Lucy Calkins is an American educator and professor at Columbia University who is best known for creating the Units of Study reading and writing curriculum.
Calkins used to babysit Donald Graves's children, which got her interested in reading and writing.
She left that job for an unpaid internship at a primary school in Oxfordshire to learn about the British education model, which was considered to be more effective at teaching reading than the United States.
Calkins created the reading and writing curriculum, Units of Study, which is used in thousands of U.S. schools.
In the early 2000s, it became central to the New York City public school system's curriculum.