Critical Literacy Matters

Wandering around literacy education

USBBY

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Don’t forget to go to the USBBY Conference at Fresno State October 21-23.

Written by Glenn DeVoogd

Glenn Lawrence DeVoogd serves as Professor at California State University, Dominguez Hills where he works to promote educational programs that foster literacy instruction. His mother survived Nazi Germany and then fled communist East Germany eventually to meet her sweetheart, Lawrence DeVoogd, and get married in Toronto. Born in Paw Paw, Michigan and raised in Muskegon, Glenn’s father was a school teacher, administrator, and professor. When he was 17, he was awarded a place as an Rotary Exchange Student to Germany. There he discovered that everything was different and new. Fascinated with the differences in his life as an American and his life as a German student, he spent the rest of his life seeking to understand how culture and language impact the perspective people have on art, philosophy, politics, sports, food, and daily habits. In his teens and twenties, he studied in 7 different countries and learned to speak 4 languages. On one of those trips at L’Université de Laval in Quebec, he met the love of his life, Karen. For 17 years in East Lansing Public Schools, he taught bilingual education, technology, and all the elementary grades while doing graduate work at Michigan State University where he received his doctorate in 1995. After 3 years at the University of Houston in early literacy and technology, he moved on to Fresno State where he rose through the ranks from 1998 to 2015 to become a full professor, coordinator of the reading master’s degree, and chair of the Department of Literacy, Early, Bilingual, and Special Education. Karen and Glenn also raised two beautiful children mostly in Fresno, Skylar and Joey. In 2015, Dr. DeVoogd accepted a position as Associate Dean in the College of Education at California State University, Dominguez Hills and in 2018, he retreated to a position as literacy professor. Dr. DeVoogd has taught a range of courses in education primarily focused on literacy instruction, but also in the areas of disability and educational administration. Dr. DeVoogd has written over 30 publications primarily in the area of critical comprehension of texts, but has also published about reading instruction, children’s literature, and on the use of technology as a tool for instruction in teacher education. In 2004, he co-authored a book with Maureen McLaughlin called Critical Literacy: Enhancing Student’s Comprehension of Texts which has been the bestselling book for teachers in the field of critical literacy since it came out. Maureen McLaughlin and Glenn DeVoogd had 2 of the 20 articles selected by the International Literacy Association from the 1995-2020 that addressed the challenges of teaching during the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism.

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