Name: Friday Big Ideas: Creating Reading Rainbow
Start: 2026-10-02T08:30:00-0400
End: 2026-10-02T09:30:00-0400

Friday Big Ideas: Creating Reading Rainbow

Friday October 2, 2026 8:30am - 9:30am EDT

Hyatt Regency Buffalo | Grand Ballroom A-D

Join Barbara Irwin, PhD, Tony Buttino Sr, and Pam Johnson, PhD, as they discuss their book, Creating Reading Rainbow: The Untold Story of a Beloved Children’s Series. The story of Reading Rainbow is very much a story of humble beginnings and perseverance. This General Session will focus on this beloved children’s series, including answer the question: “how did a public television station in Buffalo spearhead a movement in education and spark passion for reading in millions of children?”

A book signing with the authors of Creating Reading Rainbow will immediately follow.

Speakers

Barbara Irwin

Professor Emerita, Department of Communication, Canisius University

Barbara Irwin, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita of Communication at Canisius University in Buffalo, New York. Specializing in media studies, she taught courses in media and children, public broadcasting, and media literacy, among many others. Irwin worked as a Reading Rainbow Project Assistant... Read More →

Tony Buttino

Tony Buttino Sr. is best known for his leadership in the creation of the Emmy award-winning Public TV series Reading Rainbow. Most of his forty years of working at WNEDTV (now Buffalo Toronto Public Media) were spent utilizing and marketing instructional television (ITV) as a teaching... Read More →

Pamela Johnson

Pam Johnson, Ph.D., is the former Executive Director of Ready To Learn at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a school readiness initiative developed in partnership with PBS KIDS, leading children’s content producers, researchers, and America’s public media stations with... Read More →

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