Our Team Reading Universe

Meet the people working daily to bring Reading Universe to life with expertise in teaching, instructional design, professional development, and multimedia production. Reading Universe is a service of WETA, the flagship PBS station in Washington, D.C. and the home of national literacy websites Reading Rockets (opens in new window), Colorín Colorado (opens in new window), LD OnLine (opens in new window), and AdLit (opens in new window). Meet our team. Reading is Essential for All People is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving reading proficiency in public school students through teacher training and enrichment. Keys to Literacy's mission is to provide high-quality, engaging, and practical professional development that is aligned to evidence-based literacy instruction.

Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale; the Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (opens in new window); the AFT (opens in new... Reading Universe is an innovative, digital platform that provides educators with evidence-based guidance and tools. First Book, WETA/Reading Rockets, and the Barksdale Reading Institute (BRI) have launched Reading Universe — for teachers, paraprofessionals, and literacy coaches to learn more about evidence-based reading AND writing instruction, and then translate it... Informed by First Book Research & Insights through focus groups, educator surveys, usability testing, and in-depth interviews, Reading Universe has been designed with educators in mind, ensuring the platform’s quality and effectiveness meet their... Reading Universe’s innovative framework delivers on an age-old promise of quality education for all. Its comprehensive research-based approach is guided by the science of reading and embraces the belief that every student, regardless of background, is brimming with potential and the capacity to become a lifelong reader.

WETA, the flagship PBS station in Washington, D.C., is home to ambitious national education websites ReadingRockets.org, ColorinColorado.org, LDOnLine.org, AdLit.org, StartWithABook.org and BrainLine.org. The Barksdale Reading Institute (BRI) was founded by Jim Barksdale to advance literacy in his home state of Mississippi. Thanks in part to BRI’s work bringing evidence-based approaches to reading instruction, Mississippi raised its fourth grade reading scores from last place to the national average. We’re working with exceptional educators around the country as we build our free, media-rich service for professional learning. We’d love to connect with you as well! Katina Johnson is a 25-year veteran teacher in Toledo Public Schools who currently serves as a K-3 intervention assessment teacher.

Ms. Johnson brings her passion for teaching and learning into the classroom with her each day, using her training in research-based strategies to help students blossom into readers. As a member of the Reading Universe cadre, she offers feedback on our resources and advice for making the site engaging and useful. Learn more about the team of educators who advise our work. Carla Stanford was a standout elementary school teacher who, 15 years into her career, came to the hard realization that her training had not been rooted in cognitive research – and that she could... "I kept thinking, ‘Are you kidding me?

I have been teaching reading wrong all this time?'" she says. Ms. Stanford, now the director of instructional design for Reading Universe, shares her story in the hopes of encouraging more teachers to make the change to research-based practices. Meet Max Venia, a second-grade teacher at Riverside Elementary School in Toledo, Ohio, who is learning how to teach reading using the structured literacy approach. Mr. Venia struggled with reading himself as a child and is determined to give his students the support he wishes he had received.

With help from reading coach Carla Stanford, Mr. Venia is bringing science-backed strategies into his classroom. Reading Universe is not a scope and sequence or curriculum for reading and writing instruction. Reading Universe presents the essential reading skills, shows how they’re connected, and explains how you can teach each skill to help all of your students learn how to read and write well. Not every child will need to be explicitly taught every skill as presented; however, every teacher should know how to teach each of the skills presented in a systematic, explicit, and sequential way. Reading Universe is a work in progress!

Our goal is to be a deep, authoritative guide to teaching reading and writing for educators in grades pre-K-6. This year, we're focused primarily on serving teachers and literacy coaches in grades K-2 ... and we're adding new content almost every day. Please check back frequently and you'll find new articles, features, skill explainers, and in-classroom video, all available for free for educators worldwide. We are actively engaged in producing free virtual courses and will provide certificates for all that you complete. Please sign up for our monthly e-newsletter to be notified when we launch our courses.

You can create a free account on Reading Universe by clicking on the person icon at the top right of the site or by clicking here. Thank you for your interest in supporting Reading Universe! You can make a donation here. If you're interested in spreading the word about Reading Universe to your networks, please complete the form below. Meet the educators and experts who contribute to Reading Universe. Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale; the Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (opens in new window); the AFT (opens in new...

Reading Universe is committed to understanding teachers’ needs and meets regularly with a group of exceptional teachers from across the country. Selected through a competitive national process, these skilled, experienced, and passionate teachers serve on our educator cadre. Cadre members have been involved at every stage of Reading Universe's development, and they continue to help us grow by reviewing content, testing the platform, providing feedback on our resources, and offering advice on... Their insights are indispensable and we are grateful for their collaboration and support. Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale; the Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (opens in new window); the AFT (opens in new... Kelly Clouser is a seasoned educator and dedicated advocate for literacy, committed to ensuring that all students have equitable opportunities to become confident, capable readers.

