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.

In this conversation, Tim talks about his early influences as a teacher, his work in Chicago Public Schools and in the development of the University of Illinois at Chicago Center for Literacy, the groundbreaking impact of the National Reading Panel, and what he sees as work left to do in our profession. 

This podcast is brought to you by Great Minds. We encourage you to take a moment and view their website at https://gm.greatminds.org/trl2021podcast 

Further Reading and Exploration

• Shanahan on Literacy (includes a full listing of relevant resources and publications, Tim’s blog, and presentations)
• National Reading Panel Report (full text)
• National Reading Panel Report: Practical Advice for Teachers 
• National Early Literacy Panel Report
• National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth (executive summary)
• What Constitutes a Science of Reading Instruction? (Reading Research Quarterly; September, 2020)
• The Science of Reading: Making Sense of Research  (Reading Teacher; September/October, 2020)

Tim’s Picks

• Biographies of Abraham Lincoln
• The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution by Gregory Zuckerman