Drs Kylene Beers and Robert Probst Join Distinguished American Reading Company Academic Advisory Board

Renowned writers, speakers, and educators Drs Kylene Beers and Robert (Bob) Probst have joined an extraordinary group of their peers in education on American Reading Company’s Academic Advisory Board, founder and CEO Jane Hileman announced today.

Kylene is the author of When Kids Can't Read/What Teachers Can Do and Bob is the author of Response and Analysis. They are coauthors of Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading. Four years in creation, this critical text provides teachers the strategies they need to help all students learn the Close Reading strategies required to do the rigorous independent reading the Common Core State Standards demand.

Kylene served as president of the National Council of Teachers of English in 2008-2009 and, from 1999-2006, as editor of the NCTE journal Voices From the Middle. Bob has served as a member on the Conference on English Board of Directors, as a National Council of Teachers of English journal columnist, and as a member of the NCTE Commission on Reading. Both have served as lead authors for Holt Rinehart and Winston's national literature series Elements of Literature, and Kylene now serves as a special contributing author to the McDougal Holt Literature book.

Kylene began her teaching career as a middle school language arts teachers in the Houston area. She then taught at the University of Houston in the College of Education for many years. She left there to accept a position as senior reading researcher in the School Development Program at Yale University and later as a senior reading advisor to the Reading and Writing Project at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Bob began his teaching career as a high school English teacher and then became a supervisor of English for a large district in Maryland. He spent most of his academic career at Georgia State University, where he is now Professor Emeritus of English Education. After retiring from Georgia State University, he served as a research fellow for Florida International University. He now consults with Kylene in school districts across the United States.

Kylene and Bob speak nationally and internationally to administrators and teachers on literacy issues, particularly issues surrounding struggling readers and meeting standards, including the Common Core State Standards. Their years of experience helping teachers to improve the literacy lives of students has informed their collaboration on the creation American Reading Company’s newest Hook Book Collections, which offer the best 50 or 100 titles for each grade (5–8) across a wide range of reading levels. These collections are carefully curated to include the types of books every teacher needs as part of a classroom library to nurture the reading development of students in his/her specific grade.