Posts

I am keen to support PhD applications in the domains of learning, language, and/or literacy development. Some suggested project remits are described below that align with my current work, but these are by no means prescriptive.

Lots of words are made up of smaller units of meaning, called morphemes. We measured children’s awareness of morphemes, and looked at its importance for reading comprehension.

Within education, the Matthew effect describes how the “rich get richer” in literacy skills. We focused on this effect in vocabulary, and asked how existing vocabulary knowledge might support memory for new words.

A book at bedtime provides opportunities for language learning. Our recent study suggests that learning new words before sleep might help us to remember them.

Recently, I gave a talk on running multi-session studies online at the 2020 BeOnline conference. I mentioned that we had recently collected vocal responses online, but I didn’t have time to talk any more about it. Here’s a little bit more about my experiences.

Why do some children excel at vocabulary learning while others get left behind? We’ve been thinking about how new word learning builds upon vocabulary we already have.