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Maya Smart

“Hi, I'm Maya Smart, a literacy advocate and author of the new book Reading for Our Lives: A Literacy Action Plan from Birth to Six.”

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About Me

As an author, seasoned speaker, and passionate literacy advocate, I help parents nurture, teach, and advocate for children on the road to reading. My book, Reading for Our Lives: A Literacy Action Plan from Birth to Six, provides a clear, step-by-step guide to helping our children thrive as readers and learners. 

I hold a master’s degree in journalism from the Medill School at Northwestern University and a bachelor’s in social studies with honors from Harvard University. I serve as affiliated faculty in Educational Policy and Leadership in the College of Education at Marquette University. My specialty is in making academic research about literacy accessible and easy to implement for parents, grandparents, teachers, librarians, and other caregivers and concerned citizens.

I speak frequently at book festivals, bookstore events, and conferences about the educational challenges facing our children and the tools we have to surmount them. How to parent for literacy and how to support families to parent for literacy are key topics for me, and I’ve also commented widely on educational equality, learning loss, curriculum reform, and related topics. My take on literacy and education issues have also been featured by media outlets including TIME, CBS Mornings, Forbes, and the Los Angeles Times.


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