Assessment of Reading and Writing Difficulties

Marjorie Y. Lipson is professor emerita at the University of Vermont. Prior to receiving her doctorate at the University of Michigan, she taught elementary school in a Spanish-English bilingual setting in the Midwest and for several years in Washington, D.C. Her scholarship has focused on reading comprehension, reading difficulties, and factors influencing literacy success. She is still involved with the Vermont Reads Institute, a consortium of research and development projects focused on improving literacy achievement in grades K-12.



Professor Lipson's collaborations with dozens of schools and school districts have had a significant impact over the past decade. She is the author of Teacher Reading Beyond the Primary Grades (2007) and coeditor, with Karen Wixson, of Successful Approaches to RTI (IRA, 2010). She has published articles in many journals including The Reading Teacher, Language Arts, Reading Research Quarterly, and The Elementary School Journal. She has served on editorial boards for journals such as Language Arts, and the Journal of Literacy Research; has been a member of the board of directors of the National Reading Conference and an active member of the International Reading Association for 25 years. She has also been active in international work, having spent time working with teachers in both Ghana and Tanzania and helping to inform literacy practices in the Republic of Georgia.





Karen K. Wixson is Professor and Dean of the School of Education at University of North Carolina Greensboro. Previously she was Professor of Education at the University of Michigan where she served as Dean from 1998-2005. Prior to receiving her doctorate in reading education at Syracuse University, she worked as both a remedial reading specialist and a learning disabilities teacher. Dr. Wixson has published widely in the areas of literacy curriculum, instruction, and assessment in books including Successful Approaches to RTI, which she co-edited for the International Reading Association (IRA) with Dr. Lipson, and other publications such as Reading Research Quarterly, The Reading Teacher, Elementary School Journal, Review of Research in Education, and the Handbook of Reading Research. She has been a long-time consultant to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading tests, and served as a member of the extended work for the Common Core ELA standards. She has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Literacy Research Association (formerly the National Research Conference) and IRA and, with Dr. Lipson, as Co-chair of the IRA Commission on RTI.