Michael

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Michael
Pressley
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Personal

• Married, Donna Lynn Forrest-Pressley, Clinical
  Child Psychologist
• One son, Timothy Pressley
• Four time cancer survivor

Donna Pressley
Michael Pressley
Colleagues
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Education

• B. A. 1973, Northwestern University, Awarded with
  distinction, Honors in Psychology
• Ph. D. 1977, University of Minnesota, Child
  Psychology

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Employment History

• Summer 2003 Visiting Professor (First Program),
  College of Education, University of
• Colorado at Boulder
• 2002-Present Professor, Department of Teacher
  Education and Department of Counseling,
  Psychology Special Education, Michigan State
  University
• 1997-2002 Chaired Professor (The Inaugural
  Notre Dame Professor in Catholic
• Education), Department of Psychology and
  Institute for Educational Initiatives, University
  of Notre Dame Academic Director, Alliance for
  Catholic Education, and Founding Director,
  Masters of Education Program
• 1993-1997 Professor, Department of Educational
  Psychology and Statistics, University at Albany,
  State University of New York (Chair of the
  department, June 1996-
• August 1997)
• 1989-93 Professor of Human Development,
  University of Maryland, College Park MD.
• Summers 1984, 1986, 1988, Visiting Faculty
  Member, Max Planck Institute for Psychology and
  Education, Munich FRG.

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Employment History

• Spring 1981, Visiting Assistant Professor of
  Psychology, University of Notre Dame, South Bend
  IN.
• 1982-85, Tenured Associate Professor 1985-1989,
  Tenured Professor of Psychology and Educational
  Psychology
• 1979-89 University of Western Ontario
  1979-1982, Assistant Professor of Psychology
• 1978-79, Assistant Professor of Psychology,
  California State University, Fullerton CA
• 1977-1978, Assistant Scientist, Research and
  Development Center for Cognitive Learning,
  University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• Summers 1976-1980, Visiting Assistant Professor,
  Department of Educational Psychology, University
  of Wisconsin-Madison

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Awards and Honors

• Phi Eta Sigma (National Freshmen Men's Honorary)
• Phi Beta Kappa
• Early Contribution Award, Division 15
  (Educational Psychology) of the American
  Psychological Association
• Fellow, Divisions 1 (General Psychology), 2
  (Teaching of Psychology), and 15 (Educational
  Psychology), American Psychological Association
• Charter Fellow, American Psychological Society
• Sylvia Scribner Award, Division C, American
  Educational Research Association, April 1995
  (Outstanding contribution to research on
  learning)
• Benchmark School Award for Leadership in
  Curriculum Development, April 1995
• Albert B. Harris Award, International Reading
  Association, May 1996 (Outstanding contribution
  to the diagnoses and remediation of children at
  risk for failure to learn to read or write)
• Gordon Alley Partnership Award, June 1996
  (Presented by the Center for Learning Research,
  Department of Special Education, University of
  Kansas, for outstanding contributions to the
  remediation of learning disabilities)
• 2000 Oscar Causey Award (Presented by the
  National Reading Conference as a career award for
  outstanding contributions to reading research)
• Reading Hall of Fame membership, elected May 2001
  
• ISI Thompson Highly Cited Listing Listed in
  Academic Keys Whos Who in Education
• E.L. Thorndike Award, Division 15 of the American
  Psychological Association

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Publications

• Dr. Pressley has been writing books and
  professional journals since the early 1980s.
  These include more than 300 articles, chapters,
  and books.
• Co-Author Open Court Reading and Writing
• Author Reading Instruction That Works The Case
  for Balanced Literacy

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Presentations

• American Educational Research Association
• American Psychological Association
• National Reading Conference
• International Reading Association
• Society for Research in Child Development
• National consultant Reading Excellence and
  Reading First acts
• Addressed the elementary-level faculties of many
• school districts and counties

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Research Findings

• Dr. Pressley had conducted several research
  studies on what practices lead to increased
  learning. Here are three prominent trends that
  he found in highly effective classrooms

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Research Findings

• Great teachers, particularly in the early grades,
  use a balanced literacy approach, where both
  phonics and whole language are used. The use of
  both elements in the classroom allow students to
  receive instruction that is from the best of
  both worlds.
• Highly effective teachers motivate. Great
  teachers are great motivators! They are focused
  on academic motivation. These teachers flood
  their classrooms with motivation. Virtually
  every minute in a highly effective a student is
  motivated by an effective teacher to accomplish a
  task or take on an educational goal.
• Great teachers have outstanding classroom
  management abilities. They have great control of
  their classrooms and are highly effective at
  keeping students on task.

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Research Findings

• Dr. Pressley is highly regarded for his research
  and work in comprehension instruction. Based on
  his research, a strong case can be made for doing
  the following in order to improve reading
  comprehension in students
• Teach decoding skills.
• Teach vocabulary.
• Encourage students to build world knowledge
  through reading and to relate what they know to
  what they read (e.g., by asking why questions
  about factual knowledge in text).
• Teach students to use a repertoire of active
  comprehension strategies, including prediction,
  analyzing stories with respect to story grammar
  elements, question asking, image construction,
  and summarizing.
• Encourage students to monitor their
  comprehension, noting explicitly whether decoded
  words make sense and whether the text itself
  makes sense. When problems are detected, students
  should know that they need to reprocess (e.g., by
  attempting to sound out problematic words again
  or rereading).
• Such instruction must be long term.

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Research Findings

• According to Dr. Pressley, implications for
  reading comprehension instruction in the future
  are
• What might research-based comprehension
  instruction include in the future? There will
  still be teaching of decoding skills, vocabulary,
  important world knowledge, comprehension
  strategies, and monitoring.
• The primary years will be richer, however, with
  improved methods of instruction for word
  recognition complemented by more teaching of
  comprehension strategies and reading of more
  diverse texts, especially texts rich in important
  world knowledge.

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Contact Information