Andrea DeBruin-Parecki is nationally recognized for her work in the field of family literacy. She developed the Adult–Child Interactive Reading Inventory (ACIRI), a reliable and valid tool that measures the interactive reading skills of an adult and a child during storybook reading (available from Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.). She has designed family literacy programs and has acted as a consultant across the country. In addition to the ACIRI, she created the Early Literacy Skills Assessment, a comprehensive, reliable, and valid tool in the form of a children's storybook that measures phonological awareness, the alphabetic principle, comprehension, and concepts about print. She has expertise in the areas of emergent literacy, assessment, literacy within at-risk and minority populations, and the motivation of at-risk populations. She was a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Guatemala. Her work related to literacy development in young children and families has been published and presented at national, regional, and state conferences.
Dr. van Kleeck's research focuses on language and emerging literacy skills in children who are language impaired as well as the broader group of children who are at risk academically. Some specific areas of interests include (a) parents’ language socialization processes in the home that provide their young children with foundations for later literacy and academic success, and (b) issues related to language assessment in the preschool population. Her most recent work focuses on what she refers to as the academic talk register in preschoolers, and it’s importance to later academic achievement. Dr. van Kleeck’s previous publications include several edited books, nearly 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, and 25 book chapters. She has given several hundred invited and peer-reviewed presentations nationally and internationally.
Dr. Gear teaches special education core courses: educational and diagnostic assessment, instructional methods, individual education programming, directed field experience, collaboration, and transitions. Before teaching at ODU, she taught diverse learners in grades PreK-12th, general and special education in public school, treatment programs, home-based instruction, as well as adult basic education. She has authored and co-authored book chapters and articles; presented at international, national, and regional conferences; is a member of the Council for Exceptional Children, including special interest divisions, and a member of the National Head Start Association. She is a reviewer for the National Head Start Association Dialog. She is a contributing author and researcher for the Virginia Early Childhood Policy Center, and the Teacher Immersion Residency Program at ODU. Her research goals include teacher and parent education to improve outcomes for children with disabilities.
Susan B. Neuman, Ed.D., is a professor in educational studies specializing in early literacy development. Previously, she directed the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement. Her research and teaching interests include early childhood policy, curriculum, and early reading instruction from prekindergarten to Grade 3. In her role as Assistant Secretary, she established the Reading First program and the Early Reading First program and was responsible for the implementation of all activities in Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Act.
Dr. Barrueco is Assistant Professor of Psychology and Fellow of the Institute for Policy Research&Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America. Dr. Barrueco specializes in the prevention and early intervention of developmental difficulties, particularly among language-minority, immigrant, and migrant children. Much of her grant-funded research has focused on early bilingual, socioemotional, and acculturative processes within the Latino community.
Throughout her training and career, Dr. Barrueco has been dedicated to learning and utilizing advanced statistics to advance scientific knowledge and practice with young immigrant children and families. This approach is rooted in a community-based participatory research framework involving strong collaborations with families and the local and national programs that serve them. This is reflected in her involvement in local and national studies with Head Start, Early Head Start, and Migrant and Seasonal Head Start as well as her appointments as Board Vice Chair of the DC Bilingual Public Charter School and on the Advisory Committee of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Immigration.
Michael D. Coyne, Ph.D., Professor, Special Education Program, Department of Educational Psychology, Neag School of Education, Unit 3064, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269.
Michael Coyne is a professor of special education in the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut. He is also a research scientist at the Center for Behavioral Education and Research. His research focuses on beginning reading and early vocabulary instruction and intervention, school-based experimental research, multitiered or response to intervention systems of support, and effective practices for students with learning disabilities.
After 5 years of experience teaching in elementary schools in the Philadelphia area, David K. Dickinson, Ed.D., attended the Harvard Graduate School of Education and then served as Director of Teacher Education at the Child Study Department at Tufts University and joined the Education Department at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he received tenure. He moved to the Education Development Center (EDC) in 1994 to join the team that developed the Early Childhood Generalist certificate for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. In 1995 he established the New England Research Center on Head Start Quality, which examined the impact of Head Start on children's language and literacy development and on families, with special attention to the development of children whose first language is Spanish. He and Catherine Snow received the initial funding that launched the Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development in 1987, and he directed the school portion of the study during the preschool years. Drawing on early results from this study, he and colleagues at EDC developed the Literacy Environment Enrichment Project, an approach to helping preschool teachers and their supervisors adopt more effective practices to support children's language and literacy. He and others at EDC are developing and researching a version of this program that will be delivered using the Internet in combination with interactive television. His work has been published in numerous articles, and he has edited two other books, Bridges to Literacy: Children, Families and Schools (Blackwell, 1994) and Handbook of Early Literacy Research (co-edited with Susan Neuman, Guilford Press, 2001). He and Miriam W. Smith are co-authors (with Angela Sangeorge&Louisa Anastasopoulos) of the Early Language and Literacy Classroom Observation Toolkit, Research Edition (Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2002), a set of tools for evaluating the quality of literacy support in early childhood classrooms.
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D., is the Unidel H. Rodney Sharp Professor in the School of Education at the University of Delaware. Author of more than 150 articles and 16 books (some for lay audiences), her work is focused on language development, playful learning, and early spatial knowledge. She has won numerous awards for her research, many with her long-standing colleague Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, and is passionate about bringing out the work of the learning sciences for use by families and schools. Routinely interviewed by radio, television, and print media, she speaks regularly to academic, policy, and lay groups, spreading the field's scientific findings.
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D., is the Stanley and Debra Lefkowitz Faculty Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Temple University and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Her research examines the development of early language and literacy as well as the role of play in learning. Author of 14 books and hundreds of publications in the areas of language development, early education, playful learning, and spatial learning, she is the recipient of numerous awards for contributions to the field of child development. She writes regularly for The Huffington Post and travels the world speaking to professional and lay audiences.
