Rita Bean

Rita Bean (@rita_bean) is a professor emerita at the University of Pittsburgh School of Education and a nationally known expert on the role and impact of reading specialists and literacy coaches in schools. She is the coauthor of The Literacy Specialist: Leadership and Coaching for the Classroom, School, and Community (with Virginia J. Goatley), as well as Cultivating Coaching Mindsets: An Action Guide for Literacy Leaders and Unpacking Coaching Mindsets: Collaboration Between Principals and Coaches (both with Jacy Ippolito). A coauthored study, Specialized Literacy Professionals as Literacy Leaders: Results of a National Survey, published in Literacy Research and Instruction, resulted in a 2015 position statement and research brief on the role of specialized literacy professionals in schools for ILA. Bean served as cochair of the committee responsible for the development of ILA’s Standards for the Preparation of Literacy Professionals 2017. She was elected to the Reading Hall of Fame in 2009 and served as its 2016–2018 president.