Marie Clay Literacy Trust

The Marie Clay Literacy Trust and the Executive Board of IRRTO work together to ensure the ongoing quality and relevance of Dr. Clay’s work as it relates to Reading Recovery. The Trust is the authority responsible for both Dr. Clay’s copyrights and her Reading Recovery trademark.

Always the clear thinker and careful strategist, Dr. Clay began planning for the management of her legacy in the mid-1990s. In 1997 she gifted the initial capital and created an ongoing royalty stream from sales of her published books to establish The Marie Clay Literacy Trust, a non-profit charitable foundation which supports reading, literacy learning and teaching, and Reading Recovery internationally.

Members of the Trust have known and worked with Dr. Clay for many years. The current trustees are

  • Graham McEwan, Chair and Publishing Editor for Marie Clay since 1977
  • Stuart McNaughton, Professor of Education, The University of Auckland
  • Barbara Watson, Reading Recovery

The responsibilities that Dr. Clay bequeathed to the Trust and the ongoing, important tasks that she assigned to the oversight and care of the Trustees relate to her copyrights, her trademarks, and the continuation of her work internationally. Specifically, the Trust maintains:

  • Ownership of and responsibility for all copyrights for her intellectual property (i.e., written work) in English and other languages;
  • Responsibility for granting copyright permissions for the purpose of re-printing any of her written work;
  • Responsibility for granting permissions for the re-development and publication of her copyrighted work in foreign languages;
  • Ownership of and responsibility for all of her trademarks, specifically, Reading Recovery in New Zealand, Reading Recovery in Australia, and Literacy Lessons Designed for Individuals in New Zealand;
  • Responsibility for granting the Reading Recovery and/or the Literacy Lessons Designed for Individuals trademarks as requested to appropriate entities internationally when appropriate conditions and standards have been met.

Given the importance and usage of her books, Dr. Clay decided to appoint a Consulting Editor who could select assistance from informed academics in various countries from time to time to act on particular publications. In many ways this was the model that Dr. Clay had employed in the writing of Literacy Lessons Designed for Individuals, 2005. Dr. Mary Anne Doyle, Professor of Education and Reading Recovery Trainer, Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut, accepted Dr. Clay’s invitation to support the Marie Clay Literacy Trust as Consulting Editor.

The Marie Clay Literacy Trust is committed to supporting the mission and vision of IRRTO. The Trust works with IRRTO through the Executive Board to ensure the ongoing quality and international growth of Reading Recovery.

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