Collaboration & Advisory

Catherine Snow, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Dr. Catherine Snow is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is an internationally renowned scholar in language and literacy education and published an extensive body of research work (ResearchGate). She chaired two US national panels, the National Academy of Sciences committee on Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, and the RAND Reading Study Group, producing monographs that significantly influenced language policy, research and teaching practice (e.g., Snow et al., 1998; RAND, 2002).

Professor Snow’s research expertise specifically focuses on language and literacy development in children, concentrating on oral language acquisition and how those skills translate into literacy outcomes. Her longitudinal, multi-site intervention study of “Word Generation” program, which is part of a research-practice partnership (the Strategic Education Research Partnership, SERP), develops curricular resources to support the adoption of innovative classroom practices. This discussion-based academic language and literacy program has been proven to improve middle-school literacy outcomes, especially for those from language-minority households.

Dr. Jia Li has collaborated with Professor Snow on three projects and coauthored four articles published in peer-reviewed journals. At present, as Research Collaborator Professor Snow provides guidance in curriculum development for a literacy intervention program based on Word Generation model for our SSHRC funded project: “A multidisciplinary approach to developing and evaluating a mobile technology-supported, culturally responsive vocabulary intervention for Aboriginal students.”

Esther Geva, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT)

Dr. Ester Geva is a Professor of Child Clinical Psychology at OISE/UT, in the Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development. She is an expert researcher is in the development of children’s literacy skills, specifically learning to read in a second language. She has been instrumental in developing theoretically and methodologically sound programs that could be implemented feasibly in schools (Geva & Ramirez, 2015). For her recognized expertise and prolific research work (ResearchGate), Professor Geva was invited to join the National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth.

Professor Geva’s research focuses on (a) developmental issues and best practices concerning language and literacy skills in children from various immigrant and minority backgrounds, and in ethnically and linguistically marginalized groups, (b) language and literacy skills in typically developing learners and learners with learning difficulties, and (c) cross-cultural perspectives on children’s psychological difficulties (Research Lab ).

For the SSHRC funded literacy research program, Professor Geva, as Co-Investigator, focuses on the development and assessment of First Nation students’ reading comprehension and vocabulary acquisition.

Jim Cummins, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT)

Dr. Jim Cummins is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning at OISE/UT. He was a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Language Learning and Literacy Development in Multilingual Contexts and the recipient of the International Reading Association’s Albert J. Harris award (1979).

Professor Cummings recent research includes “From Literacy to Multiliteracies: Designing Learning Environments for Knowledge Generation within the New Economy”, a large-scale Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded study and an Ontario Ministry of Education project to validate their English Proficiency assessment tool.

He has conducted research and published extensively on bilingual education, second language education, multicultural education and multiliteracies, technology and educational improvement (ResearchGate). His publications include Negotiating Identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse Society (2001); Language, power and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire (2000); Literacy, technology, and diversity: Teaching for success in changing times (2007, with Kristin Brown and Dennis Sayers) and Identity texts: The collaborative creation of power in multilingual schools (2011, with Margaret Early).

We have a long collaboration relationship with Dr. Cummins, and often consult his expertise on the recent development of technology-assisted language and literacy interventions, and language and literacy development for minority language speaking students. Dr. Jia Li has co-authored three articles with Dr. Cummins in high impact journals.

Andrew Biemiller, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT)

Dr. Andrew Biemiller is a Professor Emeritus at the Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study at OISE/UT. He is a well-known expert in vocabulary research and related teaching methods and also broadly child development, classroom teaching practice, and designing educational programs (ResearchGate). Dr. Biemiller currently is also educational consultant to the U.S. Institute of Education Science (Department of Education), U.S. National Institute of Child and Human Development, publishers (SRA/McGraw-Hill), state departments of education, and researchers.

In 2009, Dr. Biemiller published an important work “Words Worth Teaching”—a landmark contribution to research evidence-based vocabulary instruction. This includes what word meanings are adopted, the order in which the meanings are taught, how to teach these word meanings, and identifying word meanings that are beneficial for instruction at pre-primary, primary, and upper-elementary grades.

Dr. Biemiller is a Research Collaborator, for our SSHRC funded project: “A multidisciplinary approach to developing and evaluating a mobile technology-supported, culturally responsive vocabulary intervention for Aboriginal students.”