Author(s): Jenny Clay

Biography

From the age of 25, when she first travelled beyond New Zealand on a Fulbright Scholarship to the United States, Marie Clay worked to establish international connections, while keeping her base in her homeland. Marie Clay joined the Education Department of the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 1960, and there helped to create the new Diploma of Educational Psychology. In 1968, the year after she was awarded a doctorate for her thesis Emergent Reading Behaviour, she was an invited speaker in Copenhagen at the 2nd World Congress in Reading. Seven years later she became the first woman professor at the University of Auckland, and was appointed Head of the Education Department. Marie Clay developed a system of early intervention, called Reading Recovery, to help children who were having the most difficulty reading. During the 1980s Reading Recovery was established nationwide in New Zealand, and rapidly expanded into Australia, and the United States, and later into Canada. In 1987 she was listed in the Queen's Honours and became Dame Marie Clay. After her retirement from the University of Auckland in 1991, she helped to establish a Reading Recovery course for Tutors and teachers at the University of London, beginning the implementation in the United Kingdom. The following year Marie Clay became the first non-North American President of the International Reading Association. Her many books on literacy for teachers, researchers, students and parents are used around the world. In 1994 Marie Clay was named New Zealander of the Year, and in 1999 in a survey of the National Reading Conference of America, she was voted the most influential person in the field of literacy over the previous three decades. Marie made a difference to millions of children learning to read and write. She was a teacher, researcher, writer, theorist and practitioner; and also a person who enjoyed music, theatre, opera, craftwork, and good design. At her death in early 2007 there was an international response to the loss. In this book, people write about their interactions with Marie Clay, their shared experiences and history, and the influence of her work on them. Her early life, before she became well-known, is also described, with some contributions from her friends. The stories span the globe from New Zealand to Australia, Bermuda, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Asia, Denmark and Greece, crossing over boundaries of nations and language within the field of literacy.