Each year, one of the highlights of the IRA Annual Convention is the presentation of awards honoring outstanding contributions relating to many aspects of reading education: children’s literature, research, media coverage of reading-related issues, teaching, and service to the profession.
An overview of this year’s award winners appears here. Watch for further coverage relating to some of these awards in future issues of Reading Today.
The IRA Children’s Book Awards recognize new authors of both nonfiction and fiction.
Primary nonfiction: This $1,000 award went to Bill Wise of Gorham, Maine, for his first picture book, Louis Sockalexis: Native American Baseball Pioneer, illustrated by Bill Farnsworth and published by Lee & Low Books. While growing up in Maine, Wise heard many stories about Sockalexis, a Native American of the Penobscot tribe who played major league baseball for the Cleveland Spiders from 1897–1899. Years later, after further research, Wise was inspired to write about Sockalexis’s great courage and passion for baseball. Wise is currently an eighth-grade teacher.
Primary fiction: This $1,000 award went to Lita Judge of Peterborough, New Hampshire, for her first picture book, One Thousand Tracings: Healing the Wounds of World War II, published by Hyperion Books for Children. One Thousand Tracings tells the story of how, after World War II, Judge’s grandparents organized a relief effort from their Midwest farm and sent care packages of food, clothing, and shoes to many desperate people in Europe. Judge was born in Alaska and grew up in remote areas of the West. She spent summers living with her grandparents, well-known ornithologists who started the movement described in the book.
Intermediate nonfiction: Loree Griffin Burns received this $1,000 award for Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion, published by Houghton Mifflin. Burns, who has a doctorate in biochemistry, was attracted to Houghton Mifflin’s Scientists in the Field series and the way in which it makes science exciting and accessible to children. She said her own manuscript, much like a piece of jetsam tossed into the sea, came in through the slush pile at Houghton Mifflin.
Intermediate fiction: Constance Leeds of Boston, Massachusetts, was honored with a $1,000 prize for her first book, The Silver Cup, published by Viking. Set in the year 1095, the book tells the story of Anna, a 15-year-old girl who risks everything to rescue Leah, an orphaned Jewish girl whose only connection to her family is a silver cup. Leeds, a retired lawyer, says when her three children were young, the family lived on a farm with an ill-tempered pig, a pain-in-the-neck goat, and a bunch of wonderful, egg-laying chickens (including a rooster just like Toes in The Silver Cup).
Young adult nonfiction: Educator, poet, and peace activist Ibtisam Barakat received this $1,000 award for her book Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book chronicles the author’s experiences growing up in Ramallah, West Bank, during the Six-Day War of June 1967 and after. Barakat, who now lives in the United States, has taught language ethics courses at Stephens College, and is the founder of Write Your Life seminars, which she has conducted in several venues around the world. Her work focuses on healing social injustices and the hurts of wars, especially those involving young people.
Young adult fiction: Laura Resau was honored with a $1,000 prize for her second book, Red Glass, published by Delacorte Press. Like her debut book, What the Moon Saw, Red Glass is set in rural Mexico. Resau lived in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca, Mexico, for two years as an English teacher and anthropologist. She now lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, where she writes and teaches English as a Second Language. Resau is donating a portion of her royalties to indigenous rights organizations in Latin America. Red Glass was named a School Library Journal Best Book of 2007.
Paul A. Witty Short Story Award: Marianne Zebrowski of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, received this $1,000 award, which recognizes an outstanding short story, originally published in a children’s periodical. Her short story, "Ten Thousand Krathongs," inspired by the Festival of the Floating Lanterns in Thailand, was published in Spider magazine. At the festival, people launch lighted candles along rivers and canals in tiny banana-leaf boats so the past year’s problems can sail away and be replaced with wishes for the new year. As she watched, she wondered what sorts of wishes a child might make.
The IRA Broadcast Media Awards for Television salute programs that are marketed to the general public and focus on reading and literacy in informational, critical, or motivational ways, and promote reading as a lifetime habit.
Children’s category: Judith Stoia, Brigid Sullivan, Beth Kirsch, Philippa Hall, Christopher Cerf, Norman Stiles, Diane Hartman, Rick Klein, Scott Colwell, Carol Klein, and Chris Cardillo received this award for "Spicy Hot Colors & Yesterday I Had the Blues," which originally aired on Between the Lions on September 24, 2007. Judith Stoia and Brigid Sullivan serve as the executive producers of Between the Lions. Christopher Cerf and Norman Stiles are executive producers representing Sirius Thinking. Beth Kirsch is the series producer. Carol Klein is the studio producer. Philippa Hall, Diane Hartman, and Rick Klein are coordinating producers. Scott Colwell is editor, and Chris Cardillo is coordinating producer for music and audio.
