Lifetime Literacy
From street signs to instructions, letters to text messages, novels to textbooks — reading is how humans learn, communicate, and engage with the world around us. However, it’s no secret that this crucial skill can sometimes be challenging for people of all ages.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, approximately 21 percent of Americans are unable to read or write, and only 46 percent of Americans read above a sixth grade-level. If a student’s reading acquisition doesn’t align with developmental milestones, they may encounter lifelong reading problems that have the potential to affect every aspect of their lives. Fortunately, Florida State University researchers are working every day to change the landscape of literacy.
FSU is home to the Florida Center for Reading Research, a world-class interdisciplinary research organization established in 2002 by the Florida Legislature and Governor’s Office. FCRR faculty and staff combine research and outreach to improve learning outcomes for people of all ages, all around the world.
“FCRR’s mission is to integrate research, innovation, and engagement to make reading accessible for all,” said FCRR director Nicole Patton-Terry, also the Olive and Manuel Bordas Professor of Education in the FSU Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences. “Our researchers focus on how reading skills develop in different kinds of learners, which informs the interventions we develop for use in schools. Other researchers explore assessment tools to better understand how students are performing and suggest ways for families and teachers to engage with children.”
By partnering with the Florida Department of Education and its Just Read, Florida! Office, FCRR innovations have been implemented in classrooms across the state and shared nationwide. FCRR researchers also collaborate with international literacy scholars, working to improve reading, literacy, and language outcomes for all learners.
“In 2019, we began a partnership with Leon County Schools called ReadUp that focuses on early learning, reading achievement, students with disabilities, and college and career pathways, which has facilitated robust interaction and engagement with our local schools,” Patton-Terry said. “Through a DOE partnership, we’ve trained over 4,000 teachers, coaches, and principals throughout Florida since 2021 on evidence-based practices associated with reading instruction and intervention in schools. It’s important that our resources are shared at different levels to ensure that our research isn’t locked up at the university — it’s truly helping people out in the world.”
Among these resources are over 350 student center activities for reading centers in classrooms, digital applications that assess children’s learning, resources for parents about what to look for to help their children with reading, and intervention tools for students who need more support.
To develop this diverse array of resources, FCRR leverages strengths across disciplines within the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Social Work, the College of Communication and Information, and Patton-Terry’s home college, with each area offering a unique perspective to improve reading education. Assistant professor of psychology Rasheda Haughbrook uses her background in contextual influences like environment and genetics to study how these factors impact reading, learning and academic achievement.
“There’s a whole science of reading occurring at FCRR that most people are unaware of — everything that goes into teaching how to read, understanding how children learn to read, and making instructional materials available to educators,” Haughbrook said. “As a parent, I use this research to inform how I interact with my children and teach them. As a community member, I often share FCRR resources with other families.”
Haughbrook earned her master’s from FSU in 2015 and doctorate in 2020, both in developmental psychology. As a graduate trainee, she received statistical training from FCRR associate director and founding member Richard Wagner, also a Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of Psychology.
“Discovering the world of reading achievement was absolutely eye-opening,” Haughbrook said. “Generally, I’m interested in understanding student achievement, and studying reading achievement is an incredible way to understand how environments shape those achievement outcomes for children. I became a reading researcher without intending to, and now, it means everything to me to see real change in local schools stemming from this research.”
“FCRR is the best place in the world to study reading research. Our work encompasses more than studying phenomena; we create outcomes that improve learning conditions for children. That’s one of the best things about FCRR — we do research that truly has an impact in the real world.”
— Richard Wagner, FCRR associate director
In addition to serving as a hub for innovative research, FCRR actively shapes promising careers and reading research in remarkable ways through student engagement.
“While successful papers impact the field, their influence dwindles over time,” Wagner said. “Inspiring an undergraduate student to have a career in psychology or a graduate student to become a researcher is the kind of leverage that lasts. FCRR has a great track record of propelling students on these paths to be lifelong contributors to reading research.”
Wagner, who worked as a school psychologist after earning his undergraduate degree, was motivated to pursue graduate studies in psychology after seeing what real problems children were facing in school. He earned his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology in 1985 and joined FSU’s faculty shortly after. Specializing in phonological processing, dyslexia, and reading acquisition, he played a significant part in the founding of FCRR in 2002.
“FCRR is the best place in the world to study reading research,” Wagner said. “Our work encompasses more than studying phenomena; we create outcomes that improve learning conditions for children. That’s one of the best things about FCRR — we do research that truly has an impact in the real world.”
For some, reading research is a little more personal. Ashley Edwards, an FCRR research faculty member who also started training with the center as a graduate student, is helping people overcome the same obstacles she faced as a child.
“I always struggled with reading as a child, but it wasn’t until years later when I took an undergraduate psychology class teaching about dyslexia that I realized I might have dyslexia,” Edwards said. “Receiving a diagnosis as an adult empowered me to study dyslexia for my doctoral degree, and because of its preeminence in the field, I knew FCRR was where I wanted to do it.”
Edwards earned her doctorate in developmental psychology in 2022 and now studies dyslexia and reading development with the goal of understanding what contributes to reading difficulties and how research can inform reading difficulty screening, prevention, identification and intervention.
“I was picked on for my reading ability in childhood,” Edwards said. “Learning that dyslexia stems from a neurobiological cause helped me work through the anxiety and shame I felt around my reading ability. Another part of studying dyslexia is providing the public with information about it — I wasn’t diagnosed earlier because I simply misunderstood what it was, and so did my teachers. Educating people on these areas of reading research can help kids like me be identified sooner and receive intervention to remediate some of the difficulties they experience.”
For all FCRR faculty and staff, the biggest reward for their work is seeing it make a real difference for their community members.
“I love that we’re not staying within our labs and within these halls of science,” Haughbrook said. “We’re getting out into the community, making partnerships, and giving resources to the people that actually need them. Seeing our research translated into our communities, into our schools, and watching children benefit from the work we do is effective change we’re enacting. I’m so grateful to be part of it.”
Devin Bittner is a two-time FSU alumna who earned a Master of Business Administration in 2022 and a bachelor’s in digital media production in 2019.
McKenzie Harris is a two-time FSU alumna who earned a master’s degree from the College of Communication and Information in 2022 and a bachelor’s degree from the Department of English in 2020.