Timothy Shanahan

Timothy Shanahan, the presenter for Developing Early Literacy: The Report of the National Early Literacy Panel, is Professor of Urban Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he is Director of the UIC Center for Literacy. In 2001-2002, he was director of reading for the Chicago Public Schools, serving 437,000 children. He is author or editor of approximately 200 publications including the books, Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners and Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Literacy. His research emphasizes reading-writing relationships, reading assessment, and improving reading achievement. Professor Shanahan is past president of the International Reading Association, the world’s largest professional organization devoted to literacy education. In 2006, he received a presidential appointment to serve on the Advisory Board of the National Institute for Literacy, and he is on the Advisory Boards of the National Center for Family Literacy and Reach Out and Read. He was a member of the National Reading Panel, convened by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the request of Congress to evaluate research on successful methods for teaching reading. He has chaired two other influential federal research review panels whose work has been used by many states as the basis of educational policies and programs: the National Literacy Panel for English Minority Children and Youth, and the National Early Literacy Panel (making him the only scholar to serve on all three national literacy research panels). In 2009, he was selected as researcher of the year at the University of Illinois at Chicago (in social sciences and the humanities). His research and testimony have been cited in federal case law (Memisovski v. Maram, No. 92 C 1982) in 2004, a case lauded by the American Academy of Pediatrics as “an enormous victory” for children’s health care. He was inducted to the Reading Hall of Fame in 2007, and he is a former first-grade teacher.