Mary Jo Fresch is an academy professor and professor emerita in the School of Teaching and Learning, College of Education and Human Ecology, at The Ohio State University. She has been an educator for more than forty years. She began her teaching career as a third-grade teacher, and then worked with adults with challenging literacy needs at the University of Akron. She has spent the last thirty years teaching literacy courses for preservice and inservice and providing professional learning workshops teachers across the United States. She speaks nationally and internationally about literacy-related topics.

Her research focuses on the developmental aspect of literacy learning. She has over sixty peer-reviewed articles in professional journals such as Language Arts, Journal of Literacy Research, The Reading Teacher, Reading and Writing Quarterly, and Reading Psychology. Her professional books include Strategies for Effective Balanced Literacy (2016), The Power of Picture Books: Using Content Area Literature in Middle School (2009), Engaging Minds in English Language Arts Classrooms: The Surprising Power of Joy (2014), and An Essential History of Current Reading Practices (editor; 2008). She coauthored Learning through Poetry (2013), a five-book phonemic and phonological awareness series, and 7 Keys to Research for Writing Success (2018) with David L. Harrison. She is married to her college sweetheart (Hank), has two married children, and five grandchildren.