Rate My Professor Dennis Davis

Dennis Davis is a Professor of Literacy Education in the Department of Teacher Education and Learning Sciences at North Carolina State University College of Education. He earned a Ph.D. in Learning, Teaching, and Diversity from Peabody College of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University in 2010 and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Duke University in 2001. Prior to academia, Davis taught fourth grade at La Unión Elementary School in Rio Grande City, Texas, and served as founding teacher for fifth-grade reading and writing at KIPP Aspire Academy Middle School in San Antonio, Texas, where he received the District Teacher of the Year award for elementary education in 2003. During his doctoral program, he worked as a research assistant, practicum supervisor, and course instructor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Vanderbilt. Davis holds Texas teacher certifications in elementary education, bilingual/ESL, and special education.

Davis joined North Carolina State University as Associate Professor of Literacy Education in 2016 and advanced to full Professor. Previously, he was Assistant Professor of Literacy Education in the Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching at the University of Texas at San Antonio from 2010 to 2016. His research centers on upper-elementary literacy instruction, with emphasis on reading comprehension processes, teachers' knowledge of reading development, and assessment and intervention strategies for students when standard approaches prove insufficient. He has authored or co-authored numerous peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Reading Research Quarterly, Reading & Writing Quarterly, Literacy Research and Instruction, and The Reading Teacher. Key publications include "What do upper-elementary and middle school teachers know about the processes of text comprehension?" (Reading & Writing, 2022, with Tenore, McElhone, and DeIaco); "Getting KnERDI with language: Examining teachers’ knowledge for enhancing reading development in code-based and meaning-based domains" (Reading Research Quarterly, 2021, with Samuelson, Grifenhagen, DeIaco, and Relyea); and "The dangers of test preparation: What students learn (and don’t learn) about reading comprehension from test-centric literacy instruction" (The Reading Teacher, 2018, with Vehabovic). Davis received the North Carolina Educational Policy Fellowship (2018-2019), NC State College of Education Dean’s Innovation Fund Award (2017), University of Texas System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award (2014), Otto Bassler Award for Outstanding Dissertation (2011), and Predoctoral Fellowships from the National Academy of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences. He has served as co-editor of the Journal of Literacy Research and contributed to policy efforts, including a common framework for literacy instruction in UNC system teacher preparation programs and strategic recommendations for literacy and equity in North Carolina.