Abstract
Madame Marie Clay (January 3, 1926–April 13, 2007) was a premier New Zealand literacy educator who influenced multiple fields of study within education and permeated the global literacy field with a specific focus on literacy acquisition. Clay concentrated on maximizing student learning and the synergy that occurs among teachers during professional development opportunities. Clay is considered a major theorist of children’s literacy acquisition, and her primary theoretical innovations include her literacy processing theory, wherein literacy acquisition considers what a child knows and uses when approaching print as well as alternative routes to literacy acquisition. Clay developed the Reading Recovery© method in the late 1970s, a literacy intervention model that encompasses teachers working one to one with first grade emergent readers to provide intensive assistance and intervention in order to develop the learners’ reading skills to meet those of their average classmates. As a prevention strategy, Reading Recovery© was designed by Clay to significantly decrease the number of children with early literacy difficulties within schools and school systems. Reading Recovery© training for teachers specifically focuses on print acquisition, requiring teachers to observe what a child uses to decode print, and incorporates an embedded professional development component.
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References
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Further Reading
Clay, M. (1987). Learning to be learning disabled. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 22(2), 155–173.
Clay, M. (1991). Becoming literate: The construction of inner control. Heinemann.
Clay, M. (2002). An observation survey of early literacy achievement (2nd ed.). Heinemann.
Clay, M. (2005). Literacy lessons designed for individuals part 2. Heinemann.
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Daugherty, E., Dowell, MM.S., Jenny, M. (2023). Marie Clay: International Literacy Scholar and Mother of Reading Recovery. In: Geier, B.A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Educational Thinkers . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81037-5_219-1
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