Love, Passion, Selfless Dedication, and Outstanding Contributions Bring Top Honors to Educator and Author Elfrieda (Freddy) H. Hiebert at IRA Convention

ATLANTA, May 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Elfrieda (Freddy) H. Hiebert, noted author of many influential reading programs, including Pearson's QuickReads, is this year's recipient of the International Reading Association's (IRA) highest award, the William S. Gray Citation of Merit. An adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Hiebert will also be inducted into the IRA's Reading Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame ceremony takes place Tuesday, May 6 and the Gray award will be presented Wednesday, May 7 at the IRA's annual convention in Atlanta, GA.

IRA, one of the premier professional organizations in education, serves members in nearly 100 countries with a worldwide network of more than 300,000 people. The William S. Gray Citation of Merit is awarded to a nationally or internationally known person for outstanding contributions to the field of reading. The Reading Hall of Fame is composed of leaders in the literacy field. Its purpose is to contribute, from the collective experiences of its members, to further improvement in reading instruction through presentations, publications, research, and other means.

"We are thrilled and delighted Elfrieda is being inducted into the Hall of Fame and receiving the Gray Citation," said IRA President Linda Gambrell. "Freddy has done remarkable work throughout her career, and has made significant contributions to our field because her research has strong implications for classroom practice. She continues to do meaningful and influential research that increases our knowledge base about effective classroom reading instruction."

Professor Hiebert holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her work and efforts detail nearly 35 years of reading acquisition, as a teacher's aide and teacher of primary-level students in California, as a teacher educator and researcher at the Universities of Kentucky, Colorado-Boulder, Michigan, and now Berkeley. Hiebert's works include over 130 research articles and chapters. Her research attends to texts used in reading programs with beginning and struggling readers, particularly students for whom English is a second language.

Hiebert's work particularly addresses the manner in which fluency, vocabulary, and knowledge can be fostered through appropriate texts. Among her most recent publications are "Vocabulary assessment: What we know and what we need to know" (in press, Reading Research Quarterly, with P. David Pearson & Michael Kamil) and "State reform policies and the reading task for first graders" (2005, Elementary School Journal).

Pearson's QuickReads are exactly that -- short texts to be read quickly and with meaning. The QuickReads program consists of six levels for grades 2-6: A, B, C, D, E, and F. Each level contains three books, and each book contains 30 texts (90 texts per level). These texts support automaticity with the high-frequency words and phonics/syllabic patterns needed to be a successful reader at a particular grade level. Additionally, with topics in two subject areas: social studies and science, texts in the QuickReads program encourage meaning and comprehension.

"Pearson is enormously proud to have an association with Freddy," said Peter Cipkowski, vice president of product management for supplemental literacy. "She possesses a great blend of the best reading research and common sense classroom practice. Dr. Hiebert is revered by teachers, practitioners, and researchers for her brilliant science and remarkable focus on what works for children and reading."

Each year, several new Hall of Fame members are elected by their peers based on outstanding contributions to the field of reading and literacy. As a new inductee, Hiebert will join her colleague and Dean P. David Pearson, Dean of the Graduate School of Education and Professor of Language and Literacy, Society and Culture, at Berkeley who was inducted to the Hall in 1990.

About Pearson

Pearson is the global leader in educational publishing, assessment, information and services, helping people of all ages to learn at their own pace, in their own way. For students preK-12, Pearson provides effective and innovative curriculum products in all available media, educational assessment and measurement for students and teachers, student information systems, and teacher professional development and certification programs. Our respected brands include NovaNET, SuccessMaker, Waterford, KnowledgeBox, Scott Foresman, Prentice Hall, AGS, PowerSchool, TeacherVision and many others. Our comprehensive offerings help inform targeted instruction and intervention so that success is within reach of every student. Pearson's other primary businesses include the Financial Times Group and the Penguin Group.