SRA salutes Dr. Don Parker, whose remarkable insight, creativity, energy, and concern have helped educators meet the individual learning needs of millions of children over the past 40 years.
Parker published his first SRA Reading Lab in February 1957. The labs answered the question of how to provide individualized, multilevel learning for students.
The story of the man with an idea and a box begins in 1950. While studying for his master's degree in psychology, Parker took a teaching position in a rural Florida school district. He says the superintendent wanted someone "to help our children read better." Although Parker didn't have classroom experience, he had taken psychology and education courses that he says gave him "ideas about individual differences among learners."
Soon these ideas were energized as he tested 3,000 students at ten schools. Eventually, he focused on a class of 32 seventh-grade students with reading levels varying from second grade to twelfth grade.
