Jennifer Tuten

Jennifer Tuten is a Professor of Literacy Education. She received her doctorate in Language, Literacy and Learning from Fordham University. At Hunter she has served as department chair and associate provost, and most recently, Acting Dean of the School of Education. She teaches courses in literacy development and assessment, children’s literature and family/community partnerships. Her scholarship is practitioner-focused, closely aligned with the challenges and opportunities facing teachers as they strive to meet the needs of diverse literacy learners in urban schools, the development of responsive professional development models to improve literacy instruction in urban schools, and family, community and school engagement. She directed READ East Harlem/Hunter College, a collaborative, grant-funded professional development project uniting university literacy faculty with K-2 teachers and school leaders in District 4 to support literacy teaching and learning.

Dr. Tuten has presented at AERA, NCTE, ILA, and LRA. Her work has been published in Language Arts, The Reading Professor, and Literacy Research and Instruction. Her book Teaching and Learning in the (dis) Comfort Zone: A Guide for New Teachers and Literacy Coaches (Jensen, Hu, Tuten, & Eldridge, 2010) addresses the challenges of integrating conceptual understandings of literacy development and teaching with the multidimensional challenges and complexities of teaching reading and writing in contemporary elementary schools Most recently she co-authored Crossing Literacy Bridges: Collaborating with Families of Struggling Readers which offers teachers and families an asset based framework to support children’s literacy development. Prior to coming to Hunter College School of Education, she taught elementary and middle school in New York City, Hoboken, NJ, and London, UK.

• Ph.D., Fordham University (2005) Language, Literacy and Learning
• M.A. University College London (1987) English and American Literature
• B.A. The New School for Search Research (1979) Liberal Arts

• EDLIT 732 Children’s Literature
• EDLIT 736 Diagnosis of Reading Difficulties: Literacy Space I
• EDLIT 737 Practicum in Remedial Reading: Literacy Space II
• EDLIT 742 Practicum in Literacy Teaching

My scholarship is focused on the assessment and instruction of struggling readers and writers, the preparation of effective literacy teachers and coaches, and the development of responsive professional development models to improve literacy instruction in urban schools.

• Tuten, J., Jensen, D. & Endrizzi, C. (2018) Crossing Literacy Bridges: Collaborating with Families of Struggling Readers. Rowman & Littlefield.
• Hu, Y. & Tuten, J. (2017/2018) Literacy teachers’ learning through a recursive coaching cycle. The Reading Professor, 40(2): 6-13.
• Tuten, J. & Kung, S. (2017). Blending expertise to enrich a hybrid children’s literature course. Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning. 12(1), 73-87.
• Jensen, D. & Tuten, J. (2012). Successful Reading Assessments and Interventions for Struggling Readers: Lessons from Literacy Space. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan

2014–2019 Principal Investigator, New York Community Trust: Brooke Astor Fund for Education. “READ East Harlem/Hunter College” Grant to provide literacy focused professional development to teachers and school leaders in East Harlem schools. Total: $2,370,000.