Biography>

I began my career as a high school English teacher. In my first year of teaching, I encountered a girl who was bright and eager to learn but who had very limited reading and writing skills. I could not understand how it could be so hard for her to learn to read when she could learn all kinds of other things with apparent ease. I also had no idea what to do to help her. At that time, there was no federal law that mandated special education, and there was no recognition that some students' difficulties learning to read and write were innate, caused by variations in neurological development and functioning. Thus began my personal interest in understanding how to address the problems of individuals with reading and writing disabilities. Not much time passed before I encountered students whose problems learning to read and write were not specific to written language but stemmed from difficulties learning language, more generally. In some cases, the students' problems were innate and/or physiological or neurological (such as hearing disorders). In other cases, the students were native speakers of a language other than English, often thrown into the complex learning environment of a mainstream class with little or no support.

After about 10 years of teaching in public and private schools, I studied for my masters and doctoral degrees at the University of Connecticut. I also worked as a research assistant with Isabelle Liberman and her colleagues at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, CT. By that time, I had developed an interest in students whose word-reading problems had been effectively addressed through instructional programs of one kind or another, but who continued to underachieve in comprehension and written expression. Their schoolwork suffered as a result. Because it seemed that teachers had few available resources to work on language-learning with their students, I developed an instructional program called Reasoning and Reading, which was published by (and is still available from) Educators Publishing Service. My research interests focused on comprehension as well, but particularly on understanding the relation of students' learning of structural aspects of language (e.g., phonology and morphology) and their understanding of words and texts.

Over time, I became increasingly interested in language and literacy acquisition in the context of different learning environments. At Northwestern University, where I held a faculty position from 1987 -2000, one part of my responsibilities involved teaching a course on diagnostic assessment of language and learning in a clinical program. I learned to consider carefully the family and educational setting in which the child was living and learning so as to understand factors that influenced the child's acquisition of language and reading skills. In my research, I sought to determine whether students who had identified learning disabilities were able to learn effectively in mainstream science classes. I also worked with Dr. Margaret Beeman to understand the language and literacy development of children who were learning English as a second language.

At University of Michigan, where my husband, Addison Stone, and I moved in 2000, my research has continued to focus on extensions of many of the same issues concerning the language and literacy learning of children in different contexts. In addition, I have taken on administrative and research responsibilities for larger projects. In 2001, I assumed the position of Co-Director of the Center for Improvement in Early Reading Achievement (CIERA), funded by the federal Department of Education, when one of its directors (Susan Neuman) went to Washington to work as the assistant to the Secretary of Education, Rod Paige. CIERA’s mission has been to improve the reading achievement of America’s children by generating and disseminating theoretical, empirical, and practical solutions to persistent problems in the learning and teaching of beginning reading. The dissemination of research to educational researchers and educators has been an important part of the work of CIERA. As of 2002, I took on the job of evaluating the Reading First initiative in the state of Michigan, working with a colleague in the School of Education (Stephen Schilling) and researchers at the Institute for Social Research (http://www.isr.umich.edu/src). Reading First is an initiative approved by congress (Part B of the No Child Left Behind Act) and overseen by the federal Department of Education. Its purpose is to provide support for the improvement of reading in schools in high poverty regions where a large percentage of the children are not making adequate progress in learning to read. Further information about the Reading First initiative in Michigan can be found at the Michigan Reading First Web site (http://www.mireadingfirst.org). The Study of Reading First in Michigan entails evaluation of children's progress in reading and teachers' instructional practices and views about effective reading instruction.

Apart from my work, I have many interests. I love being outdoors. My favorite outdoor activities include walking, jogging, biking, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and kayaking. I am interested in birds and wildflowers as well. Hardly a day goes by without at least one long walk with our terrier companions, Chipper (a Westie) and Sadie (a Jack Russell). Top of the list of my favorite indoor activities are cooking and reading. My family is the foundation of my life, and we use some of our vacation time visiting our extended families--all on the eastern seaboard. Most of all, I treasure visits with our two sons and their wives and their four children, Lily, Zachary, Hannah and Kate.

