Michael S. Brunner

Michael Brunner brings more than 25 years of experience in education at local, state and national levels, in elementary and secondary schools, libraries, colleges and universities, state departments of education, and federal research project development and management. He has also provided adult literacy in service training and training of home educators.

He has trained thousands of parents, public and private school teachers, paraprofessionals, and volunteers in how to teach more effectively, word recognition skills, and written spelling as it relates to reading and writing.

While serving with the U.S. Department of Education (1982-87) he spearheaded the work that led to the publication of Becoming a Nation of Readers and saw funded and published Preventing Reading Failure: An Examination of the Myths of Reading Instruction perhaps the most important research dealing with reading reform ever to come from the federal government. In addition, he managed the U.S. Department of Education's National Adult Literacy Project which resulted in the publication of Effective Adult Literacy Programs.

His ideas and views about reading instruction have been well received, and, in addition to the publications above, have been expressed in publications as diverse as Reader's Digest, Schoolwise (by Martha Brown), Illiteracy in America (from the National Advisory Council on Adult Education), Big Book of Home Learning (by Mary Pride), What Works (Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education), and Private Sector Alternatives for Preventing Reading Failure (National Advisory Council on Educational Research and Improvement). In addition, he authored Phonics Made Plain, phonogram cards and wall chart for teaching word recognition and spelling skills.

You may contact Michael at mbrunner@literacyalert.org.