Peter Johnston

Professor, Chair

Ph.D., University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana

School of Education-ED309
518-442-5105
johnstonnz@aol.com

Peter Johnston is professor and Chair in the Reading Department. He has worked as an elementary classroom teacher and as a reading teacher, and he currently serves on the editorial boards of: Reading Research Quarterly, Journal of Literacy Research, Elementary School Journal, and Literacy, Teaching and Learning. He has published eight books and numerous articles in journals such as Reading Research Quarterly, Journal Of Literacy Research, Elementary School Journal, Reading Teacher, Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record, Journal Of Educational Psychology, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Educational Psychologist, and Theory Into Practice.

His most recent books are Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children’s Learning (2004, Stenhouse), Critical literacy/critical teaching: Tools for preparing responsive teachers (2006, Teachers College Press, with Cheryl Dozier & Rebecca Rogers), Reading to Learn: Lessons from exemplary fourth grade classrooms (2002, Guilford, with Richard Allington), and Running records: a self-tutoring guide (2000, Stenhouse), Knowing literacy (1997, Stenhouse).

He chaired the International Reading Association and National Council of Teachers of English Joint Task Force on Assessment that produced the position monograph Standards for the assessment of reading and writing. The International Reading Association awarded him the Outstanding Dissertation award in 1981, and in 1987 the Albert J. Harris Award for his contribution to the understanding of reading disability. In 1996, the Educational Press Association recognized one of his articles as the Outstanding Learned Article.

His current work investigates literacy assessment, the consequences of teaching practices for the kind of literacy children acquire, how teachers and students build productive learning communities, and the process of building critical inquiry into literacy teacher education.

Teaching:

Dr. Johnston has regularly taught the Capstone Practicum for Literacy Specialists B-6 (ERDG620) and Introduction to Literacy Teaching B-6 (ERDG500). He also teaches the doctoral courses Research Seminar in Literacy Difficulties (ERDG 773) and Current Research in Literacy (ERDG762).

Publications:

Dozier, C., Johnston, P., & Rogers, R. (2006). Critical literacy/critical teaching: Tools for preparing responsive teachers. New York: Teachers College Press.

Johnston, P. (2005). Literacy assessment and the future. The Reading Teacher, 58(7), 684-686.

Johnston, P., & Costello, P. (2005). Principles for literacy assessment. Reading Research Quarterly, 40(2), 256-267.

Johnston, P., & Yanoff, L. (2004). Early childhood assessment and family literacy. Handbook of family literacy research. Mahwah, NJ:Lawrence Erlbaum.

Johnston, P. (2003). Assessment conversations. The Reading Teacher, 57(1), 90-92.

Johnston, P. (2002). Commentary on “The interactive Strategies approach to Reading Intervention.” Contemporary Educational Psychology, 27, 636-647.

Allington, R. L., Johnston, P. H., & Day, J. P. (2002). Exemplary fourth-grade teachers. Language Arts, 79(6), 462-466.

Gioia, B., Johnston, P., & Giovanelli, L. (2002). Documenting and developing literacy in Deaf children. Literacy Teaching and Learning: An international Journal of Early Reading and Writing, 6(1), 1-22.

Johnston, P., & Backer, J. (2002). Inquiry and a good conversation: “I learn a lot from them.” In R. L. Allington & P. H. Johnston, (Eds.). Reading to Learn: Lessons from Exemplary Fourth-grade Classrooms. (pp. 37-53). New York: Guilford.

Johnston, P., & Quinlan, M. E. (2002). A Caring, Responsible Learning Community. In R. L. Allington & P. H. Johnston, (Eds.). Reading to Learn: Lessons from Exemplary Fourth-grade Classrooms.(pp. 123-139). New York: Guilford.

Johnston, P., Bennett, T., & Cronin, J. (2002). “I want students who are thinkers.” In R. L. Allington & P. H. Johnston, (Eds.). Reading to Learn: Lessons from Exemplary Fourth-grade Classrooms. (pp. 140-165). New York: Guilford.

Allington, R. L., & Johnston, P. (2001). What do we know about effective fourth-grade teachers and their classrooms? In C. Roller (Ed.), Learning to teach reading: Setting the research agenda. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. (pp. 150-165).

Johnston, P. & Rogers, R. (2001). Early literacy assessment. In S. Neuman & D. Dickenson (Eds.). Handbook of Early Literacy Research, (pp. 377-389). New York: Guilford.

Johnston, P., Jiron, H.W., Day, J.P. (2001). Teaching and learning literate epistemologies. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(1), 223-233. Reprinted in: Writing Social Justice in the Arts and Humanities, Prentice/Roosevelt University (2003).

Johnston, P. (2000). Running Records: A self-tutoring guide. York, ME: Stenhouse.

Johnston, P. (2000). How will literacy be assessed in the new millennium? Reading Research Quarterly, 35(2), 244.

Johnston, P., Allington, R. L., Guice, S., & Brooks, G. (1999). Moving to literature-based instruction: A multi-level study of reform. The Peabody Journal of Education, 73(3&4), 81-103.

Johnston, P. (1999). Unpacking literate "achievement." In Janet Gaffney & Billie Askew (Eds.) Stirring the waters: A tribute to Marie Clay. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Gioia, B., & Johnston, P. (1998). The Reading Club. In D. Deegan & P. Mosenthal (Eds.). Reconsidering the role of the Reading Clinic in a New Age of Literacy, Greenwich, CT: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Johnston, P. (1998). The consequences of the use of standardized tests. In Murphy, S. Shannon, P., Johnston, P., & Hansen, J. Fragile Evidence: A Critique of Reading Assessment (pp. 89-101). Mahwah, NJ:Lawrence Erlbaum.

Johnston, P. (1997). Standardized tests in family literacy programs. In Denny Taylor (Ed.). Many families, many literacies: A declaration of principles. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Johnston, P. (1997). Knowing literacy: Constructive literacy assessment. York, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers.

Johnston, P. (1997). Commentary on a critique. The Reading Teacher, 51(4), 282-285.

Johnston, P. (1997). Performance assessment and the English Language Arts. The Language and Literacy Spectrum, 7, 23-26.

Guice, S., Allington, R., Johnston, P., Baker, K., Michelson, N. (1996). Access?: Books, children, and literature-based curriculum in schools. New Advocate, 9(3), 197-208.

Johnston, P., Guice, S., Baker, K., Malone, J., & Michaelson, N., (1995). Assessment of teaching and learning in "literature based" classrooms. Teaching and Teacher Education, 11 (4), 359-371.

Johnston, P., & Nicholls, J. (1995). Voices we want to hear and voices we don't. Theory into Practice, 34(2), 94-100. The Educational Press Association gave this paper the award for the "Outstanding Learned Article," (1996).