Graduate Student
E-Mail: cooperborken@wisc.edu
Research Interests
I have broad interests in the characteristics of language and print that shape development. Furthermore, I am concerned with how we can use scientific knowledge of reading development to enhance learning. I investigate reading using a variety of methods, including computational models and lab-based experimentation. Working within the framework of the triangle model of skilled reading (Seidenberg & McClelland, 1989), the bulk of my work uses computational models to investigate the relationship between properties of language, print, and the development of mental representations of phonology, semantics, and orthography in the service of reading development. My relevant past experiences span linguistic and educational research at the university, as well as working as an elementary school teacher specializing in literacy instruction for children with language-based learning differences.
Current Research
My current research with Mark S. Seidenberg focuses on how we can exploit semantic, phonological, and orthographic knowledge to accelerate learning basic reading skills in early developing readers.
Support
I am a predoctoral Fellow in the Interdisciplinary Training Program in Education Sciences at UW-Madison, and am a predoctoral mentee on a NICHD Learning Disabilities Hub grant operating collaboratively with Florida State University and the University of Connecticut.
Papers, Talks, Posters
Cox, C., Cooper Borkenhagen, M., and Seidenberg, M. (2019) Efficiency of learning in experience-limited domains: Generalization beyond the WUG test. Proceedings of the 2019 Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Montreal, Quebec, Canada. July, 2019.
Seidenberg, M.S. & Cooper Borkenhagen, M. (2019) Toward a new standard theory of learning to read. 27th Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading [talk]. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. July, 2019.
Cooper Borkenhagen, M., Cox, C., and Seidenberg, M. (2019) Efficient learning and maximal generalization: A new view of the early development of basic reading skills. 27th Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading [talk]. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. July, 2019.
Cox, C., Cooper Borkenhagen, M., and Seidenberg, M. (2018) Learning to read with a machine teacher: Discovering efficient training procedures for training the orth-to-phon relationships in English. 2018 Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society [poster]. Madison, WI. July, 2018.
Cooper Borkenhagen, M., Wang, T., Barker, M., & Seidenberg, M. (2018). Meanings within meanings: Skilled readers activate irrelevant meanings of radicals and phonetics in Chinese. 26th Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading [poster]. Brighton, England. July, 2018.
