Elizabeth Hadley, Ph.D., an associate professor of literacy studies at the University of South Florida
College of Education, has been awarded a $650,000 grant by the U.S. National Science Foundation. This substantial grant will fund a three-year research study that will analyze teacher
language interactions to improve the field’s understanding of preschool language development.
The study, titled "Project TeLI" (Teacher Language Interactions in Pre-K), will use
new sensing technologies to collect and analyze data about teacher language interactions
in diverse state-funded Pre-K classrooms. Data analysis will examine whether all children
in the classroom are receiving equitable opportunities to have teacher language interactions.
The study's findings will be shared with teachers and schools to inform their teaching
strategies and improve their language interactions with kids.
As a former high school English teacher, Hadley saw many students struggle with understanding
the complex texts they were asked to read. While in graduate school, she fell in love
with research and studied the impacts of early childhood language development and
its connection to long-term reading comprehension. Now, with Project TeLI, she aims
to understand how to improve teacher interactions, and their impact on children's
language outcomes, to support later reading success.
Hadley said, "This project uses innovative new sensing technology, including advanced
language processing algorithms, so that we can gather data on children’s language
experiences more quickly and accurately and get that data into the hands of teachers.
This technology will also allow us to understand and track which children might be
overlooked in terms of language interactions in pre-k. We think our findings will
have a lot of potential for improving young children’s learning experiences and their
language outcomes.”
Hadley will lead the project in a collaborative effort with co-principal investigator Dr. Eunsook Kim from the University of South Florida, and researchers from the University of Florida
and the University of Texas at Dallas. The team will conduct the study in three year-long
phases.
For more information about Project TeLI, please contact Dr. Elizabeth Hadley.
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