With over twenty years of experience in education, Dr. Katie Egan Cunningham is a former elementary classroom teacher and instructional coach who now supports teachers as a college professor and literacy consultant. She is an Associate Professor of Elementary Education at Sacred Heart University where she teaches language and literacy courses as well as children’s literature. Katie also supports teacher candidates in their elementary school clinical placements. Katie has a Bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a Master’s degree in Early Childhood and Childhood Education from New York University. She holds a doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Katie’s work focuses on the intersection between literacy learning and childhood well-being. She is the author of Start with Joy: Designing Literacy Learning for Student Happiness and Story: Still the Heart of Literacy Learning both published by Stenhouse Publishers. She is the co-author of Literacy Leadership in Changing Schools published by Teachers College Press. Katie is also the co-author of The Classroom Bookshelf, a weekly School Library Journal blog dedicated to children’s and young adult literature. She is currently working on the books Shifting the Balance: Bringing the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom, Grades 3-5 (Stenhouse Publishers) and Purpose Matters: Selecting and Using Children’s Literature for Inquiry and Engagement (Teachers College Press) both scheduled to be published in 2023. You can find articles by Katie in influential journals including Educational Leadership and Language Arts.
Passionate about the power of stories and the belief that schools should be designed to help students find their own happiness, Katie loves working with students, teachers, and school leaders to bridge the science of reading with the joy of learning. Katie lives with her husband, a fellow educator, two young sons, and Mini Goldendoodle who teach her every day about the importance of joyful living.
© 2021 Katie Egan Cunningham