Leading the Way in Teaching and Innovating Literacy Instruction

Faculty in the NC State College of Education are engaged in literacy research, teaching and outreach activities that help translate scientific evidence into high-quality teacher preparation and reading, writing, and English language arts instruction for children in grades K-12.

Meet Our Faculty

Sarah Cannon

Title: Assistant Teaching Professor
Ph.D.: NC State University
Sarah Cannon is interested in how to best support teacher candidates during a standardized performance-based assessment, the intersection of the standards movement with the need for multicultural education, and the instruction of writing.

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Maria Coady

Title: Goodnight Distinguished Professor in Educational Equity
Ph.D.: University of Colorado, Boulder
Maria Coady focuses on rural multilingual (ML) students and the preparation of educators who work with them.

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Dennis Davis

Title: Associate Professor
Ph.D.: Vanderbilt University
Dennis Davis focuses on upper-elementary literacy instruction with an emphasis on reading comprehension, assessment and intervention support for students when they have difficulties in reading.

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Jill Grifenhagen

Title: Associate Professor
Ph.D.: Vanderbilt University
Jill Grifenhagen focuses on academic language and literacy learning in early childhood classrooms (PreK-3rd grade) and teacher development and supports increasing teacher efficacy in these areas.

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Jill Jones

Title: Assistant Teaching Professor
Ph.D.: NC State University
Jill Jones focuses on teacher scaffolding in small-group reading instruction, intervention for students needing more support in reading, and effective literacy instruction in elementary classrooms.

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Devin Kearns

Title: Goodnight Distinguished Professor in Early Literacy
Ph.D.: Vanderbilt University
Devin Kearns studies the cognitive and neurobiological basis of reading and to help schools better implement multi-tiered systems of support to increase the literacy success of all students.

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Crystal Chen Lee

Title: Assistant Professor
Ed.D.: Columbia University
Crystal Chen Lee focuses on literacy, teacher education, community engagement and marginalized youth. She examines how literacy, especially critical literacy, can lead to increased youth advocacy, leadership and community engagement for marginalized youth.

Meet Dr. Lee

Jackie Relyea

Title: Assistant Professor
Ph.D.: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Jackie Relyea focuses on literacy development of K-6 multilingual students and literacy intervention that emphasizes academic vocabulary and content knowledge development and reading engagement.

Meet Dr. Relyea

Hiller Spires

Title: Professor Emerita
Ph.D.: University of South Carolina
Hiller Spires focuses on digital literacies and related theories and practices that are being prompted by emerging technologies, including project-based inquiry, game-based learning, video as textual production and teacher education.

Meet Dr. Spires

Angela Wiseman

Title: Associate Professor
Ph.D.: University of Pennsylvania
Angela Wiseman focuses on children’s literature and family literacy, with a specific focus on the use of picturebooks and trauma-informed literacy.

Meet Dr. Wiseman

Carl Young

Title: Associate Professor
Ph.D.: University of Virginia
Carl Young focuses on new literacies and related theories and practices that are motivated by emerging digital technologies including social media as a tool for enhancing ELA content knowledge and digital video as narrative text and project-based inquiry.

Meet Dr. Young

How the College of Education Became Literacy Leaders

NC State’s College of Education aligns coursework and field experiences to prepare effective elementary education teachers equipped to address early literacy needs.

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Literacy news

More literacy stories

College of Education Mourns Loss of Crystal Chen Lee

Crystal Chen Lee—a beloved educator, scholar and leader who dedicated her life to amplifying the voices of others and creating spaces so they could be seen and heard—passed away on June 14, 2025.

SUPR Schools Interdisciplinary Hub Identifying Factors that Help Schools Defy Odds for Reading Achievement

Years of research have shown that there is a high correlation between reading achievement and socioeconomic status, which means that many children who attend high-poverty schools throughout North Carolina are not learning to read proficiently. The members of the Systems for Un-correlating Poverty and Reading (SUPR) in North Carolina Schools interdisciplinary hub have spent the past year examining schools that defy this trend.

How the College of Education Draws on Research-based Practices to Prepare Effective Literacy Teachers

From preparing undergraduate students through coursework and field experiences to helping in-service teachers become literacy specialists, the NC State College of Education draws on research-based practices to develop literacy leaders.

Literacy Courses

Our faculty offer innovative courses for pre-service and in-service teachers and emerging researchers across several program areas.

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