Welcome to the website of the Language and Literacy Research Laboratory at Queen’s University, Faculty of Education. This lab conducts research in reading development and reading difficulties, focusing on three main areas: linguistic stress, early intervention for struggling readers, and reading development in second language learners. We receive most of our funding from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council.

We are a busy lab with a number of active students from the faculties of Education, Psychology, and Linguistics. If you are a parent, teacher, or principal who has been approached as a partner in research, please check out our Frequently Asked Questions for more information about the kind of work we do with students in elementary schools and daycares.

Congratulations to Chris Mattatall, this year’s recipient of the R. J. Wilson Thesis/Dissertation Development Award! The Assessment and Evaluation Group (AEG) in the Faculty of Education made the decision, based on Chris’s efforts to improve the use of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) data in schools and to support teachers in meeting the needs of young struggling readers.

Congratulations, Chris!

In honour of the new year, here is an interesting language- and literacy-related link for you to check out: in search of the most difficult language. The Economist does a little linguistic investigation. Interesting!

This is a photo from this year’s lab holiday event, Chrismukkah 2009. We played Texas hold ‘em dreidel, ate a turducken, and had a hilarious gift exchange.

All the best in 2010, from us to you!

The other day, some lab members ordered sushi for delivery while we were hard at work. Can you spot what makes this is the best receipt we’ve ever gotten?

Can you guess what the 100 most common words in English are? It’s a fun little game that gives you 12 minutes to fill in the 100 blanks. Playing it is a nice excuse to take a coffee break!

We’ve been doing some work to link our publications either to PDF versions of documents or to a location where the abstract can be read and, with the right access, they can be downloaded. Check out the about and publications pages for the newly linked items!

A huge congratulations goes out to Angela Pyle, winner of the 2009 Thesis Prize in the Faculty of Education for her thorough, informative, and downright fantastic thesis, Turning promising theory into productive practice: The perspectives of educators piloting the response to intervention model in one Ontario school district.

Through the use of focus group data, this study described the supports provided to and barriers faced by teachers during the implementation of the responsiveness to intervention model in an Ontario school board. This research highlights the essential role of teacher empowerment in facilitating the sustainability of the new model.

Congratulations to Angela! This is a huge accomplishment, and we’re all very proud.