Language and Literacy Research Center (LLRC)

Current Affiliated Projects:

AIM Coaching (IES). Designed to fully develop, refine, and pilot AIM Coaching, an adaptive intervention coaching model, to improve middle school teachers' literacy instruction across content areas as well as student literacy and content knowledge outcomes.

AIM Coaching (OSEP). Investigates the extent to which AIM Coaching, an adaptive intervention coaching model, can be implemented and sustained under routine conditions.

Project Toggle Talk. An evidence-based language arts curriculum supplement created to help children become bi-dialectually fluent by using Contrastive Analysis to teach children how to make situationally appropriate language choices. Toggle Talk is designed to help teachers address hard-to-meet MD College and Career Ready Standards for speaking, listening, and language. 

The Bullying Literature Project. A classroom-wide intervention designed to utilize children's literature as a tool for promoting bystander intervention for bullying among elementary school students. 

Global Initiatives in Reading Comprehension. A co-sponsored project between UMD and Pontificia Universidad Católica (Santiago, Chile) to explore reading comprehension and executive functions in the domain of science learning among Native English Speakers (NES) and English Learners (ELs) in Maryland and Native Spanish Speakers (NSS) in Santiago.

Previous Affiliated Projects:

Project LEARN. Studies whether ELs’ reading comprehension is rooted in standard language-related skills like vocabulary and inference-making, or other factors such as motivation and executive skills (higher-order thinking skills) to determine effective targets for intervention for students in Grades 1 to 5. 

Project CALI. Focused on how content-area literacy instruction can be implemented within a co-teaching model, an inclusive practice commonly used in middle schools to serve students with learning disabilities.

Project PACT Plus. An intensive professional development program based on evidence-based literacy strategies to ultimately improve middle school students’ reading achievement and content knowledge.