printer-friendlySpeaker Bios and Session Descriptions
Alfred Tatum
Assistant Professor, Literacy Education
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, Illinois
Before joining NIU’s faculty, Alfred Tatum was an assistant professor of reading in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Maryland. He began his career as an eighth-grade teacher on the south side of Chicago. Dr. Tatum has provided professional development support in schools across the nation, and has published in several journals including The Reading Teacher, the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, the Illinois Reading Council Journal, the Journal of College Reading and Learning, and Principal Leadership. His most recent book is Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males: Closing the Achievement Gap (Stenhouse, 2005). His research interests are adolescent literacy, teacher professional development, and the literacy development of African American males.
Session Description
Dr. Tatum will offer a framework for addressing the literacy needs of all students. Attention will be given to theoretical, instructional, and professional development strands for closing the achievement gap. Implications for classroom instruction and teacher professional development will be offered.
Beverly Fine
Education Consultant
Illinois Resource Center
Des Plaines, Illinois
Beverly Fine taught ESL and French for 20 years both in the United States and abroad. Upon moving to Illinois in 1992, she served as Vice President of Language Odyssey, a private foundation providing French and Spanish programs to elementary schools. She was also a consultant with the Midwest Multifunctional Resource Center, providing services to school districts serving language minority children throughout the Midwest. Ms. Fine has a Master’s in Educational Leadership from Northwestern Illinois University and has participated in several study abroad programs. Her specialties at the Illinois Resource Center are ESL, methodology, cross-cultural education and diversity training.
Session Description
In this interactive keynote session, participants will examine the layers and dimensions of culture and discuss how we can teach literacy through students' lives. We will also explore the phenomenon of multiple group membership and how this affects our own lives as well as our students' lives.
Camille Blachowicz
Professor of Education & Director of the Reading Center
National-Louis University
Chicago, Illinois
In her long career as an educator, Camille Blachowicz has been a classroom teacher, team leader and reading specialist as well as a university educator and staff developer. Her research in vocabulary and comprehension instruction has been supported by grants from the Spencer Foundation, the Fulbright Council and the International Reading Association. Dr. Blachowicz's many articles have been published in journals ranging from Reading Teacher to Reading Research Quarterly. As a staff developer, she is a frequent speaker at national, local and international conferences and at meetings of the International Reading Association where she is a member of the publication committee. Dr. Blachowicz has also been named Outstanding Teacher Educator in Reading by the International Reading Association.
Currently, along with her teaching and writing, Dr. Blachowicz is co-director of the project to design the Illinois Snapshot of Early Literacy, a K-1 -2 assessment in English and in Spanish. She also directs the Literacy Partners (Advanced Reading Development Demonstration Project) which is a partnership between The Chicago Community Trust, the Chicago Public Schools and the Reading Center of National College of Education of National-Louis University. Dr. Blachowicz also is active in advocacy for public libraries as a former trustee and board member of Friends of the Library.
Session Description
In this session, Dr. Blachowicz will present an overview of some of the important research-based issues in vocabulary instruction and will share her current work on vocabulary for grades 3-8. A variety of strategies will be shared along with handouts, references and web sites.
Cathy Toll, Ph.D., Founder and Lead Consultant
Toll and Associates
Normal, Illinois
Cathy Toll is one of the country’s foremost experts on literacy coaching and the author of The Literacy Coach’s Survival Guide: Essential Questions and Practical Answers, published by the International Reading Association. In addition to serving as a literacy coach and coach of coaches, Dr. Toll has been a teacher at all grade levels, curriculum coordinator, reading specialist, university faculty member, and school principal.
Session Description
Literacy coaching has become the preferred method for providing job-embedded professional development in schools PK-12. However, effective literacy coaching requires consideration of questions such as, Coaching for what purpose? In what manner? For what outcome? This presentation will provide an overview of purposes for literacy coaching, roles played by literacy coaches, and coaching formats which support those purposes and roles. Participants can use this information in planning for effective literacy coaching in their schools.
