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The Learning Sciences Institute is pleased to announce Dr. Anne Cunningham as a colloquium speaker.
You are invited to attend her presentation:
Professional Development in Emergent Literacy: A Design Experiment
of Teacher Study Groups
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Payne Hall West, Results Room 129 – ASU Tempe campus
The early childhood field continues to advance in its understanding of the development of emergent literacy
and language skills. A growing body of research is dedicated to examining how best to support teachers in
helping children develop these necessary competencies in the preschool classroom. Fostering emergent
literacy and language skills is a complex task requiring strong content knowledge, an understanding of how
these skills develop in young children, as well as the use of evidence-based, high-quality instructional
practices. With the rapid expansion of pre-k in the United States, there is greater demand for responsive
and skilled early childhood teachers, along with scalable, effective models of professional development.
In her talk, she will discuss her current research project examining the role of relationship-based
professional development in supporting teacher’s disciplinary and pedagogical knowledge in early literacy.
Anne Cunningham, Ph.D.
Director | Joint Doctoral Program in Special Education
University of California - Berkeley
Anne E. Cunningham, Associate Dean and Professor of Cognition and Development at
the University of California, Berkeley is a developmental psychologist, University of
Michigan, by training. Her research focuses on literacy and development across the life
span; she examines the cognitive and motivational processes underlying reading ability
and the interplay of context, development, and literacy instruction. Anne is currently
principal investigator of the grant Teacher Quality: The Role of Teacher Study Groups as
a Model of Professional Development in Early Literacy for Preschool Teachers, funded by the U.S. Department of
Education Institute of Educational Studies.
Her new book entitled Book Smart: How to Support and Motivate Beginning Readers, published by Oxford University
Press (2014) examines children’s reading development and the cognitive and socio-emotional benefits of avid
reading. Recent edited volumes include Developing Early Literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel
(NELP); a special issue in Reading and Writing entitled "Perspectives on Teachers' Disciplinary Knowledge of
Reading Processes, Development, and Pedagogy"; and a special issue in Journal of Learning Disabilities entitled
"Perceptions and Reality: What We Know About the Quality of Literacy Instruction." Recent publications include
"Starting Small: Building Preschool Teacher Knowledge that Supports Early Literacy Development" in Reading and
Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and "How Teachers Would Spend their Time Teaching Language Arts: The
Mismatch between Self-reported and Best Practices" in Journal of Learning Disabilities.
A Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and American Psychological Association and a former
preschool and elementary teacher, Dr. Cunningham has been featured most recently in The New York Times, The
Wall Street Journal, Education Week and the Huffington Post for her work.
Learning Sciences Institute
Arizona State University
PO Box 872111
Tempe, AZ 85287-2111
(480) 965-3292 Fax: (480) 965-3237
http://lsi.asu.edu