Kids, Their Language, & LiteracyMaster ClassVirtual
Thursday, May 05, 2022Thursday, May 12, 2022Thursday, May 19, 2022
4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. EDT
Reading depends on spoken language; this fact has profound consequences for children whose spoken language differs from the language they are expected to read. As educators, we clearly see this when our students speak a language that is different from English, but we’re less likely to recognize it when children speak a variety of English. In this master class, we will explore how children’s “within language” differences can be respected and supported to achieve strong reading outcomes.
Julie Washington
Dr. Julie A. Washington is a professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). She is a speech-language pathologist and Fellow of the American Speech Language Hearing Association. Dr. Washington directs the Learning Disabilities Research Innovation Hub, funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. She is also the director of the Dialect, Poverty and Academic Success Lab at UCI. Currently, Dr. Washington’s research is focused on the intersection of literacy, language variation, and poverty. In particular, her work focuses on understanding the role of cultural dialect in assessment, identification of reading disabilities in school-aged African American children, and on disentangling the relationship between language production and comprehension on development of reading and early language skills for children growing up in poverty.