Dorothy Johnson (1911-2000)
Dorothy Johnson was hired by Concordia College in 1953 as Fjelstad dormitory resident head and assistant to the dean of women. Soon after her arrival she founded the college’s Reading Service to improve students’ reading skills. She also developed an annual Conference on Reading at Concordia and became president of the Minnesota Reading Association in 1966.
Dorothy Johnson was born on January 8, 1911 in Stevens Point, Wisconsin to Peter C. and Josephine (Lien) Johnson. She had two brothers, Robert and Neal, and one sister, Eleanor. [1] Johnson attended high school in Stevens Point and then went on to receive her Bachelor’s of Education degree in 1931 from Central Wisconsin Teacher’s College, (now the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point). In 1953 she received a Master’s of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison for Guidance Counselling and Reading and in 1960 she acquired Certification in Reading beyond the Master’s degree from the University of Chicago. [2]
Johnson became passionate about reading in 1931 when she began teaching and counseling secondary school students in Wisconsin. [3] Between the years of 1931 and 1953, Johnson taught at six different Wisconsin high schools: Pittsville, Stratford, New London, Marshfield, Plymouth, and Wauwatosa. [4] Through her teaching experience, she found that many students who were considered to have “poor mentality,” actually lacked reading skills. Their academic performance was affected by reading problems rather than mental capacity. [5]
Hired as Assistant Dean of Women, Dorothy Johnson came to Concordia College in 1953 after finishing her Master’s program at University of Wisconsin Madison. In this position, she was asked to investigate where students were struggling and then create a guidance program directed at that need. She worked under the supervision of Dorothy Olsen, Dean of Women. In her role at Concordia, she began hearing complaints from local high school superintendents about the quality of education graduates studying English had received. [6] With these complaints in mind, Dorothy Johnson determined that a reading service was the type of guidance program students needed.
In the fall of 1954, the first Concordia College Reading Service meeting was held on campus in Fjelstad Lounge. In order to improve the student’s reading skills, Johnson acquired numerous magazines and and borrowed a stopwatch from the athletic department. [7] Magazines were useful reading materials and the stopwatches encouraged students to improve their reading speed. The service helped students with their vocabulary, comprehension, rate of reading and study habits. [8]
As is the case in the twenty-first century, many children in the mid-twentieth century did not have an interest in reading. Their attention was drawn elsewhere and this affected the number of children who learned to read well. Many children struggled to become fluent and proficient enough to read. The new reading service allowed students to better comprehend and decode what they read, which were two of the largest issues relating to reading ability in the twentieth century. [9] The Concordia College Reading Service became an essential tool for improving the reading skills of students.
The program started with ten students and no funding or classroom. At the end of the first year, the college student association granted the organization $1000 and $500 the following year for supplies. The program kept growing and soon three hundred to four hundred students were regularly attending meetings. Eventually, the program started to support itself by charging students fifty cents per session. [10]
Johnson’s initial efforts were successful, and after three years serving as assistant Dean of Women, she left her administrative position to develop the reading service as part of Concordia’s English faculty. Johnson also coordinated opportunities for improving reading skills beyond Concordia’s campus. In 1956, two years after the first Reading Service meeting, Dorothy Johnson and her colleague in the English department, Walther Prausnitz, created the first annual summer reading conference. Shortly after the creation of the conference, Johnson assumed the role of conference head. [11]
Johnson believed that “you can’t do anything if you don’t know how to read.” The summer reading conference was created to benefit teachers, supervisors and administrators, especially those at the elementary and high school level. [12] During the twentieth century, a conference such as this was vital because many scholars were studying the best way to teach people how to read. There was no consensus on the best way to teach, some believed that children should learn to read naturally while others thought they would not learn if they were not taught. This conference brought people together to discuss topics such as reading comprehension, reading rate and vocabulary. [13]
National publishers and speakers attended and participated in the conference. The goal was to have teachers bring what they learned at the conference back into the classroom. During Johnson’s time at Concordia, reading was not stressed in the high schools. However, gradually more and more schools started to add reading programs or improve existing ones. When the summer reading conference was initiated, it was the first of its kind in the surrounding states. [14] The last Summer Reading Conference was held in 1999. [15]
Along with the reading service and the annual summer reading conference, Johnson served as a consultant to schools and helped them create their own reading programs. She gained an assistant, Concordia English faculty member Dr. James Coomber, and they travelled across the state to help different schools. [16] Her commitment to reading was clear.
