Margaret Meek Spencer (Inducted 1996)
Biographical Statement
Margaret Meek Spencer is Reader Emeritus in the University of London Institute of Education. Her publications as author, editor, and contributor include The Cool Web; Learning to Read; On Being Literate; How Texts Teach What Readers Learn; and Information and Book Learning. Her research affiliations are with the Department of Education at the University of Cambridge and The Centre for Language in Primary Education.
Tribute
Margaret's former students, colleagues, friends and admirers, as well as many practitioners, young and old, mourn the loss of our leading scholar and teacher of literacy, children's literature and the places where those two fields meet.
From the 1940s, when she first published, and was integral (with James Britton and Harold Rosen) in the launching of LATE (the London Association for the Teaching of English), through the 1950s when she was a founder member of United Kingdom Reading Association (later Literacy Association), she contributed to our thinking and our practice. Her publications, from the 1940s to the 2010s fill many pages.
She was proud to be a member of the RHF; traveling to be with you in September 2001, and being proud for her life and work to be celebrated with Yetta Goodman, Maxine Green and Louise Rosenblatt. She signified the important links between your country and ours. There will be wider and fuller celebrations when we are all liberated. For now, warm regards in these dark days to all USA educators from your UK colleagues in United Kingdom Literacy Association, the National Association for the Teaching of English and all scholars and teachers of literacy.
Rest in peace.