On Sunday, August 30, the field of literacy education suffered a massive loss when two of its most influential scholars, P. David Pearson and Peter Raymond Freebody, passed away within hours of one another.

Pearson and Freebody shared striking parallels across careers that fundamentally changed how literacy is taught around the world.

In 1983, Pearson co-developed the Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR) model with Margaret C. Gallagher. The groundbreaking framework, often characterized as “I Do/We Do/You Do,” marked a fundamental shift in teaching by articulating how responsibility for learning can move purposefully from teacher to student.

Seven years later, on the other side of the globe, Australian literacy researcher Freebody and co-author Allan Luke published the first paper on their Four Resources Model, a framework that identified four reader “roles”: Code breaker, text participant, text user, and text analyst. The model recognized each role as necessary but insufficient on its own.

Both were recipients of the William S. Gray Citation of Merit (Pearson in 1990, Freebody in 2014), served on ILA’s Literacy Research Panel, and were inducted into the prestigious Reading Hall of Fame. They will also be remembered for their decades of mentorship to their students and colleagues alike.

The two shared something else: A rejection of the whole language/phonics-first binary central to the so-called Reading Wars, with both resisting efforts to reduce complex questions about literacy teaching and learning to opposing camps.

In 2001, Pearson penned "Life in the Radical Middle: A Personal Apology for a Balanced View of Reading." In it, he described how his positions had led some to characterize him first as a skills-focused cognitive behaviorist and, years later, as a whole language advocate. Neither, he wrote, fit. Instead, he argued for what he called the "radical middle," writing, "I have tried to promote paradigmatic tolerance and respect—not always with resounding success, but always with conviction."

Freebody similarly rejected the idea of opposing sides. Looking back on the Reading Wars in 2012, in an essay he penned for the Primary English Teaching Association of Australia, he referred to the divide as a "spurious dichotomy" that was "more handy than productive."

The deaths of Pearson and Freebody represent a stunning double blow for the field of literacy education. Their influence can be found not only in decades of scholarship, but in classrooms around the world—not to mention the generations of researchers and educators they mentored along the way.

ILA will share more about Pearson and Freebody in the coming days and weeks, including individual tributes celebrating their lives, work, and lasting impact on the field. Those of you who would like to share memories or reflections about Pearson or Freebody are invited to email social@reading.org.