Background
Richard Lawrence Venezky was born on the 16th of April, 1938 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States; the son of Bernard Jacob and Isabel (Zeisel) Venezky.
Richard Lawrence Venezky was born on the 16th of April, 1938 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States; the son of Bernard Jacob and Isabel (Zeisel) Venezky.
Richard Venezky studied at Cornell University, where he received a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree in 1961 and a Master of Arts degree in linguistics in 1962. He did postgraduate study at the University of California in Berkeley in 1962-63. In 1965, he obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree in linguistics at Stanford University.
Richard Venezky began his career as a systems programmer and technical writer for Control Data Corporation in Palo Alto, California from 1962 to 1965. He received a post of an assistant professor of English and computer sciences at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1965, being promoted to an associate professor in 1969. In 1974 he was appointed a professor, the position he held until 1977. He was chairman of the computer sciences department from 1975 to 1977.
Richard joined the University of Delaware in Newark in 1977 as a professor of computer information sciences and linguistics and Unidel Professor of Educational Studies, he took that post until his death in 2004. He also was a visiting research associate at Tel Aviv University in 1969-70. He held the post at a scholar-in-residence for the United States Department of Education in 1997-98. Venezky was a chairman of the education committee at Madison Jewish Community Council from 1973 to 1977.
During the period from 1995 to 1998, he was the National research director for the United States Secretary of Education's Initiative on Reading and Writing. He also was the director of computing for the Dictionary of Old English at the University of Toronto. From 1990 until 1995 he was co-director for Research and Development for the National Center on Adult Literacy. During the 1994-95 academic year, he was the Benton Visiting Scholar in Education at the University of Chicago and senior researcher at the organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris. He also was a consultant to the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) in Washington
Richard Venezky authored books and journal articles on the design of computer-assisted instruction, English orthography, reading instruction, and the psychology of reading. In addition, he has authored and co-authored a number of instructional programs for pre-reading, reading, spelling, and language arts, as well as multimedia materials for reading.
Richard’s The Structure of English Orthography was published in 1970. He teamed with Carl F. Kaestle and Andrew M. Sum in 1987 in writing The Subtle Danger: Reflections on the Literacy Abilities of America's Young Adults. Among Venezky's other works is Toward Defining Literacy, which he wrote with Daniel A. Wagner and Barrie S. Ciliberti. His other publications include pamphlets such as Testing in Reading: Assessment and Instructional Decision Making. Venezky is also the author of reading programs, including Ginn English, written with Carol J. Fisher. Three years later the two produced its revised version.
Richard Venezky was a leading expert in the history of literacy and reading, as well as an outstanding educator and a prolific author of books and articles. The professor made remarkable contributions to the theory, research, practice and history of literacy. He developed computer-processing systems for two major dictionary projects, in addition to serving in consulting roles for other dictionaries, including The Oxford English Dictionary.
Richard's contributions to the Special Interest Group (SIG) were profound and lasting. In fact, the SIG might not now exist had he not steered it in its infancy in the right direction. It was he who suggested that a group eager to find a home within the International Reading Association (IRA) should become a Special Interest Group (SIG). He put us in touch with IRA Executive Secretary-Treasurer Ralph Staiger to effect this, and he lent his already illustrious name to the first organizational meeting of the History of Reading SIG, held on May 13, 1975, in New York at the 21st annual convention of the International Reading Association.
In 1996, Richard was inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame, and in 1999, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the Society for the Scientific Study of Education. In May 2004, a festschrift was held in his honor. At that time, the Richard Venezky Award was founded for creative work in the area of literacy.
(Can ghoti really be pronounced fish? Why is "o" short in ...)
1999Richard Venezky was a member of the International Reading Association, American Educational Research Association, American Professors for Peace in the Middle East, National Committee on Research on English, Association of Computing Machinery, and Jewish Federation of Delaware.
Dick Venezky's interests ranged from orthography to pedagogy, from adult literacy to computer-assisted instruction, from the relationship between literacy and political participation to the history of spelling and reading instructional texts. He was an avid and successful gardener and a lover of old cars, Westerns and glass sculpture.
Venezky was married to Karen F. Gauz. They had two children, a daughter Dina Yael and a son, Elie Michael.
