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Mary Adler is an Assistant Professor of English at California State University Channel Islands. She specializes in English education, including literature instruction, classroom discourse, and writing development and processes. Previously she was a Research Scientist for the National Center on English Learning and Achievement at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Together with Eija Rougle, Mary was a facilitator in "Partnership for Literacy," a two-year study that involved some 70 middle school teachers, 1400 students, and 18 middle schools in both Wisconsin and New York state.

Nancy Akhavan is presently Title I principal on special assignment for Fresno Unified School District, a large urban district in central California. She is the author of How to Align Literacy Instruction, Assessment and Standards: And Achieve Results You Never Dreamed Possible and Help! My Students Don't All Speak English (Heinemann) and Acceleration Vocabulary Instruction and The Content-Rich Reading & Writing Workshop (both, Scholastic). In addition to her educational leadership experiences, Nancy worked in elementary schools as a bilingual teacher, bilingual resource teacher, and professional developer for over 19 years.

Dr. Loviah Aldinger has extensive experience in developing and conducting professional development programs in the areas of inclusion and literacy education. She has been a public school teacher and a university teacher educator. She has co-authored and edited a variety of publications, including decision-making software programs. Dr. Aldinger has directed both federally and privately funded grants that support teachers’ professional development. She is currently Co-Director of ThinkingWorks.

Janet Allen taught reading and English for almost 20 years in Maine before moving to the University of Central Florida where she taught reading, writing, and English Education courses. She is now a full-time researcher, writer, and international reading consultant recognized for her comprehensive work in reading education. She is the author of several books, including Words, Words, Words: Teaching Vocabulary in Grades 4-12 and Yellow Brick Roads: Shared and Guided Paths to Independent Reading 4-12 (both published by Stenhouse).

Marybeth Alley is a first-grade teacher in Williamsburg, Virginia, who has presented at local, state and regional conferences. She has taught in kindergarten through third grade. She is co-author with Barbara Orehovec of Revisiting the Reading Workshop.

Pam Allyn is the Executive Director and founder of LitLife, a nationally known literacy development organization providing innovative, research-based professional development for K-12 educators. She was the Director of Funded Projects for The Teachers College Reading and Writing Project and also the Founding Director of Books for Boys, a reading initiative for New York’s foster care children. Allyn has received several commendations for her work, including a Points of Light/Disney award for her literacy work and a James Patterson Page Turner Award.

Pam Allyn appears as a guest on the NBC's Today Show!

Read about interview on Today Show Blog
Watch video at MSNBC

Linda Alston, a master teacher of young children from the Denver area, has won numerous awards, including the Milken National Educator Award, the Walt Disney American Teacher Award, and the first $100,000 Kinder Excellence in Teaching Award, focusing on outstanding work being done by K–12, public-school educators in low-income communities. Alston, who has traveled to Sierra Leone as a Fulbright Scholar and organized six inner-city Montessori Child Development Centers in the U.S., also serves as an educational consultant and motivational speaker.

Janet Angelillo is a literacy consultant who works with elementary and middle-school teachers in urban and suburban schools across the United States and Canada. A classroom educator for many years, Janet taught middle school and upper grades in New York City and the suburbs. She is a doctoral student at Columbia University’s Teachers College, and the author of several articles on writing as well as A Fresh Approach to Teaching Punctuation and Making Revision Matter (both Scholastic) and Writing About Reading (Heinemann).

Sarah Armstrong brings her experience as a classroom teacher, reading specialist, and principal-as well as her expertise in brain research-to her work training educators across the nation. Armstrong conducts workshops at national and state conferences and works regularly with teachers in grades K-12, as well as novice and aspiring school administrators who want to develop brain-compatible programs in their schools. In addition, she serves as an adjunct faculty member for several universities, embedding brain research in classes on curriculum and instruction, assessment, and risk and resiliency. Armstrong received an M.ED as a Reading Specialist from Lynchburg College, and an Ed.D from the University of Virginia. She resides in Virginia with her husband Stu.

A teacher since 1973, Nancie Atwell teaches seventh- and eighth-grade reading, writing, and history at the Center for Teaching and Learning, a K-8 demonstration school she founded in Edgecomb, Maine, in 1990. Her seminal book about workshop teaching, In the Middle, won the NCTE David H. Russell Award and the MLA Mina Shaughnessy Prize for distinguished research in the teaching of English. She is also the author of Lessons That Change Writers, Naming the World: A Year of Poems and Lessons, and Side by Side: Essays on Teaching to Learn, to name a few. She lives in Maine.

Kathryn H. Au, an educational consultant and former professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, has published widely on the topic of literacy instruction and diversity, including a recent textbook, Multicultural Issues and Literacy Achievement (Erlbaum) as well as Literacy Instruction in Multicultural Settings (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich). Her current work focuses on school change that improves student achievement. She has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the International Reading Association.