Megan Brown

622 Psychology Bldg University of Wisconsin-Madison Dept of Psychology (WJ Brogden Hall) 1202 West Johnson Street Madison, WI 53706-1696 E-Mail: Phone: (608) 262-1564 Fax: (608) 262-4029

Graduate Student

B.A. Psychology and English, 2002, Juniata College

Research Statement:

My research interests center on children's reading acquisition and the development of comprehension. I am interested in which experiences make learning to read more difficult for children and evaluating interventions that will effectively and efficiently help students overcome those challenges.

My current research is focused on testing the effects of a child's initial dialect differing from the normative school dialect. Specifically, I am working with students who speak Midwest African-American English (AAE) and assessing how they adjust to Midwest Standard American English (SAE) school environments. We suspect that AAE and SAE may be too similar for some students to tell the difference between the two dialects. The inability to differentiate between the dialects may inform whether they successfully learn to read (in SAE), whether they become code-switchers, and other assorted academic outcomes.

Initially, I am evaluating how explicitly children can differentiate between three dialects. Children are exposed to animated monsters, which tell children a story and expose them to two of the three possible dialects. Animated monsters of different colors speak in different dialects. For example, red monsters may speak in SAE and blue monsters may speak in Indian-Accented English (IAE). Then, we assess their understanding of the monster-color/dialect rule using a variety of forced-choice tests. We anticipate a child's ability to tell the dialects apart will depend on a variety of cognitive and contextual factors.

In the future, we will build off of the current research in a variety of ways. I am interested in whether there's a developmental aspect to dialect differentiation, and whether we can manipulate children's ability to differentiate through instruction. Specifically, I am designing an intervention to help students differentiate between dialects via instruction about phonological dialect features.

I am also interested in the design and scale up of reading interventions. While working with Dr. Art Glenberg, I evaluated the one-on-one and small group implementation of an intervention aimed to improve reading comprehension via the text-directed use of story-related manipulatives. We repeatedly found that children who used manipulatives while reading a story were better able to remember story events and the meanings of novel pseudo-words than were children who did not manipulate related objects. In order to assess the efficacy of this intervention in an ecologically valid environment, I adapted the intervention for application in classroom settings.

Publications:

Brown, M. C., McNeil, N. M., & Glenberg, A. M. (in press). Using concreteness in education: Real problems, potential solutions. Child Development Perspectives.

Glenberg, A. M., Brown, M., & Levin, J. R. (2007). Enhancing comprehension in small reading groups using a manipulation strategy. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 32, 389-399.

Presentations and Posters:

Richmond, E. K., Glenberg, A. M., Levin, J. R., & Brown, M. C. (2008). Learning science from text: The importance of grounding written words. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Researchers Association, New York, N.Y.

Richmond, E. K., Brown, M. C., & Glenberg, A. M. (2007). Learning science from text: The importance of grounding written words. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Institute for Education Sciences, Washington, DC, 6/7 - 6/9/2007.

Brown, M. C., Glenberg, A. M., & Levin, J. R. (2007). Physical Manipulation Leads to Better Memory for New Words. Poster presented at the biannual meeting of the Society for Research on Children and Development.

Brown, M. C., Glenberg, A. M., & Levin, J. R. (2007). Using Physical Manipulation to Reinforce Vocabulary Learning and Comprehension. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Researchers Association.

Glenberg, A. M. & Brown, M. C. (2006). The process of language development: From abstract words to concrete ideas. Paper presented at annual conference of the American Association of Educational Researchers

Brown, M. (2002). Change in Juniata Student Characteristics: Juniata College Class of 2001. Published at Juniata College and presented to the Juniata College Board of Trustees.

Brown, M. (2001). First Year Students at Juniata: Comparison with a National Sample from the Freshman Survey. Published at Juniata College and presented to the Juniata College Board of Trustees.

Brown, M. & Drews, D. (2001). The Relationship Between Computer Game Competition, Testosterone Levels, and Self-confidence. Poster presented at the annual National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR).