Publications/Reports*
There’s a sign post up ahead and it reads “Literacy Champion” Whenever you see this sign one thing is certain, some of the most exciting efforts...

Literacy Champions Application

SUSAN BÉCAM, ESL/Literacy Coordinator, Newton Free Library
Susan Bécam has developed a vibrant and successful ESL volunteer tutoring program at the Newton Free Library through her outstanding leadership, exceptional creativity and just plain hard work. The Legacy for Literacy program which has blossomed under her tutelage has become an intrinsic part of the library’s mission with 200 volunteer tutors helping 275 adults learn English and become active members of the community. Tutor training and experience sharing continue throughout the year with a series of Roundtable meetings. Ongoing interaction between tutors and learners is fostered through library sponsored events and activities such as potluck suppers, poetry writing and creating an ESL cookbook.

Susan has built a model literacy program that makes the Newton Free Library a true community center and reading resource for all of its diverse population. It is her belief that by listening closely to suggestions from tutors, learners, colleagues, and the community, literacy coordinators will find ways to improve and strengthen their literacy practices and programs.

To contact Susan Bécam, click here.

RONA F. FLIPPO, ED.D, Associate Professor of Education, Graduate College of Education, University of Massachusetts Boston
Rona Flippo is both a scholar of literacy and literacy education and a professional practitioner whose work touches the lives of teachers and children in Massachusetts as well as nationwide. As a teacher she has had many real world experiences with children at a variety of early childhood and elementary grades. For the last twenty-five years or more she has worked with a wide range of college students at a number of institutions of higher education; most recently here in Massachusetts. Dr. Flippo has always involved her teacher education students in research, writing, professional projects, and presentations, encouraging them to share their innovative ideas for teaching and assessing reading with other leaders and teachers in the field. She has spent her entire career championing practices and contexts that can truly make our teachers – and the students they teach – more effective. Her many publications include 13 textbooks and professional books on literacy assessment and instruction, and many of her other publications have appeared in prestigious journals such as the Phi Delta Kappan, The Reading Teacher, Journal of Teacher Education, Journal of Reading, Educational Leadership, Reading Psychology, and The Reading and Writing Quarterly.

Dr. Flippo has been an outstanding advocate for the importance of good assessment, professional teachers, and contexts and practices that facilitate literacy development,. She has also advocated for alternative education programs to better fit the interests, motivations, and needs of all students in all of their diversities, as well as fair and good assessments of teachers that provide opportunities to view talents and diversities in positive contexts. Finally, Dr. Flippo is probably best known for her “Expert Study”, which has made an impact on teachers, teacher educators, and literacy specialists nationally as well as internationally.

To contact Rona Flippo, click here.

Debbie Goss, Reading Specialist, Horace Mann Middle School, Franklin
An extraordinarily humble person, Debbie Goss models outstanding practices, creates powerful programs, leads literacy initiatives in her school district and quietly steps back and lets others shine. Debbie is an extremely dedicated professional who understands that students learn best when teachers work together and teaching is done across the curriculum. Much of her time is spent lending her expertise to peers and modeling specific practices so that goal can be realized. Her genuine ability to lead and her passion for literacy have allowed her to partner with businesses in the community that have benefited the teachers and students in her program. She is extremely generous with her time and abilities and is currently working on a video resource library for Franklin schools.

She is guided by the belief that every student can be a reader and every teacher can be a teacher of reading and that belief is reflected in the many programs, activities and opportunities within her school environment.

To contact Debbie Goss, click here.

Haydee Hodis , Literacy Coordinator, Springfield Public Library, Brightwood Branch
As the manager of branch libraries, Haydee Hodis believes in Outreach as a way to make the library a visible participant in the community, building partnerships with local business, social agencies and/or institutes of higher learning. Using outreach as an important tool, she has succeeded in making the branch library both a welcoming environment and important resource to the community. She has demonstrated initiative and creativity in developing new services and programs to engage a diverse population and to promote library resources. Her outreach efforts include specialized library reading programs for school classrooms, families, including a Early Literacy and Child Development Workshops for Latino Day Care Providers done in collaboration with a neighborhood organization and the local community college. The workshops train Spanish speaking women with little or no formal education to become licensed daycare providers and the children in their care in turn receive valuable early literacy skills.

Haydee believes in the power of the Word and Literacy as a way to change and improve lives beyond our immediate communities.

To contact Haydee Hodis, click here.

Isabel B. Phillips, Ed.D., Clinical Associate Professor & Coordinator, Reading Certificate Program, MGH Institute of Health Professions
Isabel Phillips is first and foremost, a teacher of literacy, and has taught reading to students of all ages who come from a wide range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds. But it is her passionate interest in research and scholarship that has led her to focus on those who struggle to learn to read and write, the factors that impede their learning and the development of effective ways to teach these students in our public schools. Dr. Phillips has a vital interest in the professional development of teachers, and a penchant for translating theory and research about reading and language into effective instructional practices. In 2004, she joined the faculty of the MGH Institute of Health Professions to launch an exciting new Certificate of Advanced Study in Reading. This program prepares veteran teachers to become leaders in literacy. In addition, her work with the Boston Arts Academy faculty to improve high school literacy has inspired the other 20 Boston Pilot Schools to invest in training more of their own teachers to become literacy specialists.

Beliefs that guide her daily practice are that all students deserve access to effective, evidence-based, literacy instruction and that the desire to learn to read is universal. Finally, there exists a century of powerful research about reading and language with the potential to improve literacy instruction for all.

To contact Isabel Phillips, click here.