Dr. Laura Justice

Reading is one of the first and most fundamental intellectual skills required for education – and it is a huge challenge for many children, especially those considered at-risk due to disability, family status or other reasons.

Click here to see the complete video interview.

Dr. Laura Justice pursues research in improving reading for children, particularly for at-risk children who have special challenges.  She has studied ways to leverage  characteristics of the printed word – books – in helping children – and the adults who help them – find cues and clues that enable them to get over the barriers to understanding.  She is a professor in the School of Teaching and Learning, in the College of Education and Human Ecology at OSU.  She was also awarded a Fulbright scholarship in 2007.

She has also participated in a key national study of the efficacy of reading curricula – the series of reading books, teachers’ guides and related activities marketed to school districts as complete packages, often covering the complete grade school experience.

The results of this study may surprise you, and the implications reach to the heart of public policy and the way public education is structured in the U.S.

A brief preview of the complete interview is also available (YouTube).