Creating Literacy Instruction for All Students in Grades 4 To 8

Thomas G. Gunning has taught courses in methods of teaching reading and writing for more than 20 years and was director of the Reading Clinic at Southern Connecticut State University. Before that, as a secondary English teacher, a reading specialist, and an elementary school reading consultant, he worked extensively with achieving and struggling readers and writers. Dr. Gunning, who recently served as a Reading First consultant, is currently working with elementary and middle school students to help them develop higher level literacy skills, as well as serving as an adjunct professor in the Reading/Language Arts Department at Central Connecticut State University. Over the years, Dr. Gunning’s research has explored reading interests, informal reading inventories, decoding strategies, readability, higher-level literacy skills, and response to intervention. As a result of this research, he has created a number of informal assessments and programs for developing decoding and comprehension skills.