Henrietta Dombey started to learn about literacy teaching and learning during her years as a primary school teacher in schools in Inner London, where she pioneered teaching reading without a reading scheme. She developed her interest in the interactions between the children, the texts and the teacher while carrying out the fieldwork in a nursery class for her PhD on young children's experience of hearing stories aloud. She is currently investigating the patterns of interaction during whole class parts of the Literacy Hour, in classrooms of highly successful teachers of literacy. During the introduction of the National Curriculum she chaired the National Association for the Teaching of English. She was also President of the UKRA form 2002 to 2003.
