Marie Clay

Marie M. Clay (1926–2007) was a New Zealand clinical psychologist and literacy researcher best known internationally as the developer of the Reading Recovery early literacy intervention. Born in Wellington, she trained initially as a primary school teacher and completed teacher training at Wellington College of Education before earning a Master of Arts in education; she later undertook postgraduate study in developmental and clinical child psychology at the University of Minnesota on a Fulbright Scholarship and completed her doctorate at the University of Auckland on emergent reading behaviour. In 1975 she became the first woman professor at the University of Auckland, where for about three decades she focused on preventing psychological and learning difficulties through early intervention in literacy.

Clay’s research on children’s early reading and writing led to the development of An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement, a set of assessment tools for closely documenting young children’s literacy learning, which has been used and adapted in multiple languages and underpins Reading Recovery. In addition to An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement, her published works include Becoming Literate, Literacy Lessons Designed for Individuals, and Running Records for Classroom Teachers, all of which elaborate her literacy processing theory and practical approaches for assessing and teaching early readers. She served as president of the International Reading Association, worked as a visiting professor at several universities in the United States and the United Kingdom, and received honours such as election