Education

Ed.D. University of Rochester

Biography

Catherine Compton-Lilly is the John C. Hungerpiller Professor at the University of South Carolina. As a professor in the College of Education, Compton-Lilly teaches courses in literacy studies, elementary educations and works with local educators. Among the books she has edited or authored are: Whitewashed Critical Perspectives: Restoring the Edge to Edgy Ideas in Literacy Education (co-edited with Lewis Ellison, Perry, & Smagorinsky), Making Sense of Literacy Scholarship: Approaches to Synthesizing Literacy Research (co-authored with Rogers & Lewis Ellison), and Children in Immigrant Families Becoming Literate, which she co-authored with a team of doctoral students. She is also the author of a series of texts dedicated to a ten-year longitudinal research project: Reading Families: The Literate Lives of Urban Children (2003), Rereading Families (2007), Reading Time: The literate lives of urban secondary students and their families (2012), and Reading students’ lives: Literacy learning across time (2016). In these books, she describes her experiences in following eight of her former first grade students through high school. Compton-Lilly has authored articles in several major educational journals including the Reading Research Quarterly, Research in the Teaching of English, The Reading Teacher, Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, Written Communication, Urban Education, Journal of Literacy Research, Harvard Educational Review, and Language Arts.

Catherine Compton-Lilly engages in longitudinal research projects that last over long periods of time. Her interests include examining how time operates as a contextual factor in children’s lives as they progress through school and construct their identities as students and readers. In a recently completed 14-year study, Compton-Lilly worked with a team of graduate students to follow children from immigrant families from primary school through high school. In 2024, Compton-Lilly was awarded a Fulbright Award to work at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. Compton-Lilly holds emerita status at the University of Wisconsin Madison. She has recently been inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame.

Selected Publications

Compton-Lilly, C., Emodi, B., Wigfall, S., & Boyd, F. (in press). Exploring Community Cultural Wealth in Two Schools and Its Contribution to Literacy Instruction. Language Arts.

Compton-Lilly, C. (2025). Centering children and working towards equity: Teaching all children to read. Journal of Reading Recovery, 24(2), pp. 5-16.

Hsin, C.-T., Compton-Lilly, C., Hsieh, M.-F., & Luu, D. T. (2025). Creating books and sustaining Indigenous languages with two Atayal communities. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 25(2), 394-421. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687984231161116

Lewis Ellison, T., Compton‐Lilly, C., & Rogers, R. (2024). A Metasynthesis of Family Literacy Scholarship: Countering and Constructing Narratives about BIPOC Families and Communities. Reading Research Quarterly, 59(3), 526-549.

Compton‐Lilly, C., Spence, L. K., Thomas, P. L., & Decker, S. L. (2024). A Response to our Critics: Agreements, Clarifications, and Children. The Reading Teacher, 77(5), 751-755.

Myers, M., & Compton-Lilly, C. (2024). Changing Schools, Growing Teachers, Creating Spaces for Equitable Learning: Toward a Systemic Re-envisioning of Educational Practices. The Urban Review, 56(2), 393-418.

Compton-Lilly, C. (2023). Finding Time: Opening up conceptions of time in literacy and educational research. Research in the Teaching of English. 58(2), 193-223.

Compton-Lilly, C., Spence, L., Thomas, P., Decker, S. (Invited, 2023). Stories Grounded in Decades of Research: What We Truly Know about the Teaching of Reading. The Reading Teacher.

Compton-Lilly, C. (2023). Into the Fray: Black English, Reading Politics, and the Legacy of Dr. Ken Goodman. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 67(2), 111-121.

Compton-Lilly, C. & Hawkins, M. (2023). Global Flows and Critical Cosmopolitanism: A Longitudinal Case Study, Harvard Educational Review, 93, 26-52.

Compton‐Lilly, C., Mitra, A., Guay, M., & Spence, L. K. (2020). A confluence of complexity: Intersections among reading theory, neuroscience, and observations of young readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 55, 185-195.

Compton-Lilly, C. (2020). Microaggressions and macroaggressions across time: The longitudinal construction of inequality in schools. Urban Education, 55(8-9), 1315-1349.

Compton-Lilly, C., Rogers, R, & Ellison Lewis, T. (2020). A meta-ethnography of family literacy scholarship: Ways with metaphors: Reading Research Quarterly, 55(2), 271-289.

Compton-Lilly, C., Kim, J., Quast, E., Tran, S., & Shedrow, S.  (2019).  The emergence of transnational awareness among children in immigrant families. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 19(1), 3-33.

Compton-Lilly, C., Papoi, K., Venegas, P., Hamman, L., & Schwabenbauer (2017). Intersectional identity negotiation: The case of young immigrant children, Journal of Literacy Research, 49(1), 115-140.

Compton-Lilly, C. (2016). Time in Education: Intertwined dimensions and theoretical possibilities, Time and Society, 25(3), 575-593.

Compton-Lilly, C. (2014). The development of writing habitus: A ten-year case study of a young writer. Written Communication, 31, 371-403.

Compton-Lilly, C. & Gregory, E. (2013, invited) Conversation currents:  Family literacy. Language Arts, 90(6), 464-472.

Compton-Lilly, C. (2013). The Temporal Expectations of Schooling and Literacy Learning Jermaine's Story.  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy.  56(5), 400-408.

Compton-Lilly, C., Rogers, R. & Lewis, T. (2012) Analyzing epistemological considerations related to diversity: An integrative critical literature review of family literacy scholarship.  Reading Research Quarterly, 47(1), 33-60.

Compton-Lilly, C. (2011). Time and reading:  Negotiations and affiliations of a reader, grades one through eight. Research in the Teaching of English, 45(3), 224-252.

Compton-Lilly, C. (2009). Unpacking artifacts of instruction. Literacy, Teaching and Learning. 13(1& 2), 57-79.

Compton-Lilly, C. (2007). The complexities of reading capital in two Puerto Rican families. Reading Research Quarterly, 42(1), 72-98.

Research/Areas of Expertise

Literacy in families
Literacy in historically underserved communities
Early childhood literacy
Learning to read and write

Special Awards and Honors

2024 Inductee, Reading Hall of Fame

2024 Honorary Chair Professor, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan.

2024 Fulbright Specialist Award, National Tsing Hua University, American Institute Taiwan.

2022 College of Education Research Award, University of South Carolina

2022 Fulbright Research and Teaching Award, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan Fulbright Foundation (Fall 2022).

2022 Honorary Chair Professor, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan.

2020 Honorary Chair Professor, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan.

2020 Invited Participant, Inaugural Convening, Southeastern PDS Research Consortium, University of South Carolina and the Spencer Foundation, (May 2021)

2018 Wisconsin State Reading Association, Contribution to Literacy Award, Milwaukee, WI.

2017 Wisconsin State Reading Association, Outstanding Service Award, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

2016 Invited Member, Center for the Expansion of Language and Thinking (CELT)

2014 Jeanne S. Chall Visiting Researcher Award, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA 

2014 Wisconsin State Reading Association Celebrate Literacy Award, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

2009 Dina Feitelson Research Award for Empirical Research Article in Reading, International Reading Association, Minneapolis, MN

Courses/Teaching

• EDRD 430: Elementary Literacy Instruction I
• EDRD 431: Foundations of Literacy Assessment
• EDRD 803: Pedagogical Perspectives on Reader Response Theory
• EDRD 824: Discourse Analysis
• EDRD 824: Identity, Literacy and Learning
• EDRD 824: Global and Local Literacies