The Reading/Literacy Research Fellowship of US$4,000 is given to a researcher outside the United States or Canada who has evidenced exceptional promise in reading research and deserves encouragement to continue working in the field of reading. Applicants must have received their doctorate or its equivalent within the past 5 years. Applicants must be Association members.

This award and fellowship is no longer available.  For more information, please contact research@reading.org.

The first IRA Reading Literacy Research Fellowship was awarded in 1972 and the final fellowship was awarded in May, 2011.

2011

Sarah Pfenninger

Sarah Pfenninger of Manchester Metropolitan University of United Kingdom, for her work entitled “Series Literature in the 21st Century: Friend or Foe? 5th Grade Girls’ Engagement with the Tracey Beaker Book Series”

Sarah Pfenninger is a Senior Lecturer of English Education at Manchester Metropolitan University, Institute of Education in the United Kingdom. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in reading and literacy for the primary years. Sarah has worked with teachers and upper grade primary children as a teacher educator and language arts specialist in North Carolina, New York, London and Toronto. Her research interests include the role of children’s literature in a balanced literacy curriculum as well as children’s critical negotiations with these texts through meaningful dialogue and discussion, specifically relating to gender and popular culture.