Timothy Shanahan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he was Founding Director of the UIC Center for Literacy. Previously, he was director of reading for the Chicago Public Schools. He is author/editor of more than 200 publications on literacy education. His research emphasizes the connections between reading and writing, literacy in the disciplines, and improvement of reading achievement.
Tim is past president of the International Literacy Association. He served as a member of the Advisory Board of the National Institute for Literacy under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and he helped lead the National Reading Panel, convened at the request of Congress to evaluate research on the teaching reading, a major influence on reading education. He chaired two other federal research review panels: the National Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children and Youth, and the National Early Literacy Panel, and helped write the Common Core State Standards.
He was inducted to the Reading Hall of Fame in 2007, and is a former first-grade teacher.
Recent articles
Afterschool and Community Programs
Creating Programs for Language Minority Families
Common Core Standards
Does Disciplinary Literacy Have a Place in Elementary School?
Recent blog posts
Shanahan on Literacy
Do Learning Centers and Seatwork Improve Reading Achievement?
Shanahan on Literacy
Is Comprehension Better with Digital Text?
Shanahan on Literacy
What do you think of Guided Reading for secondary school?
Shanahan on Literacy
Is It Really Sensible to Teach Students to Read Like Historians and Scientists?
Shanahan on Literacy
Is There Really a 30 Million Word Gap?
Shanahan on Literacy
Should We Teach with Decodable Text?
Shanahan on Literacy
What Should Morphology Instruction Look Like?
Shanahan on Literacy
Books on Buses and Book in a Bag: Book Access and Reading
Shanahan on Literacy
Synthetic Phonics or Systematic Phonics? What Does Research Really Say?
Shanahan on Literacy
Should We Teach Letter Names?
Shanahan on Literacy
Implementing Higher Literacy Standards or Putting on a Show?
Shanahan on Literacy