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Meet Dr. Heidi Mesmer
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
Heidi Anne E. Mesmer, a Professor in Literacy Education at Virginia Tech, who examines the impact of texts on readers’ development and is published in Reading Research Quarterly, The Educational Researcher, Elementary School Journal, and Early Childhood Research Quarterly. Her work focuses on problems of practice and have policy implications.
Mesmer’s work in the early 2000s examined the impact of decodability on beginning readers informing a heated national debate. This work expanded to address the full range of textual scaffolds for beginners (e.g., word, sentence, and discourse levels) and culminated in a model of early grades text. A second line of work, motivated by the K-3 text difficulty increases in the Common Core, empirically tested increases on readers and challenged the evidence for claims. Recent work has examined technical limitations of readability formulas and the nature of vocabulary in texts.
Mesmer has been the principal investigator for eight grants aimed at improving K-5 reading instruction and been supported by the Spencer Foundation/AERA/IES. She is the author of several books for K-5 including, Big Words for Young Readers: Teaching Kids in K-5 to Decode- And Understand Words with Multiple Syllables and Morphemes (Scholastic). Mesmer’s podcasts and webinars have been downloaded or viewed by thousands of educators. She regularly delivers keynotes to schools, state departments of education, non-profits, and educational companies.
Publications
Publications
Book
Mesmer, Heidi. 2024. Big Words for Young Readers: Teaching Kids in Grades 5 to K to Decode -- And Understand -- Words with Multiple Syllables and Morphemes. Scholastic, Incorporated. ISBN 154611386X, 9781546113867.
Articles
Hiebert, E. H., & Mesmer, H. A. E. (2013). Upping the Ante of Text Complexity in the Common Core State Standards: Examining Its Potential Impact on Young Readers. Educational Researcher, 42(1), 44-51. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X12459802.
Mesmer, E. M., & Mesmer, H. A. E. (2008). Response to intervention (RTI): What teachers of reading need to know. The Reading Teacher, 62(4), 280-290.
Mesmer, H. A., Cunningham, J. W., & Hiebert, E. H. (2012). Toward a theoretical model of text complexity for the early grades: Learning from the past, anticipating the future. Reading Research Quarterly, 47(3), 235-258.
Mesmer, H. A. E., & Griffith, P. L. (2005). Everybody's selling it—But just what is explicit, systematic phonics instruction? The Reading Teacher, 59(4), 366-376.
Mesmer, H. A. E. (2008). Tools for matching readers to texts: Research-based practices. Guilford Press.
Mesmer, H. A. E. (2000). Decodable text: A review of what we know. Literacy Research and Instruction, 40(2), 121-141.
Mesmer, H. A. E. (2005). Text decodability and the first-grade reader. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 21(1), 61-86.
Mesmer, H. A. E. (1999). Scaffolding a crucial transition using text with some decodability. The Reading Teacher, 53(2), 130-142.
Mesmer, H. A. E. (2009). Textual scaffolds for developing fluency in beginning readers: Accuracy and reading rate in qualitatively leveled and decodable text. Literacy Research and Instruction, 49(1), 20-39.
Duke, N. K., & Mesmer, H. A. E. (2019). Phonics faux pas: Avoiding instructional missteps in teaching letter-sound relationships. American Educator, 42(4), 12-16.
Contact Me
Contact Me
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