Education department faculty    Cathy Y. Kim
Coordinator of Professional Programs
Senior Lecturer
B.A., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
M.A., Northeastern Illinois University
Ph.D., Candidate University of Illinois
[email protected]

Professor Kim joined the Education Department in 1998 as the literacy specialist to teach literacy methods courses. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, she serves as the Coordinator of Professional Program in the Education Department. In this position, she oversees the accreditation process, initial program applications, review processes, data management and reporting for the state and the federal mandates, program design, and all other responsibilities dealing with the PDE regulations.

With a B.S. in Education with a concentration in mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she taught in the Chicago Public Schools while completing her M.A. in Linguistics with an area of concentration in second language acquisition at Northeastern Illinois University. In 1993, she enrolled in the Ph. D. program in Curriculum & Instruction in Language and Literacy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she completed all of the required course work in the program that includes qualitative research methodology, statistics, multicultural literacy, curriculum design, critical literacy, reading methods, and children’s literature.

Since her arrival in Allentown, she has established herself as one of the area’s most sought after literacy specialists while working closely with many area school districts as well as state agencies for programs like the Governor’s Academy for Urban Education. She has worked as a consultant in the Allentown School District, Bethlehem Area School District, Dioceses of Allentown, York School District, and most recently, Southern Lehigh School District.

She has been an active member of the International Literacy Association, serving as a member and a chair for committees such as the IRA Children’s and Young Adults’ Book Awards and Media Awards. She also belongs to the local and the state councils of the ILA, and is often an invited speaker at their events. Her service to the community includes serving as a member of the Public Relations Committee for the Allentown School District Foundation, supporting the Cops ‘n’ Kids Literacy Program, and serving on leadership committees for the Allentown Public Schools such as the Title I Advisory Committee.

Her scholarly interests include comprehension theories and strategies, content area literacy, and reader response theories. Her first book, The Power of Picture Books in Teaching Math, Science, and Social Studies, is in its second edition. Her second book, Vibrant Learning: An Integrative Approach to Teaching Content Area Disciplines, was published in 2018