Strategies for Reading Assessment and Instruction

D. Ray Reutzel is currently the Emma Eccles Jones Endowed Chair and Distinguished Professor of Early Childhood Education and Director of the Emma Eccles Jones Center for Early Childhood Education at Utah State University. Ray regularly works with teachers and children in local public schools and in the Edith Bowen School on the Utah State University campus. He is a former Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Southern Utah University; Associate Dean of Teacher Education in the David O. McKay School of Education; and former Chair of the Department of Elementary Education at Brigham Young University. While at BYU, he was the recipient of the 1992 Karl G. Maeser Distinguished Research Professor Award. Several years ago, he took a leave from his university faculty position to return to full-time, first-grade classroom teaching in Sage Creek Elementary School to pilot comprehensive balanced reading practices. Ray has taught in Kindergarten, 1st grade, 3rd grade, and 6th grade.

Dr. Reutzel is the author of more than 130 articles, books, book chapters, and monographs. Ray has published in Reading Research Quarterly, Journal of Reading Behavior, Journal of Literacy Research, Journal of Educational Research, Reading Psychology, Reading and Writing Quarterly, Reading Research and Instruction, Language Arts, Journal of Reading, and The Reading Teacher, Instructor, among others. He is the past Editor of Reading Research and Instruction, and co-author of the best selling college textbook Teaching Children to Read: Putting the Pieces Together, 3rd Edition, and Balanced Reading Strategies and Practices: Assessing and Assisting Readers with Special Needs, both published by Merrill/Prentice Hall. He is or has been a reviewer for The Reading Teacher, Reading Research Quarterly, Reading Psychology, Reading Research and Instruction, and a past reviewer for The Journal of Reading Behavior, Journal of Literacy Research, and The Elementary School Journal. He is also an author of Scholastic Incorporated's Literacy Place 1996 & 2000 (R) school reading program. Dr. Reutzel received the A.B. Herr Award for Outstanding Research and Published Contributions to Reading Education from the College Reading Association in 1999. Dr. Reutzel was recently appointed with his colleague, Judith P. Mitchell, as editor of the International Reading Association's elementary section journal-The Reading Teacher.

Dr. Robert B. Cooter, Jr. is Professor of Reading & Urban Literacy Education and Director of the national Center for Urban Literacy at The University of Texas at Arlington. Dr. Cooter teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in reading, literacy, and in the assessment and correction of reading difficulties. He is particularly interested in constructing effective comprehensive literacy programs for city kids in grades K-12.

Dr. Cooter is perhaps best known for his recent service as the first "Reading Czar" (or Associate Superintendent for Reading/Language Arts) for the Dallas (Texas) Independent School District. Bob engineered the District's highly acclaimed Dallas Reading Plan, a collaborative project supported by Dallas area business and community enterprises, which is being accomplished through the training of approximately 5,000 teachers in "comprehensive literacy instruction."

In March of 1998, Cooter was recognized as a "Texas State Champion for Reading" by then-Governor George W. Bush and Texas First Lady Laura Bush as a result of the many successes of the Dallas Reading Plan initiative.

Cooter has worked with teachers and school district leaders around the nation. He has taught grades 1, 3, 4, 7, 11, and 12 in the public schools, and also served as a Title I reading specialist.

In addition to his best-selling text Teaching Children to Read, 3rd Edition (Merrill/ Prentice Hall, 2000), which is currently used at over 200 universities and colleges to prepare elementary teachers, Cooter has also authored or co-authored four other professional books which include The Flynt/Cooter Reading Inventory for the Classroom (Merrill/Prentice Hall, 2001), Teaching Reading in the Content Areas (Wiley, 1996), and The Flynt/Cooter English-Espanol Reading Inventory (Merrill/Prentice Hall, 1999). Bob has just completed a new book titled Perspectives on Rescuing Urban Literacy Education: Spies, Saboteurs & Saints (Erlbaum, 2003), and is working on three other new books dealing with reading assessment, and the teaching of the language arts. He has had over 50 articles on reading assessment and education published in such journals as The Reading Teacher, Journal of Reading, Language Arts, and the Journal of Educational Research.

A native of Nashville, Tennessee, Bob enjoys fiction writing, houseboating, and riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle into schools and performing Southern folktales as "Easy Reader." He lives in Arlington, Texas, with his wife, Kathy, a Special Education professor and Director of Laboratory Schools at Texas Christian University. Bob is the proud father of five children and three stepchildren, has six grandchildren, and is owned by a hound dog of unknown breed and questionable utility.