Dr. Joe Stouffer brings over 30 years experience as a classroom teacher and literacy specialist to empower and engage classroom literacy teachers. Joining the faculty in 2018, Joe is currently an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Brandon University, Chair of the Undergraduate Education Committee, and the recipient of the 2022 Brandon University Senate Award for Excellence in Teaching. Dr. Stouffer was the first faculty member collaborating in the Brandon University’s Centre for Teaching and Learning’s peer-reviewer of teaching initiative, supporting colleagues’ instructional practices across Brandon University campus.

Dr. Stouffer’s scholarship is grounded in extensive experience in schools. Through his career, Joe has taught English Language Arts at primary and Middle School levels in urban and rural settings. He brings a broad base of teaching experience, having also worked as a classroom, Resource, French, and Music teacher, university sessional instructor, Reading Recovery teacher and Teacher Leader, Literacy Coach and both a private and consultant for Pearson Education working across Canada.

As a Reading Recovery Teacher Leader, Joe worked alongside teachers and administration of several school divisions across southwestern Manitoba. Additionally, following work as a division-wide Literacy Coach for the Rolling River School Division in Manitoba, Joe led professional development initiatives in K-8 literacy in urban, rural, and northern school divisions across Canada as a national literacy consultant. Dr. Stouffer’s ongoing work in schools centres on the development of K-8 teachers’ capacity to design and deliver effective and appropriate literacy instruction to a wide variety of learners. Since joining the Faculty of Education at Brandon University, he has delivered over 50 professional development sessions in Manitoba schools. Joe’s K-6 classroom writing assessment system, PAWs (see www.joestoufferliteracy.com), has been implemented in ten Manitoba school divisions and schools in Ontario and British Columbia.

Joe is a Sport Canada Chartered Professional Coach of women’s artistic gymnastics and a proud coach of three Canadian national team members from Brandon, including 2016 Olympian, Isabela Onyshko. Now retired from active coaching, Dr. Stouffer most recently served as the coaches’ representative on the 2024 Paris Olympics Team Selection Committee for Gymnastics Canada.

Dr. Stouffer completed his PhD at University of British Columbia’s Department of Language and Literacy Education in 2015.

SELECTED REFEREED PUBLICATIONS

Honeyford, M., Stouffer, J., Watt, J., Du, X., Ntelioglou, & Michalovich, A. (2026). Responding to Manitoba’s “Right to Read” report. Journal of Teaching and Learning, 20(3), 317-328. https://jtl.uwindsor.ca/index.php/jtl/article/view/11753/6289

Stouffer, J., Sutherland, K., & Matczuk, A. (2026). Broadening the conversation: Critical questions amidst narrowing views of classroom reading instruction. Language & Literacy, 28(1), 40-75. https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/langandlit/index.php/langandlit/article/view/29751/21625

Foord, D., & Stouffer, J. (2025). Navigating polarizing discourse: An instructional coach’s steering through the reading wars. Journal of Classroom Research in Literacy, 25, 17-38.  https://jcrl.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/jcrl/article/view/44655/33980

Stouffer, J. (2024). Write-it-out: Leveraging writing to support word solving in reading. Literacy Today, 41(3), 22-23. https://publuu.com/flip-book/24429/811271/page/24

Stouffer, J. (2023). Write it out: A teaching response to foster complete word analysis. The Reading Teacher, 77(3), 414-417. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.2242

Stouffer, J., & Van Dyke, J. (2023). Stones from a glass house: The paradoxical condemnation of Reading Recovery in the Ontario Human Rights Commission Right to Read Report. Journal of Teaching and Learning, 17(1), 52-71. https://doi.org/10.22329/JTL.V17I1.7426

Stouffer, J. (2021). Seeking middle ground: Analyzing running records from the top and bottom. The Reading Teacher, 74(6), 769-784. https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/trtr.2012

Stouffer, J. (2016). A palette of excellence: Contextualizing the reported benefits of Reading Recovery training to Canadian primary classroom teachers. The Journal of Reading Recovery, 15(2), 31-48.

Stouffer, J. (2011). Listening to yourself reading: Exploring the role of auditory input to literacy processing. The Journal of Reading Recovery, 11(2), 15-28.

BOOK CHAPTERS

Stouffer, J., Kasamali, Z., Di Muro, M., Lam, M., & Watson, E., (2023). Transactions of online literacy: Ethical relationality, ICT, and critical reading skills in the post-truth era. In L. Parker (Ed.), Education in the Age of Misinformation (pp. 163-186). Palgrave. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25871-8

Purcell-Gates, V., Duke, N., Stouffer, J. (2016). Teaching literacy: Reading. In Drew H. Gitomer & Courtney A. Bell (Eds.), The Handbook of Research on Teaching 5^th Ed. (1217-1268). American Educational Research Association.

DOCTORAL DISSERTATION

Stouffer, J. (2015). The classroom impact of Reading Recovery training: Examining resituated Reading Recovery-based teacher learning [Doctoral dissertation, University of British Columbia]. https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/24/items/1.0166302

EDITORIAL WORK

Downey, A. M., Gallagher, T., Lemieux, A., McKee, L., Stouffer, J., & Wood, J. (Eds.) (2024). Special issue: Literacy teachers navigating turbulent times in Canada. Language & Literacy, 26(3). https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/langandlit/index.php/langandlit/issue/view/1963

Stouffer, J., Worsfold, S., & Terry, M. (Eds.) (2022). Special issue: Exploring trends in early and middle years English language arts. BU Journal of Graduate Studies in Education, 14(2). https://www.brandonu.ca/master-education/files/2023/03/BU-Journal-of-Graduate-Studies-in-Education-2022-vol-14-issue-4.pdf