Due to her dedication to reading, she had the opportunity to participate in International Reading Association Tours. On these tours, she sat as chairperson of sessions about educating teachers to help college students read well. [17] She was able to travel to Singapore, Germany, Austria, Poland, Russia, Hungary, Buenos Aires and many other locations. Dorothy enjoyed these tours and valued the perspective they gave her. She said in an interview, “It’s really a marvelous thing. You have an opportunity to talk to people in reading from all over the world. So often the American public is critical of reading programs in this country. Yet each country in the world is having the same problems.” [18]
Dorothy Johnson was well loved by Concordia College and many saw her efforts. Walther Prausnitz described Johnson as knowing “how to draw out of her students what they brought with them, giving them the confidence and skills to continue learning.” He continued to describe her as patient, tough, energetic, and loved by her students. [19] A professor from Michigan State University, East Lansing, William Durr, told her that she left a lasting impact in the world through the reading conferences. He stated: “Multiply the number of participants you have had each year by twenty-five years and then multiply that by the number of students each participant will probably have worked with in a professional lifetime. The resulting number will be the tens of thousands of people who have been benefitted.” [20]
Over the years Johnson received many awards and leadership positions. In 1966, she was installed as president of the Minnesota Reading Association. From 1974 to 1976, Johnson held the Wije Distinguished Professorship Award. [21] Additionally, in 1978, she received the International Reading Association’s Award for Distinguished Service. In 1983, after 30 years of dedication to Concordia College, Dorothy Johnson retired as a professor who had impacted the lives of thousands. [22]
Authors: Abbey Benson and Layne Cole
Footnotes
[1] “Dorothy Ruth Johnson [obituary],” 2000, Forum, Dorothy Johnson, Biography Files Collection, Concordia College Archives. Hereafter the references to Johnson’s materials in the Biography Files Collection will be referred to as Johnson Biography File.
[2] “Faculty Information Record 1963,” Johnson Biography File; “News Bureau biography Record,” Johnson Biography File.
[3] [Funeral Program], Aug. 22, 2000, Johnson Biography File.
[4] “News Bureau biography Record,” Johnson Biography File.
[5] “Dorothy Johnson Becomes Jet Setter Once Again,” July 1974, Johnson Biography File.
[6] Carroll L Engelhardt, On Firm Foundation Grounded (Moorhead, Minnesota: Concordia College, 1991), 200, 234.
[7] Carroll L Engelhardt, On Firm Foundation Grounded (Moorhead, Minnesota: Concordia College, 1991), 200, 234.
[8] Louise Nettleton, “On the Edge of Her Chair,” 1979, Alumni News, Johnson Biography File.
[9] William H. Teale, “Young Children and Reading: Trends across the Twentieth Century,” Journal of Education 177 (1995): 95-127.
[10] Nettleton, “On the Edge of Her Chair.”
[11] Engelhardt, On Firm Foundation Grounded, 200, 234.
[12] Terry Sauer, “Dorothy Johnson’s Concern is with a basic skill: reading,” June 10, 1979, Forum, Johnson Biography File.
[13] Teale, “Young Children and Reading,” 95-127.
[14] Sauer, “Dorothy Johnson’s Concern is with a Basic Skill: Reading.”
[15] Concordia College Archives, “Series 3: Conference on Reading and Writing, 1955-1999 [RG 28],” Cuadra Star, accessed on February 9, 2017, https://cord.cuadra.com/starweb4/l.skca-catalog/servlet.starweb4.
[16] Nettleton, “On the Edge of Her Chair.”
[17] “Concordia Professor Attends World Reading Conference,” Johnson Biography File.
[18] “Dorothy Johnson Becomes Jet Setter Once Again.”
[19] “Dorothy [eulogy],” August 22, 2000, Johnson Biography File.
[20] Nettleton, “On the Edge of Her Chair.”
[21] This award is given to professors who have worked for the college, have been a church member, and are the “living symbol of the great teacher concept.” See: “The Wije Distinguished Professorship Award,” Concordia College, Moorhead, MN, accessed March 5, 2017, https://www.concordiacollege.edu/search/?q=The+Wije+Distinguished+Profes....
[22] [Funeral Program].