Research and Scholarship

Over the years, the primary focus of my research has been on the relation of language and literacy acquisition, with a particular interest in children for whom these aspects of learning represent significant challenges. I have become increasingly interested in not only variation in language and literacy acquisition but also effective instructional practices and programs that meet the needs of children who would benefit from support in learning language and literacy.

One current study seeks to gather knowledge about aspects of language learning other than phonemic awareness that influence reading comprehension. It seemed important to offset the exclusive emphasis on phonemic awareness by determining other areas of language learning that have a significant impact of the developing reading skills of children in the early elementary years. A second study I am currently engaged in focuses on students in the late elementary years who are struggling significantly with reading, even after having received various kinds of help in reading through their early elementary years. Many of these students have not learned effective word-reading strategies to cope with the many complex words (e.g., multisyllable words, morphologically complex words) that are found in their textbooks. They also have trouble inferring the meanings of these words from context. An important goal is to design instructional programs to meet the needs of upper elementary years who are underachieving in reading.

In my role of Principal Investigator of the Study of Reading First in Michigan, I oversee an evaluation of the state plan to improve the reading achievement of children in grades k-3. The Study of Reading First in Michigan entails not only evaluation of children's progress in reading but also study of the Reading First teachers' instructional practices and views of reading instruction. Further information about Reading First in Michigan can be found at the Reading First Web site (http://www.mireadingfirst.org ). Colleagues working on this project with me include Dr. Stephen Schilling, a statistician in the School of Education, and researchers associated with the Institute of Social Research ( http://www.isr.umich.edu/src)

My interest in language learning and learning disabilities has led to work collaboratively with other researchers and on other projects. I serve as a consultant to Dr. Virginia Berninger for the Multidisciplinary Learning Disabilities Center at the University of Washington, funded by the National Institutes of Health/NICHD. I have worked with Dr, Berninger and her research team in the design of assessments of morphological knowledge and of instructional programs to build morphological awareness. I have co-authored several papers with her research team. These can be found in the list of recent publications below.

In addition, I have worked with Lauren Katz to develop a program for improving the word-analysis strategies that students in the upper elementary and middle schools might use during reading. While children often receive basic phonics instruction in the early elementary years, it is uncommon for them to be taught strategies for reading and understanding complex words in the texts they read for school. Multi-syllabic and multi-morphemic words are increasingly common in content-area textbooks from the fourth grade on. The program we developed, called Close Reading, was initially tried out in a series of case studies using single-subject design. The program covered twelve weeks of instruction, meeting with one or two students at a time for 30 minutes twice a week. Because the intent was to provide strategies that students could use while reading, about half of each session involved instruction in practice with two word analysis strategies (structural analysis and context analysis). The remaining time was spent reading a series of African folk tales together, working on unfamiliar words as they were encountered in the reading of the text. The teacher provided a lot of modeling of strategy use, but gradually the student was encouraged to take on the responsibility of locating and analyzing words that were unfamiliar and likely to make comprehension of the story difficult. For further description of this instructional program and to look at or download copies of instructional materials, click on the "Research" section of this Web site.

Selected recent publications and papers in press are these:

Carlisle, J. F., & Beeman, M. M. (2000). The effects of language of instruction on the reading and writing of first-grade Hispanic children. Scientific Studies of Reading, 4, 331-353.

Carlisle, J.F., Stone, C.A., & Katz, L.A. (2001). The effects of phonological transparency on reading derived words. Annals of Dyslexia, 51, 249-274.

Carlisle, J.F., & Rice, M.S. (2002). Improving reading comprehension: Research-based principles and practices. Baltimore, MD: York Press.

