Page 11 - Chicago Reading Summit Event Guide

Zipporah hightower, Executive Director of Principal Quality, Chicago Public Schools
ZIPPoRAh hIGhtowER is a powerhouse of the Chicago school system. With 20 years of experience as an educator, including ve as a principal, Zipporah is the executive director of principal quality at Chicago Public Schools, with the mission to identify, develop, support, and retain strong school leaders who are dedicated to student success. Prior to this role, she was executive director for program management with New Leaders Organization. Students in New Leader schools are closing the achievement gap through consistently higher performance than their peers and higher graduation rates. In her previous role as principal of Chicago’s Bethune School of Excellence, Zipporah developed a culture in which fth-graders
doubled their math scores, keeping pace with the number of third-graders whose reading scores met or exceeded standards in state testing.
Robin ho man, Scholastic Book Fairs®
RoBIN hoFFmAN founded the Children’s Book Connection in 1981 with a curated collection of books for preschool to eighth-grade students. She joined Scholastic Book Fairs in 1992 and leads the booktalk and podcast programs, helping educators and families share books with children of all ages.
Lester Laminack, Professor Emeritus at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina
LEStER L. LAmINACK is professor emeritus at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina, where he received two awards for excellence in teaching. He is now a full- time writer and consultant working with schools throughout the United States. Lester is an active member of the National Council of Teachers of English and served as co-editor of Primary Voices and the children’s book review column of Language Arts. He also served as a teaching editor for the magazine Teaching K-8 and wrote the Parent Connection column. He is a former member of the Whole Language Umbrella Governing Board, the governing board and secretary of the North Carolina Association for the Education of Young Children, and
the board of directors for the Center for the Expansion of Language and Thinking. Lester served as the basic reading consultant to Literacy Volunteers of America from 1987 through 2001 and as a member of the board of directors of Our Children’s Place [ourchildrensplace. com]. He is the current column editor for The Writing Department of the ILA journal, The Reading Teacher.
His academic publications include several books: Learning with Zachary (Scholastic), Spelling in Use (NCTE), Volunteers Working with Young Readers (NCTE), and his contributions to The Writing Workshop: Working Through the Hard Parts (NCTE), Learning Under the In uence of Language and Literature (Heinemann), Reading Aloud Across the Curriculum (Heinemann), The Writing Teacher’s Troubleshooting Guide (Heinemann), Writers ARE Readers (Heinemann), Bullying Hurts (Heinemann), Cracking Open the Author’s Craft (Scholastic), and Unwrapping the Read Aloud (Scholastic). His newest work with Scholastic is The Ultimate Read-Aloud Resource: Making Every Moment Intentional and Instructional With Best Friend Books (2016) and Best Friend Fiction Kits for Grades K-5 (2016). In addition, he has several articles published in journals such as The Reading Teacher, Early Years, Language Arts, Teaching pre-K/8, and Young Children. Lester is also the author of six children’s books: The Sunsets of Miss Olivia Wiggins, Trevor’s Wiggly-Wobbly Tooth, Saturdays and Tea Cakes, Jake’s 100th Day of School, Snow Day!, Three Hens and a Peacock, and a forthcoming title, The King of Bees (all from Peachtree Publishers).
Lester earned a B.S. and M.S. in Elementary Education from Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama, and an Ed.D. in Elementary Education and Reading from Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama.
Click here to learn more about Lester Laminack and to purchase his books.