Adult category: Nicole D. Smith won this award for her news feature "Judge Tackles Poverty," which also earned a 2007 Bronze Telly Award. Smith is the associate editor of Atlanta Woman magazine. She previously worked at CNN in Atlanta, where she produced news stories that consistently ranked number 1 with visitors to both CNN.com and Yahoo.com. Smith successfully sought and reported unique tales of extraordinary people in the national and global communities. Smith graduated cum laude from the University of Georgia with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.
Albert J. Harris Award: Cynthia E. Coburn was the recipient of this $1,000 award, which honors an outstanding contribution on the topics of reading disabilities and the prevention, assessment, or instruction of children or adults experiencing difficulty learning to read. Coburn, an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Education, University of California at Berkeley, was recognized for her research that brings the tools of organizational sociology to the study of the relationship between instructional policy and teachers’ classroom practices in urban schools. She holds a doctoral degree in education from Stanford University and won honors for her dissertation. She also won the Palmer O. Johnson Award in 2006 for an outstanding article in an American Educational Research Association (AERA) journal.
Dina Feitelson Research Award: This $1,000 award, which recognizes exemplary published work in a scholarly journal on studies investigating literacy acquisition by beginning readers, went to Pia Rebello Britto, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn and Terri M. Griffin. Britto is an associate research scientist at the Yale Child Study Center, faculty member at the Zigler Center for Social Policy, and lecturer at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University. Brooks-Gunn is the Virginia and Leonard Marx professor of child development and education at Teachers College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. She co-directs the National Center for Children and Families at Teachers College and the Institute for Child and Family Policy at Columbia University. Griffin is an adjunct professor at Elms College in Chicopee, Massachusetts, where she teaches linguistics in the Department of Communication Science and Disorders.
Jeanne S. Chall Research Fellowship: Michael Kieffer was the recipient of this $6,000 fellowship, which is designed to encourage and support reading research by promising scholars. He was recognized for his research designed to inform policy and instructional practice to serve the needs of adolescent students, especially English language learners (ELLs) in urban settings. Kieffer is an advanced doctoral student in Language and Literacy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and his dissertation research combines a longitudinal study of ELLs’ vocabulary knowledge and word learning strategies with a quasi-experimental evaluation of an academic language intervention in several urban middle schools.
Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award: Karen E. Wohlwend was honored with a $1,000 prize for her doctoral dissertation, "Kindergarten as Nexus of Practice: A Mediated Discourse Analysis of Reading, Writing, Play, and Design in an Early Literacy Apprenticeship." It presents findings from a three-year ethnographic study of literacy play in early childhood classrooms, featuring mediated discourse analysis of children’s interactions with literacy tools, toys, and texts in one kindergarten. Wohlwend’s research and teaching focus on language and early literacy as social practices. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in literacy education at Indiana University and researches collaboratively with teachers in early childhood classrooms in Indiana and Iowa. She received her doctoral degree in language, literacy, and culture from The University of Iowa.
Reading/Literacy Research Fellowship: Jurgen Tijms was the recipient of this $5,000 award, which recognizes a researcher living outside the United States or Canada who has exhibited exceptional promise in reading research. Tijms directs the research department of the IWAL centre for dyslexia and is affiliated with the department of psychology at the University of Amsterdam. His current research interests are the cognitive processes involved in reading acquisition and reading disabilities as well as intervention in dyslexia. The topic of his doctoral research was the treatment of dyslexia, and he received his doctorate in psychology from the University of Amsterdam in 2005.
IRA Maryann Manning Outstanding Volunteer Service Award: This award is presented annually to four dedicated volunteers who have made a lifelong commitment to a local, state, or provincial council within North America and to one dedicated volunteer who has made such a commitment to a local or regional council or national affiliate outside of North America.
Andrea F. Rosenblatt of Miami, Florida, has been an associate professor in the Reading and Literacy Program at Barry University in Florida for the past 11 years, teaching undergraduate and graduate reading courses. Formerly, she spent 32 years in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools as a classroom teacher, a reading resource teacher, a specific learning disabilities teacher, and an elementary school principal. She has been on the board of the Dade Reading Council since 1980 and was its president in 1984-1985. She has been on the board of the Florida Reading Association since 1989 and has served in many positions, including president.
