University at Albany
 

 

JUDITH LANGER  

Department Chair
Educational Theory and Practice

Director
Center on English Learning & Achievement

OFFICE: EDUCATION 310 
PHONE: (518) 442-5029 
FAX: (518) 442-5008  
EMAIL: jlanger@uamail.albany.edu 
 
 

Dr. Judith Langer

Photo: Elena Siebert


Judith Langer
 

Langer is professor of education at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She specializes in studies of language, literacy and learning. Her research focuses on how people become highly literate, on how they use reading and writing to learn, and on what this means for instruction.

Her major works examine the nature of literate thought -- the knowledge students use when they "make sense" and the ways in which their learning is affected by activities and interac-tions in the classroom. She has studied reading and writing development, the ways in which understanding grows over time, how particular literacy contexts affect language and thought, the effects of literacy instruction on academic learning, and the contribution of literature to literacy . She is presently studying the professional and classroom features that accompany English programs where students are "beating the odds" in literacy. Langer also studies relationships between literate knowledge and assessment. She has studied the kinds of thought and knowledge invoked by different types of questions, as well as the inherent tensions between general displays of factual knowledge and discipline-specific rhetorical structures that mark "knowing" within particular fields. Related to this work, she has been a long-time consultant to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, helping to design, interpret, and report its findings. Langer also serves on many advisory boards and national reform groups involved in reconceptualizing literacy education.

Langer has published in a wide variety of journals and collections. Her books include Reader Meets Author/Bridging the Gap; Understanding Reading and Writing Research; Children Reading and Writing: Structures and Strategies; Language, Literacy, and Culture: Issues of Society and Schooling; How Writing Shapes Thinking: Studies of Teaching and Learning; Literature Instruction: A Focus on Student Response, and Literature Instruction: Practice and Policy. Her latest book is Envisioning Literature: Literary Understanding and Literature Instruction.

Langer is director of the National Research Center on English Learning & Achievement (CELA) funded by US Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI). She is also chair of the Department of Educational Theory and Practice.

Go to Center on English Learning & Achievement

Go to Department of Educational Theory and Practice

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Latest Update: January, 2000


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