Karen Smith is the recipient of the NCTE Outstanding Educator in the English Language Arts Award. This award recognizes a distinguished national or international educator who has made major contributions to the field of language arts in elementary education.
The Elementary Section Steering Committee will celebrate Karen's contributions to the English language arts at the Elementary Section Get-Together during the NCTE Annual Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Karen is Associate Professor in the Language and Literacy Ph.D. program in the area of Curriculum and Instruction at Arizona State University. She taught fourth through sixth grade for many years and was Associate Executive Director at NCTE for eight years.
While teaching, she inspired teachers in her school and educators from around the world who visited her classroom on a regular basis researching and learning. Several articles and studies have been written highlighting the theoretical and practical methods of Karen’s teaching. One such article, "Bringing Children and Literature together in the Elementary Classroom," Primary Voices K-6, April 1995 has been used over and over again with teachers and by teacher educators.
During her tenure at NCTE in the 1990s, Karen developed projects that included ideas about how teachers can be agents in their own professional development. She initiated and was the creative energy behind several projects including the formation of the journals Primary Voices K-6 and Voices from the Middle as well as the teacher study group program Reading Initiative. As a long-time member of NCTE she has served as Elementary Rep-at-Large from 1988-89 and on the Middle Level Nominating Committee from 2001-2002.
Karen has received several awards including the NCTE Richard W. Halle Award in 2002 and the John Chorlton Manning Public School Award in 2008.