Lori Oczkus

Lori Oczkus is a literacy coach, bestselling author, and popular international speaker who works with schools across the United States and internationally to improve K–8 reading instruction. She has extensive experience as a bilingual elementary teacher, reading intervention specialist, staff developer, and literacy coach, and regularly demonstrates lessons and coaches teachers in classrooms, focusing on practical, research-based strategies for boosting students’ comprehension. Her contributions to reading education have been recognized through her induction into the California Reading Association Hall of Fame for her impact in California and internationally.

Oczkus has authored multiple professional books on literacy, including Close Reading with Paired Texts (with Timothy Rasinski), Best Ever Literacy Survival Tips: 25 Lessons You Can't Teach Without!, Guided Writing: Practical Lessons, Powerful Results, and Reciprocal Teaching at Work (3rd edition, with a foreword by John Hattie). In the Close Reading with Paired Texts series, including Close Reading with Paired Texts Level 1: Engaging Lessons to Improve Comprehension, she provides teachers with close reading strategies, reciprocal teaching routines, text-dependent questions, and paired fiction and nonfiction texts to strengthen students’ fluency and comprehension.