• Literacy
  • Early literacy
  • Emergent literacy
  • Reading difficulties
  • Scaffolding literacy learning
• Reading Teacher Education
  • Evidence based practices
• Special Education
• Teacher Education
  • Educational reform
  • Literacy coaching
  • Professional development
  • Supporting teachers to improve instructional practices

I study educational practices that influence the reading development of young students, particularly those students having great difficulty learning to read and write. My work around these educational practices can be expressed as three lines of inquiry:

1. What is the nature of effective scaffolding?
2. What is the nature of effective professional development for teachers who work with beginning readers with reading difficulties?
3. What can be done on a large scale to improve educational practices that affect beginning readers?

Current Appointment

• Professor (Since August 2018) Literacies, Literature, and Learning, (and Reading and Literacy in Early and Middle Childhood),Department of Teaching and Learning, College of Education & Human Ecology, The Ohio State University

Previous Appointments

• Section Head (2021–2025) Literacies, Literature, and Learning, Department of Teaching and LearningCollege of Education & Human Ecology, The Ohio State University
• Associate Professor Reading and Literacy in Early and Middle Childhood, College of Education & Human Ecology, The Ohio State University
• Assistant Professor Reading and Literacy in Early and Middle Childhood, College of Education, The Ohio State University
• Visiting Assistant Professor Language, Literacy and Culture, College of Education, The Ohio State University
• Graduate Research Assistant Language, Literacy and Culture, College of Education, The Ohio State University
• Classroom Teacher, Reading Specialist Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

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 percent chance of struggling with reading later on. Through my research, publications, teaching, consultation, conference presentations, I have been working with teachers or literacy coaches who all work directly with students, to make a difference to teaching and learning.

• National Reading Conference's Outstanding Student Research Award, (1999), The Literacy Research Association.
• Distinguished Community Engagement Award (2017) The Ohio State University

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

• Rodgers, E. & D’Agostino, J.V., (2025). Theoretical foundation and validation of the Record of Decision-Making. Education Sciences.  https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15111483
• Litwok, D., Brown, K., Rodgers, E., & D’Agostino, J. V. (2025). Improving outcomes for struggling readers: Evidence from a randomized trial of HEROES. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness. https://doi.org/10.1080/19345747.2025.2570286
• Rodgers, E., D’Agostino, J.V., Rasinski, T., & Levin, J. R. (2025). Pairing cued text with  readers theatre: Effects on reading prosody and word recognition automaticity. Journal of Research in Reading, 48(2), 153-174. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9817.70002
• Johnson, T., Rodgers, E., & D’Agostino, J. V. (2024). Learning to read: Variability, continuous change and adaptability in children’s use of word-solving strategies. Reading Psychology, 45(2), 105–142. https://doi.org/10.1080/02702711.2023.2253252
• Berenbon, R. F., D’Agostino, J. V., & Rodgers, E. M. (2024). The modifying effects of response style on the criterion-related validity of a curriculum-based measure. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/07342829241262476.
• Rodgers, E., D’Agostino, J.V., Berenbon, R., Johnson, T. & Winkler, C. (2023). Scoring Running  Records: Complexities and affordances. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 23(4), 665- 694
• Rodgers, E., D’Agostino, J.V., Berenbon, R., Mikita, C., Winkler, C. & Wright, M.E. (2022). Teachers' beliefs and their students' progress during professional development. The  Journal of Teacher Education, 73(4). 381-396. https://doi.org/10.1177/00224871221075275
• D’Agostino, J.V., Rodgers, E., & Konstantopoulous, S. (2021). The effects of HEROES on the  achievement levels of beginning readers with individualized education programs. Journal  of Educational Research, 114 (5), 433-444.  https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2021.1965077
• D’Agostino, J.V., Rodgers, E., Winkler, C., Johnson, T. & Berenbon, R. The generalizability of  Running Record accuracy and self-correction scores. (2021). Reading Psychology, 42(2),  111-130. https://doi.org/10.1080/02702711.2021.1880177
• Johnson, T. , Mikita, C., Rodgers, E., D’Agostino, J.V. (2020). Scaffolding self-correction during oral  reading. The Reading Teacher, 73(6), 796-799. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1896

Textbooks

• Tompkins, G., Rodgers, E. & Rodgers, A. (In Progress). Literacy Instruction in the 21st Century.  (9th Ed.). Pearson Education.
• Tompkins, G., Rodgers, E. & Rodgers, A. (2022). Literacy in the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach  (8th Ed.). Pearson Education.
• Tompkins, G., Rodgers, E. (2020) Literacy in the Early Grades: A Successful Start for PreK-4 Readers and Writers (5th Ed.). Pearson Education