Dr. Marion Blank is the creator of several reading programs and the creator and former director of the A Light on Literacy program at Columbia University in New York. She is a developmental psychologist with a specialization in language and learning. Dr. Blank has developed a model for teaching reading that is based on six critical skills. Two are physical skills: the visual sequencing skills for reading and the fine motor performance for writing, and four are language skills: phonology, semantics, syntax and discourse. This model allows reading to be taught to a wide variety of children, including those for whom reading attainment is highly problematic, such as non-verbal autistic children. Her books The Reading Remedy and Spectacular Bond and her reading programs are designed to make her system easily available to parents so that they may prevent or overcome the reading failure that afflicts about 40% of the school population across the nation.

Education

Dr. Blank has her bachelor's degree from the City University of New York. She also has a master's degree in education from that institution. She has a Masters of Public Health degree from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

Career

Dr. Blank served on the faculty of the Department of Child Psychiatry at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

where she created the A Light on Literacy program. She is also a licensed psychologist. She also devotes considerable time and energy to producing books, articles, software programs and tests (including the widely used Preschool Language Assessment Instrument, a test published in both in English and Spanish, that is designed to assess the verbal communication skills of children in the preschool years). From 1973 to 1983, Dr. Blank was a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at

Rutgers Medical School Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is a medical school of Rutgers University. It is one of the two graduate medical schools of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, together with New Jersey Medical School, and is closely aligned with Ro ...

(a component institution of the

University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) was a state-run health sciences institution of New Jersey, United States. It was founded as the Seton Hall College of Medicine and Dentistry in 1954, and by the 1980s was both a majo ...

). In that capacity, she served as the director of a research unit in reading disabilities. From 1960 to 1973, she was on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at the

Albert Einstein College of Medicine Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a research-intensive medical school located in the Morris Park neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City. Founded in 1953, Einstein operates as an independent degree-granting institution as part of t ...

in New York where her work included serving as the Director of the teaching program of the interdisciplinary Training Program.

Awards and recognition

Throughout her career, Dr. Blank has been the recipient of many awards and commendations. She recently received the Upton Sinclair Award, which honors individuals who have made a significant contribution to education while displaying great courage in the process. Her software reading program, Sentence Master, received the Special Education Software Award from the Software Publishers Association and a Certificate of Achievement in the Johns Hopkins University National Search. She has been the recipient of a U.S. Public Health Service Career Development Award, an Award of Commendation from the New Jersey Speech and Hearing Association and the Elwyn Morey Memorial Lectureship in Australia. In 1996, she was the National Tour Lecturer for the Australian Speech/Language Association. She was the 1994 and 1995 New Jersey nominee for the Frank R. Kleffner Clinical Career Award of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association. In addition, she is a member and fellow of the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

, and a member of the Association of Children with Learning Disabilities. She has served on the editorial boards of a number of journals concerned with the issues of language and learning (e.g., Child Development, Applied Psycho- linguistics, Child Development and Care) as well as the boards of numerous committees including the William T. Grant Foundation and the

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development The ''Eunice Kennedy Shriver'' National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) is one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States Department of Health and Human Services. It supports and conducts research aime ...

References

External links

* * * https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Remedy-Essential-Skills-Reader/dp/047174204X {{DEFAULTSORT:Blank, Marion Developmental psychologists Living people Alumni of the University of Cambridge Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health alumni City College of New York alumni Graduate Center, CUNY alumni Yeshiva University faculty University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey faculty Columbia University faculty Year of birth missing (living people)