RESEARCHER PROFILE

Name: David Booth

Title: Professor Emeritus; Scholar in Residence

Institution: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) At the University of Toronto; Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Department

Region: Toronto, Ontario

Research Interests: Strategies for promoting literacy with young people; Issues of gender and literacy; Connecting the arts in education and literacy; The New Literacies and curriculum development

Complete Biography

Publications

My Research Questions

My research and my writing are now driven by the differences I see between what and how young people read outside school contrasted with inside the classroom. How can we bridge the two (or more) literacy communities, and support readers who will have the strategies to make the most meaning possible from the different texts they will want to and will need to read? What resources (both paper and technological) will help teachers deepen and expand student experiences with texts, and how will we recognize literacy progress and competency, while continuing to support and encourage meaningful and satisfying interaction with printed and visual texts?

My Resources

1. Wells, G. (1986). The Meaning Makers: Children learning language and using language to learn. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books and Wells, G. and Chang-Wells, G. L. (1992) Constructing knowledge together: Classrooms as centers of inquiry and literacy. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
   Reading the work of Gordon Wells and then teaching with him on graduate courses in language and literacy gave me the background and foundation for creating a research base for my own work in literacy

2. Clay, Marie M. (1991) Becoming Literate: the construction of inner control. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books and Clay, Marie M. (1993) Reading Recovery: a guidebook for teachers in training. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books.
   Working with teachers involved in the teaching of Reading Recovery, and serving as vice-president for the Canadian Institute of Reading Recovery, offered me a deeper understanding of the theory of how children learn to read, and informed me of the diligence, skill and structure required in supporting those who have difficulty.

3. Over the years, my research has been centred around three groups of educators: student teachers, who ask relevant and significant questions, teachers in the field who participated in dozens of research inquiries with their classrooms, and teachers enrolled in graduate programs who shared their research journeys and findings with me. Because of them, my own research in literacy education is always full of new ways of looking at my interests as an educator.