The READ Lab is led by Dr. Ana Taboada Barber, faculty in the College of Education, at UMD.

In our lab, we focus on literacy development in linguistically diverse students from cognitive and motivational perspectives. From a cognitive perspective we study how linguistically diverse students’ literacy development is affected by language and domain-general cognitive variables such as Executive Function (EF) skills. From a motivation perspective we study how variables that affect reading engagement in the general population (such as autonomy support or self-efficacy) exert their influence in the reading development of students who speak more than one language. By linguistically diverse students, we mean students who are Dual Language Learners (DLLs) or English Learners (ELs) in the United States as well as students who learn a second language in other parts of the world (particularly where Spanish is the societal language). We focus on literacy development as much as on reading instruction from kindergarten through early adolescence (middle school).

At the READ Lab we want to learn through research how bilingual – and multilingual – children engage their growing minds in reading tasks!