As ILA marks its 70th anniversary, we’re inviting members to share their journeys in literacy education. Here, Allison Dagen, professor at West Virginia University and an ILA member since 1993, shares her own.
Literacy education feels complicated right now.
There’s a lot of information, a lot of talk and opinions, and often a lot of pressure to make important decisions about instruction, curriculum, materials, and policy. Despite decades of evidence-based research, educators are still navigating competing perspectives and real-world constraints in their classrooms.
I have been a member of ILA for 33 years—nearly half of the organization’s existence. During that time, I have had a front row seat as ILA has worked to demystify information overload and clarify complex issues, providing credible, research-based guidance that bridges scholarship and classroom practice. You see this reflected in concise position statements, standards for the preparation of literacy professionals, and online-based professional learning that are thoughtful, nuanced, and deeply informed by research.
That is a major reason literacy professionals continue to turn to ILA. It is a strong organization championing the idea that literacy work is always evolving and best advanced when research and practice inform one another within a collaborative network.
ILA is not just relevant; it’s reliable. Its members include literacy researchers and practitioners, some of whom are new to the profession, and others who have been engaged in this work for decades.
My education and work experiences have taken me to many places: Graduate study at Bloomsburg University, teaching middle school ELA in Pennsylvania’s Pleasant Valley School District, doctoral work at the University of Pittsburgh, and, for the past 24 years, serving as a professor in literacy education at West Virginia University.
Across every stage—student, teacher, professor—ILA has been a constant presence, shaping how I think about literacy and my role in advancing it. It hasn’t just supported my work; it has helped shape my professional identity.
Being part of the organization has allowed me to become part of the literacy community, spanning all these different settings and work opportunities. I think about this notion of community often, especially as it relates to my colleague, mentor, and friend, the GOAT, Rita Bean.
ILA “introduced” me to Rita through
The Reading Teacher when I read her 1979 article,
Role of the Reading Specialist: A Multifaceted Dilemma, for a graduate school assignment. I was intrigued by the role of the reading specialist as a resource to teachers, as Rita presented in that journal.
Imagine the highlight of my professional life: Five or six years after reading the multifaceted dilemma piece, I had the privilege of working directly with Rita Bean as a graduate assistant at the University of Pittsburgh. And now, all these years later, it is an honor to continue working with Rita and so many other magnificent ILA members.
Being part of an organization with a 70-year legacy means standing on the shoulders of generations of literacy educators, researchers, and practitioners committed to advancing the field thoughtfully. It also means learning from the next generation and ensuring that this work continues in 2056 and beyond.
My advice to literacy professionals at any career stage is this: Join ILA, register for the webinars, attend your statewide conferences, learn who is doing research in the facets of literacy that interest you, and actively build your literacy network.
Find your people.
We all need to be part of something bigger than ourselves, a place to collaborate with like-missioned people. For me, ILA has been that place—and always will be.
Back in the late 1990s, reading was receiving significant national attention with the publication of
Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (1998), the National Reading Panel’s (2000), and the work of the ILA (then IRA) Commission on the Role of the Reading Specialist. Rita served on that commission—an important part of my professional journey with her that I will return to shortly.
When I started at the University of Pittsburgh, Rita was a respected leader in reading education, both nationally and locally, and was involved in numerous literacy initiatives, projects, and grants. At the time, she was serving as the School of Education’s associate dean, deeply involved in academic affairs, supporting faculty, and developing policy. Despite her many responsibilities, she was always available to the graduate assistants. I deeply respected that about her and learned a great deal about being a professional educator by simply observing her actions and interactions.
As graduate assistants, we had assignments that varied but were all centered on literacy. Our work included supporting young readers at the university reading clinic, facilitating teacher learning opportunities—such as hosting Marcia Henry for Orton–Gillingham Academy professional learning on campus, and serving as school liaisons for Rita’s large Eisenhower grant. This statewide collaborative effort, called LEADERS, spanned multiple universities to support regional K-3 teachers, and I worked as a literacy coach with Pittsburgh Public Schools. There were many of us dedicated to this project, thanks to Rita’s successful grant writing, which resulted in funding for these positions. We were supporting beginning reading teachers and simultaneously learning in Rita’s graduate classes while she mentored our development as researchers.
This brings me back to the ILA Commission. I was familiar with the commission’s work already, being a member of the IRA for a few years. This group of respected educators was tasked with conducting a national study on the role of the reading specialist and later publishing both a review of the literature and the study’s findings in
The Reading Teacher. Looking back, it feels somewhat surreal that at that time, advocacy for the reading specialist leadership role was still evolving. Today, of course, the leadership dimension of the role is formally recognized through a dedicated ILA Standard.
To put this moment in perspective, less than a decade earlier, I had been reading Rita’s scholarship as a master’s student. Now I was sitting across the table from her, as a doctoral candidate with her as my advisor, participating in a study aligned with the ILA Commission’s work. Did I mention this was my first research study, alongside THE Rita Bean? This study examined exemplary reading programs and included the voices of principals and reading specialists; our aim was to find out specifically how the reading specialists functioned in these schools.
During this experience, I learned what it meant to conduct research—from data collection and analysis to academic writing and presenting findings. And yes, we presented this study at the IRA conference—my first—in Indianapolis in 2000. This work eventually resulted in my first ILA publication in 2003,
Reading Specialists in Schools with Exemplary Reading Programs: Functional, Versatile, and Prepared.
For this reason—Rita Bean, ILA, and the role of the reading specialist—this period holds a very special place in my journey.
Find out more about ILA's 70th anniversary celebrations and how to show your support for advancing literacy worldwide.