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Michael C. McKenna, Chaired Professor
Curry School of Education, University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
Michael McKenna has authored, coauthored, or edited 12 books and more than 80 articles, chapters, and technical reports on a range of literacy topics. His books include The Literacy Coach's Handbook, Assessment for Reading Instruction, Help for Struggling Readers, Teaching through Text, Issues and Trends in Literacy Education, and others. His research has been sponsored by the National Reading Research Center (NRRC) and the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement (CIERA). He is the winner of NRC’s Edward Fry Book Award and ALA’s Award for Outstanding Academic Books. He serves on the editorial board of Reading Research Quarterly, and his articles have appeared in that journal as well as the Journal of Educational Psychology, Educational Researcher, The Reading Teacher, and others. He has coedited themed issues of the Peabody Journal of Education and Reading and Writing Quarterly. His research interests include comprehension in content settings, reading attitudes, technology applications, and beginning reading.
Session Description
This session will explore major issues in comprehension assessment, both old and emerging. Various approaches to assessment will be contrasted and critiqued, with a particular focus on the upper grades. Practical suggestions will be offered to teachers faced with the dilemma of determining how well their students comprehend in order to plan instruction that meets their needs.
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Nancy Tolson
Assistant Professor, Illinois State University
Bloomington, Illinois
Nancy D. Tolson is a proud product of the Detroit Board of Education. She received her BA from Madonna University in Livonia, Michigan. Ten years later she entered graduate school at the University of Iowa where she graduated with a MA from African World Studies and a Ph.D. from the College of Education, Curriculum
- and Instruction. Dr. Tolson specializes in Black literature (children and adult), African /African American folklore, storytelling and multicultural children's literature. She teaches Black and Children's Literature, Storytelling and Women's Studies courses at Illinois State University, Department of English. Her academic and creative pieces can be found in various journals and books. She has been a Fulbright Fellow spending a year as a research/lecturer in Cape Coast, Ghana. Dr. Tolson was recently awarded Illinois State University's Strand Diversity Award.
Session Description
By cracking open the proverbial kaleidoscope, multicultural literature for children can be a benefit for the growth, critical thinking skills, and mental development for children.
Rebecca McCabe
Illinois State Board of Education
Springfield, Illinois
Rebecca McCabe was a teacher at Leal Elementary School in Urbana for 14 years before becoming principal, and a principal for 6 additional years, including being named principal of the year in 2004. She now works for the Illinois State Board of Education as Student Assessment administrator.
Session Description
Focusing on state assessment in Illinois, Dr. McCabe will provide an overview of a number of issues and concerns that face teachers as they work to enhance instruction and meet demands for accountability.
Katherine Stahl
Assistant Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, Illinois
Katherine Stahl is interested in the effective instruction of reading in the elementary years. From 1976 until 2002, she was a public school classroom teacher. Today, the questions that she researches stem from those experiences and from current classroom observations. She views research as a means of improving instruction. Therefore, she sees herself not only as a researcher, but also as a translator of research into practice.
Dr. Stahl’s primary research interests are reading acquisition and reading comprehension. She recently completed a five year study of reading fluency and is currently involved in a federally funded grant project investigating comprehension instruction and development. Her articles have been published in the Reading Teacher and Reading Research Quarterly.
Session Description
This session explores a variety of discussion formats that research has demonstrated lead to high levels of text comprehension by students. Dr. Stahl will share practical ideas for successfully implementing productive classroom conversations.
Bonnie Armbruster
Professor, Curriculum & Instruction
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, Illinois
Bonnie Armbruster is a nationally known reading expert and a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the College of Education at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. A former Senior Scientist at the Center for the Study of Reading at the University of Illinois, Dr. Armbruster has published numerous articles on reading and studying in the content areas. She advises Prentice Hall authors and editors on content-area reading issues. Her research interests are content area reading and writing, including both instruction and materials. As a result of her association with the UIUC America Reads Program, she is also interested in research on tutoring literacy.
Session Description
This session focuses on two research-based reading comprehension strategies--answering questions and generating questions. A critical part of teaching, learning, and evaluation, these strategies are particularly challenging for struggling readers. The session will explore some of the problems for readers and offer practical suggestions for teachers.
