Michèle Dufresne is a former literacy specialist who has turned her commitment to teaching children to read into a major focus of her writing, speaking, and teaching. She is the best-selling author of the Bella and Rosie series and many other fiction and nonfiction books used by teachers nationally and internationally.
Together with Jan Richardson, she has coauthored the best-selling Literacy Footprints Guided Reading system, published by Pioneer Valley Books (PVB), which has become an indispensable part of helping teachers deliver high-quality guided reading to students in K–6 classrooms. In fall 2019, Michèle’s new book coauthored with Jan, The Next Step Forward in Word Study and Phonics, was published by Scholastic. She is also the author of Word Solvers: Making Sense of Letters and Sounds, published by Heinemann Publishing. Recently, she has worked on a collection of new PVB books for grades 3–6 that includes high-interest fiction and nonfiction and graphic novels about Greek myths. Her book Oki and the Polar Bear won the 2017 Moonbeam Silver Award.
Michèle holds a doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts. She has been a classroom teacher, language arts specialist, Title 1 director, and Reading Recovery teacher leader, and has served as a consultant in school districts across the United States.
When not writing or working with children and teachers in schools, Michèle enjoys taking her dogs for walks and playing with her four grandchildren: Jaxson, Harper, Mae, and Simon. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts (when it is warm!), and St. Augustine, Florida (when it is cold!).
She continues to work on improving literacy education and increasing students’ access to books that engage and support children who are learning to read.
8 thoughts on “About”
Hi Michelle, I enjoyed talking with you at Literacy for All. Our visions and passions are similar, especially when it comes to guided reading. I would love the opportunity to work with your team. Feel free to contact me at the email address below.
Thanks,
Robin
Hello,
My daughter is in first grade and has been struggling with reading. She is an year early in school and since she has started first grade she has been working with a reading specialist. She has made wonders for my child, who is now able to read multiple of your books.
The reason why I am writing is to let you know my daughter absolutely loves Bella and Rosie and you as an author.
You are her favorite author, she actually asked me to look you up and tell you how much she loves your books and your pictures and stories and that she was so happy to put a face next to the name.
Thanks for writing wonderful stories for children.
Sandra Massie
Thanks so much, Sandra!
Hello! You can find all of the Pioneer Valley Books webinars, including registration information and recordings of past webinars at https://pioneervalleybooks.com/webinars (-Heather, Brand & Marketing Manager at Pioneer Valley Books)
I just attended your webinar on remote learning. Thank you so much. Thank you for all you are doing to help at this crazy time. I am so thankful for your help!
Dear Dr. Dufresne,
I really like your books on Literacy Footprints. They are so much fun to read. I love Marshmallow and Jordan, and I also love Rosie and Bella and Jack and Daisy. I love those books the most. I love all of the books that you write! They are always so fun to read and they inspire me with my two dogs, Griffin and Phoenix. Our dogs are golden retrievers, so they are way bigger than your dogs. I really like to see you read these, and I like your horse books, too. I ride horses each Monday, and I am excited to go to horse camp this summer! I am inspired by you to write my own books about my dogs. I don’t usually like to read, but your books are easy and hard at the same time, so they make me feel like I can challenge myself. Now that I have found all of your books on Literacy Footprints, I see that I can read and write my own books! I really like to read your books, and I think that you should write more! (I am eight years old. I told this to my mom, and she wrote it all down.)
I am in love with the phonics readers that were added to the literacy footprints digital readers. With the big push to use more decodable text, these are amazing. Good sentence structure and they are engaging! It is easy to have a balance of decodable to non-decodables with these books. I never thought I would be praising phonics readers because the traditional ones are just not good. Thanks for making my life as a reading specialist easier!