Teaching Children to Read

D. Ray Reutzel is the Emma Eccles Jones Distinguished Professor and Endowed Chair of Early Literacy at Utah State University. He has taught kindergarten, first grade, third grade, and sixth grade. Dr. Reutzel is the author of more than 200 refereed research reports, articles, books, book chapters, and monographs published in The Elementary School Journal, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Reading Research Quarterly, Journal of Literacy Research, Journal of Educational Research, Reading Psychology, Literacy Research and Instruction, Language Arts, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, and The Reading Teacher, among others. He has received more than $8 million in research and professional development funding from private, state, and federal agencies including the Institute of Education Sciences and the U.S. Department of Education.



Dr. Reutzel is the past editor of The Reading Teacher and Literacy Research and Instruction and current Executive Editor of The Journal of Educational Research. He is author or coauthor of several chapters published in the Handbook of Classroom Management, the Handbook of Research on Literacy and Diversity, and the Handbook of Reading Research (Vol. IV), and editor of the Handbook of Research-Based Practice in Early Education published by Guilford Press. Dr. Reutzel received the 1999 A.B. Herr Award from the College Reading Association for outstanding research and published contributions to reading education. Dr. Reutzel was given the John C. Manning Public School Service Award from the International Reading Association in May 2007 for his many years of working in schools with teachers and children. Dr. Reutzel has also served as past president of the College Reading Association/Association for Literacy Educators and Researchers and as a member of the board of directors of the International Reading Association from 2007 to 2010. Dr. Reutzel was inducted as a member of the Reading Hall of Fame in 2011 and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Literacy Researchers Association.



Robert B. Cooter, Jr., currently serves as Ursuline Endowed Professor and Dean of the Annsley Frazier Thornton School of Education at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky. Dr. Cooter served from 2006 to 2011 as editor of The Reading Teacher, the largest circulation literacy education journal worldwide. His research is focused on the improvement of literacy acquisition for children living in poverty. In 2008 Dr. Cooter received the A.B. Herr Award from the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers for contributions to the field of literacy.



Earlier in his career, Dr. Cooter served as an elementary classroom teacher and Title I reading specialist. In public school administration, he served as the first "Reading Czar" (associate superintendent) for the Dallas Independent School District. He was named Texas State Champion for Reading by the governor for development of the acclaimed Dallas Reading Plan for some 3,000 elementary school teachers. Dr. Cooter later designed and served as principal investigator of the Memphis Striving Readers Program, a $16 million middle school literacy research project funded by the U.S. Department of Education. In 2007 Dr. Cooter and colleagues J. Helen Perkins and Kathleen Spencer Cooter were recipients of the Urban Impact Award from the Council of Great City Schools for their work in high-poverty schools.



Dr. Cooter has authored or coauthored over 20 books in reading education and more than 60 journal articles. His books include the bestselling Strategies for Reading Assessment and Instruction (co-authored with D. Ray Reutzel) used at over 200 universities; The Flynt-Cooter Comprehensive Reading Inventory - 2, a norm-referenced classroom reading assessment with English and Spanish versions; and Perspectives on Rescuing Urban Literacy Education: Spies, Saboteurs, and Saints. He is currently working on a new book with his wife and colleague, Professor Kathleen Cooter, entitled Urban Literacy Education: Helping City Kids in Regular and Special Education Classrooms.



Dr. Cooter lives in Prospect, Kentucky, and enjoys family time on their houseboat, Our Last Child, with his bride, grandchildren, and golden retrievers. He sometimes appears in reunion concerts with The George Washington Bridge Band, a Nashville-based rock group he cofounded and toured with during the 1960s and 70s.