Lillie Pope, PhD is a pioneer in Special Education, with focus on Literacy, Learning Problems, Learning and Reading Disabilities. She was the founding Director of the earliest Learning Center as part of the Mental Health Service at a public hospital. She is author of books and producer of films to guide in prevention and remediation of learning problems.

Early life

Dr. Pope was born in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, but grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

. She attended Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...

, transferring to Hunter College

Hunter College

Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...

, where she received her BA. Immediately after graduating college in 1937, at the age of 19, she began working as a teacher in public schools.

Career

During her professional career as a teacher, she was elected to the office of Vice President of the Vocational High School Teachers Association as well as to the office of Vice President of the Teachers Union. In the 1940s, equipment was lacking for effective teaching, class sizes were abnormally large, and trade teachers taught eight periods daily compared to their academic colleagues who carried a five period daily load. Her efforts led to reduced class sizes and teaching loads, and to improved equipment in the shop classes.

She left the public school system in 1952 and earned a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology

Educational psychology

Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Educational psychology is concerned with how students learn and develop, often focusing...

 at New York University

New York University

New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

. After several years as an Educational Psychologist in a hospital setting, she pioneered in establishing the first Learning Center in a mental health setting in this country (and arguably in the world) for students with learning problems. A mental health setting is important because emotional problems often interfere with learning and, conversely, difficulty in learning causes emotional problems. Her center served as a model for many that followed. She worked closely with the schools, guiding teachers, paraprofessionals, volunteers and parents in how to help their students become readers.

Working in an impoverished area in Coney Island

Coney Island

Coney Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill....

, she employed and trained neighborhood women to assist in this work; the beneficial impact on them, as on the children whom they served, was enormous. A number of these women went back to school and gained careers in education. While there, she employed the Bread and Puppet Theatre as part of the therapeutic program for children served by the clinic. She retired from the mental health center as Associate Chief of Child Psychiatry. Dr. Pope, Diplomate in School Psychology, has served as a consultant to educational and mental health agencies, and as Adjunct Professor at Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...

 and New York University

New York University

New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

.

Later life

She has published many books, as well as papers in professional journals, and her speaking engagements and workshops have been numerous. Importantly, she was the Keynote Speaker at the International Conference of the United Electrical Workers; her address was published as a pamphlet by the United Electrical Workers and also translated into Spanish, as a guide to the workers on how to understand and deal with the learning problems of their children. She also was the Keynote Speaker several times at the Atlantic Conference on Learning Disabilities in Halifax, Canada, and conducted training workshops there as well. She produced three 16 mm. films, and The Psycho-Educational Battery, circulated on request to teachers in the United States and Canada; these guided teachers in diagnosing and remediating the needs of learners who need assistance.

Dr. Pope was founding director of the New Theatre of Brooklyn, an Obie

Obie Award

The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...

 award-winning theatre located in Brooklyn in the 1980s.

As Educational Director and Vice-President of the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation, Dr. Pope has since 1983 facilitated thousands of programs in schools and public libraries in the 50 states by providing grants for programs that encourage literacy, creativity, and joy in learning.

Her published material (books, tests, and papers), as well as the instructional films that she produced reside in the archives of the Tamiment Library at New York University

New York University

New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

.

She is married to Martin Pope

Martin Pope

Martin Pope is a physical chemist and professor emeritus at New York University.His discoveries of ohmic contacts and research in the fields of organic insulators and semiconductors led to techniques enabling organic semiconductors to carry relatively large currents, and to convert electricity...

.

Honors and awards

Honoree, Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art

Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is a museum devoted to the art of the picture book and especially the children's book. It is a member of Museums10 and is adjacent to the campus of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts...

, 2007, for innovative and effective support of children’s literature

Hunter College Hall of Fame, 1997

Mary Hornby award for distinguished contributions in the field of learning disabilities, Atlantic Conference for Learning Disabilities, 1981.

Council for Exceptional Children, Outstanding Service Award, 1990

Fellowship, National Institute of Mental Health

National Institute of Mental Health

The National Institute of Mental Health is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health...

, 1966-67.

Books

Guidelines for Teaching Remedial Reading to the Disadvantaged (Book-Lab, 1967)

Psycho-Educational Evaluation of the Pre-School Child (Grune and Stratton,1972) (also in Spanish and Italian)

Tutor’s Sampler (Book-Lab, 1973)

Issues in Urban Education and Mental Health (Book-Lab, 1974)

Pope-Dinola Word Bank (New Directions Press, 1977)

Special Needs, Special Answers (Book-Lab, 1979)

Guidelines for Teaching Children with Learning Problems (Book-Lab, 1982)

Guidelines for Teaching Remedial Reading, a Holistic Approach (Book-Lab, 1996)

Word Play: A Dictionary of Idioms (Book-Lab, 1998)

Teach Anyone to Read: The No-Nonsense Guide (EJK Publishing, 2008)

Tests and instruments for evaluation

PEB: Psycho-Educational Battery (Book-Lab, 1976)
Inventory of Reading Skills (Book-Lab, 1974)

Tapes

Introductory Course in Learning Disabilities, a five session taped course (Book-Lab, 1976)

Films and videos

All for One – Tutorial Highlights (Single Concepts, 1973)

Let’s Look at Sounding Out (Single Concepts, 1973)

Evaluation for Educational Planning (Video-Time Productions, 1976)

Ten Module Tutorial in Reading Instruction for Volunteers (Lilrob Productions, 1992)