LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ -- Dr. Susan Mandel Glazer (left), professor of graduate education and director of the Center for Reading and Writing at Rider University, is the author of her 14th and 15th books on reading and writing education.

One book is entitled Assessment IS Instruction: Reading, Writing, Spelling, and Phonics for ALL Learners. The second publication is Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study: A Sensible Approach. Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc. of Norwood, MA recently published both books.

An internationally-known reading specialist and a past president of the International Reading Association (IRA), Dr. Glazer was also named a 1998 recipient of the IRA Outstanding Teacher Educator in Reading Award at the association's 43rd annual convention in Orlando, FL. The award recognizes an exceptional college or university teacher of reading methods or reading-related courses engaged in teacher preparation at the undergraduate or graduate level.

Assessment IS Instruction is about managing and balancing the merging of literacy assessment and instruction in the classroom. Much of the material presented in the book is the result of staff and graduate students working with children ages 6-16 in the Reading and Writing Center at Rider over the years.

Dr. Glazer, a resident of Lawrenceville, stresses that assessment and instructional activities are managed by students so they can realize the logical relationship between what they know and what they need to learn. The instructional strategies easily adapt to self-monitoring activities -- many of which were developed and revised in the Center since it began in 1979. Assessment is a continual process, Dr. Glazer says, of interaction between student and teacher, a process of continually asking questions and getting answers regardless of who asks the question.

Her other book, Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study, makes the case that functional phonics and spelling

-- when children need assistance with reading and writing -- should be taught in school.

"What we need to do is know about language, its sounds, meanings, and rules, and how these interact simultaneously in reading and writing processes," she said. "Then we need to understand how our children learn."

A member of the Rider education faculty since 1969, Dr. Glazer has been a prolific scholarly contributor to the reading/language arts field. In addition to the 15 books she has authored or co-authored, she has had more than 200 articles published, many in refereed journals. She has also made hundreds of presentations to educators in 49 states and 21 countries. She currently writes a monthly column for Teaching, K-8 magazine.

Dr. Glazer is also involved with numerous school districts in the United States and several abroad in long-term professional development programs. Most recently, she and two of her graduate students (Danyell Clark and Robin Hepp) returned from Torku, Finland where they concluded staff development activities.

The reading center has drawn worldwide attention. Each year the Center's children provide field and observational experiences for about 130 graduate and 50 national or internationally educators. About 300 children are enrolled in the Center's instructional or diagnostic services program annually.

Rider University is an independent, coeducational, nonsectarian institution with a 353-acre main campus in Lawrenceville, New Jersey and a 23-acre campus in Princeton, New Jersey. The University offers 58 undergraduate programs and 17 graduate programs in the Colleges of Business Administration; Liberal Arts, Education, and Sciences; Continuing Studies; and Westminster Choir College. Ninety-three percent of the faculty hold doctoral or other appropriate advanced degrees. U.S. News and World Report has again ranked Rider in the top tier of northern universities based on the quality of its programs.