Her career in education spans a wide range of roles, including classroom teacher across multiple grade levels, lead teacher in alternative education, school principal, and most recently the program director for Reading Partners South... Throughout her professional journey, Kelly has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to educational equity and student achievement, with a particular focus on literacy development. She is passionate about creating inclusive, effective learning environments and empowering educators to support diverse learners in building strong reading foundations. Kelly holds a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership from St. Francis University, a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education from Penn State University, and certification in Special Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She is a certified Pre-Kindergarden through Grade 12 principal in both Pennsylvania and South Carolina.

Through her leadership, Kelly continues to champion initiatives that close the literacy gap and expand access to high-quality education. She firmly believes that children are our greatest asset and deserve every opportunity to become thoughtful, engaged contributors to society. Nadine is a financial strategist with more than a decade of experience in public education, holding leadership roles in both a large urban school district and a multi-state charter school network. She views finance as more than numbers on a page—it is a way to ensure that investments truly advance a shared, service-oriented mission. Over the course of her career, she has worked to align financial planning with organizational goals, strengthen operational efficiency, and support long-term sustainability. WETA, the Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book join forces to establish a free, innovative professional development platform that provides educators with evidence-based guidance and tools for how to teach reading and writing

Arlington, VA - WETA, the Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book have launched a prototype of Reading Universe, an online, step-by-step professional development pathway for teachers, paraprofessionals, and reading coaches to learn more about... Just in time to support educators’ preparations for the new school year, the site features an interactive taxonomy of reading skills, lesson plans, in-classroom videos, printable activities, and decodable texts – all for free. Reading Universe distills 50 years of education research in order to strengthen literacy skills across the country. The work of the Barksdale Reading Institute (BRI) in Mississippi serves as its foundation. In January 2000, former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale invested $100 million in his home state to establish BRI with the singular goal of strengthening early literacy skills. Setting the National Assessment of Education Progress for 4th grade reading as its metric, BRI used evidence-based reading instruction to anchor a literacy model that went to scale with the passage of the state’s...

“It is enormously gratifying to know that the lessons we have learned from our success in Mississippi will be made available everywhere through Reading Universe — giving all children the opportunity to learn how... Barksdale. Now, BRI, WETA, and First Book are producing video-rich and interactive reading tools as a free, web-based service for all educators across the country. The launch of the new website through this national partnership signals an important commitment to providing support directly to classroom teachers to enable them to meet the needs of struggling readers, especially in low-income... Our dedicated team of board members, administrative staff members, literacy coaches, and volunteers makes it possible for the Reading Team to fulfill its mission. Funke Akinola began her career working with children in kindergarten, and Grades 1-2..

She taught for more than 30 years at the Brearley School, retiring in 2017. Her time on the Reading Team board has enabled her to give back to her beloved Harlem community. Akinola grew up in Togo and Ghana, where she received a Teacher’s Certificate from Wesley Teachers’ College. After immigrating to the United States, she earned a BA from Hunter College. She enjoys sharing her passion for education with her six grandchildren. Judith H.

Dobrzynski, an award-winning journalist who has held senior editorial roles at The New York Times, Business Week and CNBC, is a freelance writer who primarily writes art criticism for The Wall Street Journal. Over the years, she has contributed articles, criticism and op-eds spanning culture, business, philanthropy, and other topics to more than a dozen publications, including The Washington Post and Town & Country. She has also been an instructor in journalism at Columbia University and she served for more than a decade as a program consultant to a large foundation. She volunteers at St. Ignatius Loyola Church. She is an alumna of Syracuse University.

Carolyn Ellis, a graduate of the University of Chicago and of New York University School of Law, had a long and successful career in the law, first in private practice and then in the... Ellis has also served as the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit Chief of the Civil Enforcement Division. For over 15 years, she served as a board member and chairperson of a nonprofit provider of supportive housing for homeless and mentally ill people in her home borough of Brooklyn. For 33 years, Eileen Judell was a member of the faculty of the Chapin School, where she specialized in reading and learning disabilities. She also maintained a private practice during those years, working with children who had learning issues. Judell has a BA degree from Sarah Lawrence College and an MA in Remedial Reading and an EdM in Learning Disabilities from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Judell has served as President of Youth Counseling League and has been a board member of the Joffrey Ballet, the New York Foundation for Senior Citizens, and the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s...

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