Richards, T.L., Berninger, V.B., Aylward, E.H., Richards, A.L., Thomson, J.B., Nagy, W.E., Carlisle, J.F., Dager, S.R., & Abbott, R.D. (2002). Reproducibility of proton MR spectroscopic imaging: Comparison of dyslexic and normal-reading children and effects of treatment on brtain lactate levels during language tasks. American Journal of Neuroradiology, 23, 1678-1685.

Carlisle, J.F. & Fleming, J. (2003). Lexical Processing of Morphologically Complex Words in the Elementary Years. Scientific Studies of Reading, 7, 239-253.

Carlisle, J.F. (In press). Morphology matters in learning to read: A commentary. Reading Psychology.

Carlisle, J.F. (in press). Morphological processes that influence learning to read. In Appel, Silliman, & Stone (Eds.), Handbook of language and literacy development and disorders.

Berninger, V., Nagy, W., Carlisle, J., Thomson, J., Hoffer, D., Abbott, S., Abbott, R., Richards, T., & Aylward, E. (2003). Effective treatment for dyslexics in grades 4 to 6. In B. Foorman (Ed.), Preventing and remediating reading difficulties: Bringing science to scale. Timonium, MD: York Press.

Other Professional Activities

At present I serve as a Co-Director for the Center for Improvement of Early Reading Achievement, (CIERA), funded by the federal Department of Education through the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. CIERA’s mission has been to improve the reading achievement of America’s children by generating and disseminating theoretical, empirical, and practical solutions to persistent problems in the learning and teaching of beginning reading. The dissemination of research to educational researchers and educators has been an important part of the work of CIERA, as is evident from information available on the Web site (http://www.ciera.org).

My husband, Addison Stone, and I are co-editors of Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, the official journal of the Division of Learning Disabilities within the Council for Exceptional Children (http://www.teachingld.org/). LDRP publishes papers focused on a range of issues related to children with learning disabilities, including reading, math, written language, psychosocial issues, and family and school support. Additional information about the journal can be found at the publisher’s Web site: (http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0938-8982) I am also on the review board of Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal and Learning Disability Quarterly. I serve as an ad hoc reviewer for a number of other journals as well.

I serve on various school and university committees, such as the Educational Studies Executive Committee. I am one of the school's representatives to the university's Senate Assembly. I am on the executive board of the International Association for Research in Learning Disabilities; I serve as Vice President for Regional Conferences. For further information about this organization, visit the Web site at http://www.iarld.net/ I am a member of various professional organizations and regularly give presentations at their conferences. Among these are Society for the Scientific Studies of Reading, the International Reading Association, the National Reading Conference, and the American Educational Research Association.

Teaching

I started my career as a teacher, and I still consider myself first and foremost a teacher. My teaching embraces several contexts. I teach topical courses at the university, I mentor graduate students who seek to become academics and researchers, I provide consultation to parents, schools and teachers, and I write both scholarly articles and instructional materials that teachers might find useful.

My primary affiliation within the School of Education is with the Literacy, Language and Learning Disabilities unit. This unit includes emphases on Literacy, Language and Culture and Special Education (Learning Disabilities). I teach two courses for students in the masters and doctoral programs for this unit: Education 525 Language Development and Education 739 Developmental Variation in Reading Acquisition. Course outlines for the 2002-2003 school year can be accessed in the "Classes" part of my site.

I also work collaboratively with the faculty of the Teacher Education program. A major project this year has been the development of an emphasis on special education that can enrich the teacher education programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels. This year, Sara Scott (a graduate assistant) and I researched methods for case-based problem solving that provide opportunities for teachers-in-training to gather both knowledge about special education and experience collaborating with others in order to meet the needs of children with diverse learning abilities in their classrooms. This winter, we were able to incorporate issues of special education in the students' work in two content-areas-- science and language arts. We introduced different methods of case-based learning in classes. The students studied cases of children with special needs that were introduced through interactive Web sites or were captured in their writing about cases they observed and studied within the context of the classroom and school. This, of course, is very much a work in progress.