Research Spotlight: Steve Amendum
May 30, 2025
Multilingual learners (ML), or children whose home language is not English, make up about 15% of all kindergarten and first grade students in U.S. public schools. Yet, many teachers receive little preparation in ML instruction, and many feel unprepared to support their ML’s languages, cultures and immigration experiences. To support …
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Strengthening Early Literacy
September 19, 2024
Delaware’s commitment to enhancing literacy achievement for all students in pre-K through third grade, especially multilingual language learners and those with disabilities, is evident in its Every Student Succeeds Act plan and recent legislation on the Science of Reading. Despite these efforts, only 25% of Delaware’s fourth grade students scored …
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Supporting Multilingual Learners
July 10, 2024
With a fellowship from the International Literacy Association (ILA), University of Delaware doctoral student Jon Kittle is working on new research that will support reading specialists as they teach multilingual learners, students whose first language is not English. In Delaware, just over 11% of all K-12 students are multilingual learners, …
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Research Spotlight: Henry May and Sharon Walpole
June 28, 2024
In 2016, Delaware’s Seaford School District adopted the aptly titled Bookworms curriculum, an open access literacy program for students in kindergarten through grade 5 developed by University of Delaware Professor Sharon Walpole. Students’ love of reading grew rapidly, as well as their literacy achievement: the percentage of students achieving proficient …
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In the News: Annastasia Purinton
June 19, 2024
The Delaware Department of Education and the University of Delaware’s College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) have partnered to enhance literacy and ensure equitable learning opportunities statewide. This collaboration aims to analyze K-3 literacy outcomes and administrative data on children, teachers and schools. Leading the project is Annastasia Purinton, …
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In the News: CEHD and Delaware Department of Education
June 10, 2024
Supported by funding from the William T. Grant Foundation, Spencer Foundation, Doris Duke Foundation and the Bezos Family Foundation, College of Education and Human Development faculty and staff are partnering with the Delaware Department of Education to improve K-3 literacy outcomes in Delaware. The team also aims to foster equitable …
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Research Spotlight: Joshua Wilson
December 15, 2022
To help educators better understand the advantages of common and novel methods for assessing student writing, UD associate professor Joshua Wilson and his co-authors examined the reliability of hand-scoring and automated evaluation software (AES) in assessing the writing of upper-elementary students with different writing abilities. Using multivariate generalizability theory and …
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CEHD Research Spotlight: Stephanie Del Tufo and Ye Shen
June 1, 2022
In a recent study, University of Delaware education doctoral candidate Ye Shen and assistant professor Stephanie Del Tufo examined the effect of parent-child reading on the emergent literacy—or developing reading skills—of heritage language learners (bilingual children who speak a language other than English at home but receive instruction in English …
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Literacy Lessons
April 29, 2022
Teachers and prospective teachers often want to include topics about equity and social justice in their classrooms — and are expected to do so under national education standards — but adding new material to their already crowded instructional schedules can be daunting. Now, however, a project developed at the University …
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Leading the Way With Bookworms
January 6, 2022
January 5, 2022 Imagine walking into an elementary school classroom where the students don’t want to put down their books. With enthusiasm, excitement and sometimes even frustration, these young readers — “bookworms” in the making — plead with their teachers for permission to read one more chapter. In Delaware’s Seaford School …
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Child’s Play
August 13, 2021
When you are a child, you are not really a child — at least not all the time. You are also a dinosaur. A wizard. A hot air balloon operator crash-landing into a dodo bird colony off the coast of Madagascar. In other words, playtime is fun. And imaginative. And, …
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Bilingual Special Education
August 12, 2021
Melissa Lewis is an elementary education major with concentrations in English as a second language and special education. Lewis also is pursuing a minor in Spanish. She is from Newark, Delaware, and she plans to continue this research throughout the 2021-2022 academic year. She expects to graduate from the University …
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