Heidi Anne Mesmer

Heidi Anne Mesmer, PhD, is a professor of literacy education at Virginia Tech, where she has studied beginning reading materials, text difficulty, phonics, and struggling readers since 1999. A former elementary classroom teacher, she has directed multiple school-based and grant-funded initiatives to improve K–5 reading instruction, and her research has been published in leading journals including Reading Research Quarterly, Educational Researcher, Elementary School Journal, and Early Childhood Research Quarterly.

Mesmer is the author of several influential books for educators, including Big Words for Young Readers: Teaching Kids in Grades K to 5 to Decode―and Understand―Words With Multiple Syllables and Morphemes, Letter Lessons and First Words: Phonics Foundations That Work, Alphabetics for Emerging Learners: Building Strong Reading Foundations in PreK, Teaching Skills for Complex Text: Deepening Reading in the Classroom, Reading Intervention in the Primary Grades: A Common-Sense Guide, and Tools for Matching Readers to Texts. Her work is widely cited in discussions of the science of reading, text-reader matching, and effective phonics instruction, and she frequently consults with school districts, state education agencies, and professional organizations on early literacy and complex text.