Marilyn Jager Adams

Marilyn Jager Adams is an American cognitive scientist specialising in reading and literacy education. She took her Ph.D. in cognitive and developmental psychology at Brown University in 1975 and spent much of her career at the research firm Bolt Beranek & Newman, later returning to Brown as a visiting professor in the Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences.

Her 1990 book Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print is a standard reference on early reading instruction.

She was senior author of Open Court Publishing's Collections for Young Scholars programme, served as a literacy advisor to Sesame Street and Between the Lions, chaired the planning committee for the 1998 National Academy of Sciences report Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, and has sat on National Assessment of Educational Progress reading committees since 1992.

She received the American Educational Research Association's Sylvia Scribner Award.