Dr. Elfrieda (Freddy) Hiebert, Ph.D., is the President and CEO of TextProject, a non-profit aimed at providing open-access resources for instruction of beginning and struggling readers. She is also a research associate at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Hiebert has had a long career as a literacy educator, first as a teacher of primary-level students in California and, subsequently, as a teacher educator and researcher at the Universities of Kentucky, Colorado-Boulder, Michigan, and California-Berkeley. Her research, which addresses how fluency, vocabulary, and knowledge can be fostered through appropriate texts, has been published in numerous scholarly journals and books. Through documents such as Becoming a Nation of Readers (Center for the Study of Reading, 1985) and Every Child a Reader (Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement, 1999), she has contributed to making research accessible to educators. Hiebert's contributions to research and practice have been recognized through awards such as the Oscar Causey Award for Outstanding Contributions to Reading Research (Literacy Research Association, 2015), Research to Practice award (American Educational Research Association, 2013), William S. Gray Citation of Merit Award for Outstanding Contributions to Reading Research (International Reading Association, 2008), and membership in the Reading Hall of Fame (2008).
Hiebert has had a long career as a literacy educator, first as a teacher of primary-level students in California and, subsequently, as a teacher educator and researcher at the Universities of Kentucky, Colorado-Boulder, Michigan, and California-Berkeley. Her research, which addresses how fluency, vocabulary, and knowledge can be fostered through appropriate texts, has been published in numerous scholarly journals and books. Through documents such as Becoming a Nation of Readers (Center for the Study of Reading, 1985) and Every Child a Reader (Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement, 1999), she has contributed to making research accessible to educators. Hiebert's contributions to research and practice have been recognized through awards such as the Oscar Causey Award for Outstanding Contributions to Reading Research (Literacy Research Association, 2015), Research to Practice award (American Educational Research Association, 2013), William S. Gray Citation of Merit Award for Outstanding Contributions to Reading Research (International Reading Association, 2008), and membership in the Reading Hall of Fame (2008).