Linda Mason
Assistant Professor, Special Education
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, Illinois
Linda Mason’s line of research has developed from the work of leading scholars in self-regulation and strategy instruction as it applies to literacy instruction for elementary students with and without disabilities. As project director for the Center for Accelerating Student Learning (2000-2002) she conducted research in teaching self-regulated writing strategies to urban students who struggle with learning. In concurrence with this research she has investigated the effects of teaching a self-regulated strategy for expository text reading comprehension to urban elementary students who struggled with reading. Her interests for future research include examining the effectiveness of strategy and self-regulation instruction as an approach for preventing failure in reading and writing and as an instructional model for teaching reading comprehension and writing across context areas in inclusive classrooms.
Session Description
Students are often asked to respond to reading by writing about what has been understood and learned. This session will focus on instructional procedures for teaching self-regulated writing strategies to students who are unable to produce effective written responses.
Janet Gaffney
Associate Professor, Special Education
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Janet Gaffney is committed to the development of effective ways to teach reading and writing to children with learning difficulties. Her goal is to prevent young children from needing the long-term care of special education professionals. As a University Trainer in Reading Recovery, Dr. Gaffney coordinated the program in Illinois and surrounding states, prepared Teacher Leaders for school districts, and collected data on every child served in the program from 1987-1996. Her current projects include: (a) research on the effectiveness of volunteers in helping young children in reading and writing, (b) research on the use of Shared Book procedures in learning to read Chinese and (c) the development and evaluation of a "High-Impact Late Intervention" for older students with ongoing challenges with reading and writing.
Session Description
We will explore ways to stretch our current teaching repertoires through reflection that challenges our assumptions about teaching and learning and supports our development of expertise in literacy teaching through collective problem solving.
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Mary Montavon
Assistant Professor, Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, Illinois
Mary Veronica Montavon was born in Washington, D. C. She graduated from Mundelein College in Chicago in 1971 with a degree in Spanish. She received a Masters in Accountancy from Southern Illinois University in 1985 and a PH. D. from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in 2003. She has taught in private schools in Chicago and Guatemala City and in public schools in rural southern Illinois. She coordinated and directed the Migrant Education and Bilingual Education programs in one rural district for more than a decade. For the past two years, Dr. Montavon has taught Reading in the Content Areas in the teacher education program at Southeast Missouri State University. This fall she begins teaching ESL and Bilingual courses at Southern Illinois University. Her scholarly interests include second language literacy, family literacy and sociocultural dimensions of literacy.
Evangeline S. Pianfetti
Director, Office of Educational Technology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, Illinois
Evangeline S. Pianfetti (Vanna) is Director of the Office of Educational Technology at the University of Illinois' College of Education in Urbana-Champaign. She is also a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology. Her research interests include visual literacy, technology integration in the P-12 curriculum, and professional development in technology for P-12 and higher education faculty. Vanna is a Smithsonian Laureate for classroom innovation in technology and a Gold Award winner in the ThinkQuest for Tomorrow's Teachers competition for a technology enriched curriculum that she designed with teachers from Urbana Middle School in Urbana, Illinois.
Nancy Hertzog
Associate Professor, Department of Special Education
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, Illinois
Dr. Nancy Hertzog is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education. Dr. Hertzog, has an extensive background in gifted education and expertise on differentiation of instruction and curriculum development. She directs University Primary School, which is an inclusive early childhood setting that serves children from preschool through first grade with a diverse multi-cultural staff and student population. Dr. Hertzog has extensive experience training teachers in the project approach and has written Web-based curricular guides that detail project investigations of preschool, kindergarten, and first grade students that have won national recognition from the National Association for Gifted Children (www.ed.uiuc.edu/ups/curriculum2002/index.html).
Dr. Hertzog’s research focuses on teachers' implementation of the Project Approach in classrooms with both high-achieving and low-achieving children and with predominantly low income and African-American families. Dr. Hertzog teaches methods courses in differentiating the curriculum for children with diverse needs and abilities, specifically geared toward general educators at the elementary level. Her primary area of interest relates to ways that teachers engage and challenge all students. She has published in the Journal of Curriculum Studies, Gifted Child Quarterly, Journal for the Education of the Gifted, Roeper Review, Teaching Exceptional Children, Early Childhood Research and Practice, and Young Exceptional Children.