JANUARY 12, 2014: DR. KENNETH GOODMAN AND DR. YETTA GOODMAN, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA, USA. “Making Sense of Making Sense;” 7:00 p.m. Eastern time zone/New York/USA (convert to your time zone)

 Dr. Ken Goodman holds the title of Professor Emeritus and Dr. Yetta Goodman holds the title of Regents Professor Emerita at the University of Arizona, USA. They are  international scholars in the field of literacy theory, education, and policy. Grounded in psycho- and sociolinguistic models of reading, the Goodmans’ work has been instrumental in the design and development of reading curricula, and especially in the area of assessment with miscue analysis.

 They have published widely in the areas of whole language, miscue analysis, and the politics of literacy authoring over 25 books and 300 articles. Their newest publications are Making Sense of Learners Making Sense of Written Language (in press, Routledge), and Whose Knowledge Counts in Government Literacy Policies?: Why Expertise Matters (2013, Routledge). Making Sense is one in a series of books in which international scholars themselves compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces – extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and/practical contributions–and which present themes and strands of their work, their contribution to the development of a field, as well as the development of the field itself. 

Whose Knowledge Counts addresses accountability, in the form of standardized test scores, and how it is built into many government literacy policies, with severe consequences for schools and districts that fail to meet ever-increasing performance levels. The key question this book addresses is whose knowledge is considered in framing government literacy policies? The intent is to raise awareness of the degree to which expertise is being ignored on a worldwide level and pseudo-science is becoming the basis for literacy policies and laws. Together, they are the authors of over 25 books and 300 articles

.  The Goodmans’ web seminar will address three questions: How do people make sense of text? How do people learn to read? and What do teachers need to know about how reading works and how it is learned to be successful? Their web seminar will present research informed by their collaborative research across the decades. To learn more about Dr. Ken and Yetta Goodman’s work, please access their website and Ken Goodman’s blog at Ken Goodman’s Morning Post