Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Learning to read is an incredibly complex cognitive task, drawing on fundamental learning, memory and language processes. Reading is also an incredibly important skill. It supports academic learning in the school years, and successful transition into employment and society in adulthood. And yet, there are vast individual differences in reading levels, with many individuals continuing to struggle with this essential skill as adults (OECD, 2016). My vision for my long-standing NSERC-funded research program is to identify mechanisms that set children on trajectories towards skilled reading-so that this scientific knowledge can be translated into approaches that help children acquire the reading skills they need to fully engage in society as adults.    In this 5-year program of research, I will determine how children set up the large and strong mental word bank they need in order to read efficiently. These representations need to include each word's sound, spelling and meaning. As an example, children need to have the spelling for a new word like awry connected to its meaning for it to be useful in their reading. My research takes on the fact that reading itself is the primary means through which children encounter new words. On average, children's books contain ~30 rare words in every 1000 words, far more than in the language spoken to children. This means that children can learn a lot of new words through reading, both when others read to them and when children read on their own. Research on these two contexts (i.e., shared and independent reading) has occurred separately, leaving large gaps in scientific  knowledge. In a series of studies, I will determine what children learn about the spellings and meanings of words in these different contexts.    In a capstone study, I will evaluate how children's learning of words determines their progress in learning to read. This will directly inform theories. Models of reading development make predictions about progress over time that need to be tested in a longitudinal design; these are needed to test the direction of effects. My team will conduct this much-needed study linking learning across contexts and time periods. This will provide the data to determine which aspects of early learning enable children to make strong strides in reading development, identifying mechanisms that underlie the development of skilled reading.    My research program will create an integrated and comprehensive set of knowledge that will build bridges between islands of research. Findings from this ambitious set of studies will enable ground-breaking advances by fully incorporating children's learning across contexts and developmental periods. In the long-term, this research will create incredible societal value by creating the evidence base needed to optimize instruction, so that all children can achieve the strong reading skills they need to fully participate in society as adults.