Gayla Kylene Beers

Kylene Beers passed away on June 20, 2025, at home surrounded by family and friends while listening to the gentle strains of James Taylor’s How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You).

Kylene was diagnosed with a glioblastoma while traveling with her husband and adult children in March 2025. She had a fierce will to survive but ultimately succumbed to side effects from the treatment.

Kylene was a beloved educator and award-winning author whose tireless advocacy transformed how teachers engage with young readers. Her passing leaves a profound void in the world of education, but her legacy endures in classrooms, libraries, and minds around the world. Her most significant work, When Kids Can’t Read/What Teachers Can Do, is one of the most significant books on the teaching of reading. She was the author, co-author, or editor of many other books, textbooks, journals, and articles.

Across her 46-year career, she served in various roles including middle school teacher, college professor, Senior Reading Researcher at the Comer School Development Program at Yale University, and Senior Reading Advisor with the Reading and Writing Project at Teachers College, Columbia University. In addition, she was a consultant to schools and school districts across the United States and abroad. She was president of the National Council of Teachers of English and received the Council’s lifetime achievement award in 2024. Throughout her career, however, her joy was to sit beside students and lean in to listen to their thinking.

Kylene created the Boothbay Literacy Retreat in Maine and the Tyrolia Literacy Institute at her ranch in Waco. Literacy experts, children’s authors, poets, and classroom teachers gathered to share the challenges and joys of engaging students in reading, writing, and thinking.

Partners in all things, Kylene and her husband Brad rescued Rhodesian Ridgebacks, collected the work of local artists from their travels, and filled their home with good food, fine wine, and cherished friends. Their home, Tyrolia, was a place where folks were greeted warmly and welcomed as they are.

Kylene is survived by her loving husband and high school sweetheart Brad, adored children Meredith and Baker, mother Bonnie Singer, brother Eric (Kathy) Neal, nephew Richard Neal and his family, long-time co-author Bob Probst, and dear family friends Suzanne and Michael Alexander and Katie Acuff. Kylene is preceded in death by her father, Jack Neal. The family thanks Ashley Farmer, who tirelessly helped care for Kylene in the final weeks of her life.

Kylene’s funeral will be at 10:00 a.m., Saturday, July 26, 2025, at Trinity Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, with a reception immediately following. In lieu of flowers, please consider contributing to the Book Love Foundation (https://www.booklovefoundation.org/support-us) to support putting books in classrooms, or the National Council of Teachers of English (https://bit.ly/kylenebeers) to support the NCTE Annual Convention Scholarship Fund.

In the words of Kylene’s co-author, Bob Probst, “Kylene has given us not only her thoughts, her vision, her words, but most important her commitment. She has been a model of devotion to teachers and students, to the development of literacy for all, that we would all do well to emulate.”