Vickie Manus of Clarksville, Tennessee, began teaching in the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System in 1981 and is currently a reading teacher at Kenwood Elementary School. In 2002, she was named Teacher of the Year for the Clarksville-Montgomery County Schools. She has long been a member of IRA, the Tennessee Reading Association, and the Mid-Cumberland Reading Council. At the state level, she has served in many leadership capacities, including president. In 2006, she received the Tennessee Reading Association Literacy Award. She is currently a deputy state coordinator for Middle Tennessee and co-chair of the 2008 IRA Southeast Regional Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.
Pamela A. Nelson of DeKalb, Illinois, teaches courses in children’s literature and language arts at Northern Illinois University in the Department of Literacy Education. She has served as president of the Northern Illinois Reading Council and is a past president of the Illinois Reading Council. She has taught in Kansas, Missouri, and Arizona. After earning her doctorate, Nelson taught at Dominican University in Illinois where she was instrumental in developing the Hephzibah Reading Academy that addressed the literacy needs of residential foster children. At Northern Illinois University, she has been involved in a year-long reading promotion project with a Rockford elementary school that involves e-mails between undergraduate student teachers and young boys.
Dennis Hickey of Maupin, Oregon, began his nearly 34-year career in the Albany school district where he taught more than 18 years. He served on many district and state committees and was honored as Outstanding Teacher of the Year in 1987. Hickey started his administrative career in 1991 as an elementary school principal in the Falls City School District, later becoming its superintendent. He also served as superintendent of the Yamhill-Carlton School District, and for the last four years he has been superintendent of the South Wasco County School District. He has been a member of the Mid-Valley Reading Council and International Reading Association since the mid-1980s. He has served several leadership roles for the Oregon Reading Association, including president. Hickey has chaired or co-chaired two West Regional IRA Conferences, and he will again do so for the next IRA regional in Portland in 2010.
Heather I. Bell of Takapuna, Auckland, New Zealand, is an education evaluator for the New Zealand Education Review Office. She has been a teacher, deputy principal, principal, and school inspector. She has been an active life member of her local council, serving as secretary, president, and seminars convener. She has been a National Affiliate Board member, a coordinator of the New Zealand Reading Association leadership workshops, a convener of national and South Pacific Conferences, as well as a co-editor of the New Zealand Reading Association journal from 1989 to 1995. She received the organization’s Citation of Merit in 1992. Bell has served as a member or chair of several IRA committees and has taken a leadership role in various special interest groups. She also was the local arrangements chair for the 18th World Congress in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2000.
Special Service Award: Jill Lewis was the recipient of this award, which honors unusual and distinguished service to the International Reading Association. Lewis, a professor of literacy education at New Jersey City University, served as a member of IRA’s Board of Directors from 2004–2007 and as chair of IRA’s Government Relations Committee from 2000–2002. She currently volunteers as an IRA international education consultant for a secondary school literacy project in Macedonia and was a volunteer for the Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking project. She is second vice president for the LEADER Special Interest Group and edits its newsletter. She also serves on the Editorial Board for IRA’s Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy.
Lewis has served on numerous IRA committees and written many articles on adolescent literacy, professional development, advocacy, and content area reading. She is lead author or editor of several books published by IRA including Adolescent Literacy Instruction: Policies and Promising Practices and Educators on the Frontline: Advocacy Strategies for Your Classroom, Your School, and Your Profession. She has spoken at numerous IRA conferences at all levels and has been a board member of the New Jersey Reading Association.
William S. Gray Citation of Merit: Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebert was the recipient of this award, which honors a nationally or internationally known person for outstanding contributions to the field of reading. Hiebert currently is adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley, and has worked in the field of early reading acquisition for 40 years. Her research addresses ways of supporting students who depend on schools to become literate. In particular, her interests lie in how fluency, vocabulary, and knowledge can be fostered through appropriate texts.
Hiebert’s research has been published in numerous scholarly journals. She also has authored or edited nine books. Through documents such as the 1985 publication Becoming a Nation of Readers for the Center for the Study of Reading and the 1999 publication Every Child a Reader for the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement, she has contributed to making research accessible to educators. Currently, she is a principal investigator in the National Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners. Hiebert’s model of accessible texts for beginning and struggling readers–TExT–has been used to develop several reading programs that are widely used in schools.
