Shannon Riley-Ayers
Assistant Research Professor, National Institute for Early Education Research

Shannon Riley-Ayers conducts research at NIEER on issues related to literacy, performance-based assessment, and professional development -- often working with teachers and master or mentor teachers. She is co-author with Dorothy Strickland of the policy brief Early Literacy: Policy and Practice in the Early Years (NIEER) and the book Literacy Leadership in Early Childhood: The Essential Guide (Teachers College Press). She is first author of the Early Learning Scale (NIEER), a comprehensive performance-based assessment system for preschool and kindergarten. It is currently used in several districts in NJ, the states of West Virginia and South Dakota, and as a training module with the New Teacher Project. Her work has been presented at professional conferences of the National Association for the Education of Young Children and the American Education Research Association.

Before joining NIEER, Shannon was co-director of the Office of Early Literacy at the New Jersey Department of Education and was instrumental in developing and implementing the New Jersey Early Literacy Initiative. She is a certified teacher and reading specialist, with several years of experience in public school classrooms. She holds an M.Ed. in language and literacy and a Ph.D. in educational psychology from The Pennsylvania State University.