Educators trained in Reading Recovery at Texas Woman’s University work with first graders during intensive one-on-one intervention lessons to help students learn to read and write. Credit: Texas Woman’s University Reading Recovery
Former Ohio State faculty member Gay Su Pinnell donated $1 million to Texas Woman’s University Feb. 15 to help expand the reach of the program she helped create, according to a press release from the university.
Jamie Lipp, Ohio State’s lead Reading Recovery trainer, said Pinnell — professor emerita in the Ohio State Department of Teaching and Learning — brought the nonprofit Reading Recovery to Ohio State in 1984.
Lipp, an assistant professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning, said the program is an intensive, one-on-one educational intervention to help first-grade students who are still struggling to read and write.
Lipp said while Ohio State owns the national trademark to Reading Recovery, the program operates independently from the university as a nonprofit.
The program has been working with school districts nationwide and partnering with universities across the country in the training of Reading Recovery educators, Lipp said. Master’s-level educators are trained for Reading Recovery at colleges and universities across the country — like Ohio State, Lesley and Texas Woman’s. These trained educators then return to their districts to carry out Reading Recovery interventions with students, she said.
According to the release, Pinnell’s gift comes from her charitable fund, The Columbus Foundation, and will allow Texas Woman’s Reading Recovery program — one of only 12 training centers in the country — to create a new endowed chair position and support the program’s continued expansion.
Texas Woman’s has had its Reading Recovery program for more than 25 years, according to its website. Texas Woman’s also has the first Reading Recovery program to offer training for bilingual teachers with a joint program called Descubriendo la Lectura.
“We are looking forward to strengthening current collaborations with school districts and also expanding to new areas,” Annette Torres Elías, Texas Wesleyan University’s primary Reading Recovery and Descubriendo la Lectura trainer, said. “In addition, we want to do more research on both Reading Recovery and Descubriendo la Lectura, and then, of course, to disseminate that research.”
Torres Elías said the new Billie J. Askew endowed chair position will direct Texas Woman’s Reading Recovery and Descubriendo la Lectura program centers. The position honors the life’s work of Billie J. Askew, who founded the program at Texas Woman’s in 1989 with support from Ohio State Reading Recovery trainers like Pinnell. Askew died in 2021.
“We are deeply honored and very grateful for Dr. Pinnell’s gracious gift to honor our dear mentor and friend,” Torres Elías said. “It is a very meaningful gift to honor Billie J. Askew’s work.”
What Works Clearinghouse — an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education which assesses research evidence for educational programs, products, practices and policies — gave Reading Recovery recognition as the highest-rated program in general reading achievement among all programs tested in 2016.
Lipp said Pinnell’s gift builds upon her legacy, an impact which cannot be put into words.
“Dr. Pinnell has been a pioneer for 40-some years as a woman in a professor position at a time where it was mostly men at the top of the field for decades,” Lipp said. “Gay Su Pinnell’s life’s work has been about not only understanding how children learn to read and write, but supporting teachers to develop their own understandings of how children learn to read and write.”
Pinnell was unable to be reached for comment at the time of publication.
This story was updated at 1:54 p.m. Wednesday to clarify that Pinnell brought the Reading Recovery Program to Ohio State in 1984 and again at 2:02 p.m. to clarify that Texas Woman’s University is one of twelve Reading Recovery training centers in the country.