Arbuthnot Award: James Blasingame, Jr., was the recipient of this $1,000 award, which recognizes an outstanding college or university teacher of children’s and young adult literature. Blasingame, an associate professor of English at Arizona State University, is co-editor of The ALAN Review and creates the Books for Adolescents pages of the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. He is the author of Books That Don’t Bore ’Em: Young Adult Literature for Today’s Generation, published by Scholastic; a book about Gary Paulsen for the Teen Reads series published by Greenwood Press; Teaching Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools, published by Pearson, Prentice-Hall; and They Rhymed with Their Boots On: A Teachers’ Guide to Cowboy Poetry, published by The Writing Conference, Inc. Blasingame has published more than 60 interviews with authors of adolescent literature and more than 100 book reviews.
Eleanor M. Johnson Award: Sarah Lichtel was the winner of this $1,000 award, which recognizes an outstanding elementary classroom teacher of reading and language arts. Lichtel is a third-grade teacher at Stonehouse Elementary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She received her National Board Certification in December 2006 and has more than 10 years of teaching experience. She is dedicated to instilling a love of reading in her students and promoting lifelong literacy. Her husband, Matt, also is an elementary school teacher, and they currently live in Williamsburg, Virginia.
IRA John Chorlton Manning Public School Service Award: Karen A. Smith was the recipient of this $10,000 award, which honors professionals who pursue integrating teacher preparation, professional development, and related research with public schools, classrooms, teachers, and students, and acknowledges the importance of improving public education. Smith is an associate professor of Language and Literacy and director of professional development in the Division of Curriculum & Instruction at Arizona State University. Her research is conducted in collaboration with teachers in urban settings and focuses on literacy teaching and learning, and teacher research. She teaches undergraduate and graduate level courses and speaks and consults widely on literacy development and teaching.
From 2001–2006, Karen served as research column editor for the journal Language Arts. In 2002, she received the Richard Halle Outstanding Middle School Educator Award from the National Council of Teachers of English, and in 2003 she was awarded the Arizona State University College of Education Dean’s Excellent Award for faculty teaching. Among her recent publications is a chapter titled "Enhancing the Literature Experience through Deep Discussions of Characters" in the IRA book What a Character! Character Study as a Guide to Literary Meaning Making in Grades K-8, edited by Nancy Roser and Miriam Martinez.
IRA Presidential Award for Reading and Technology honors educators in grades K-12 who are making an outstanding and innovative contribution to the use of technology in reading education. This year’s grand-prize winner was Carol I. Greig of Eugene, Oregon, for "Podcasting for Struggling Readers." Greig has more than 30 years of classroom experience and decades of work in curriculum and instruction, the integration and development of learning technologies, and early childhood education. She is currently a district trainer and technology coach with the Eugene School District in Oregon. In 2005, Greig began work on a reading intervention called Reading Buddies in response to the needs of under-achieving readers. In 2007, she received the Kay L. Bitters Award for Excellence in Technology Education for PreK-2 for her work with Reading Buddies.
Jerry Johns Outstanding Teacher Educator in Reading Award: Susan Keehn of the University of Texas at San Antonio was the recipient of this $1,000 award, which honors an outstanding college or university teacher of reading methods or reading-related courses. Keehn is a former Texas Teacher of the Year who received her doctorate in language and literacy studies from the University of Texas at Austin. The undergraduate and graduate courses she teaches there are all field-based, either in school settings or at the university’s Reading Place: Plaza de Lectura that serves San Antonio’s inner-city families.
Regie Routman Teacher Recognition Award: This $1,000 award, which honors an outstanding reading and language arts classroom teacher for reflective writing about his or her teaching and learning process, went to Laurie Anne McAdams, a fourth-grade teacher of general education and English language learners at Martha Reid Elementary in the Mansfield Independent School District in Mansfield, Texas. She currently is a doctoral student at Tarleton State University. She has received many honors, including the Gene & Mary Longfellow Outstanding Student Award from the University of Central Florida, the FUTURES First Year Teacher of the Year Award in Florida’s Volusia County Public Schools District, and the first Teacher of the Month award at her current school. She has created many teaching resources to integrate the curriculum and enhance literacy instruction.
Awards honor outstanding contributions to reading. (June 2008). Reading Today, 25(6), 6–8.
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