david d
- Research Program Mentor
EdD at Harvard University
Expertise
developmental psychology, early language and literacy, parent-child interactions, community support for early development
Bio
Throughout my career I have been passionate about the need to support development of children from homes where parents lack needed resources to be as effective in supporting their children's development as they would like. I have focused on early development, especially language and literacy. I have studied development, experiences that foster early growth, and I have developed and studied the effects of methods to help parents, teachers and communities better foster development. I have designed research studies and mentored many students as they learn to conduct and write up their research. I have made hundreds of presentations in the US and around the world. I have mentored children with dyslexia, taught elementary grade students, and mentored hundreds of college students. I am recently retired and am seeking to improve my bridge playing, golf, piano playing, ballroom dancing, and pickleball playing and am helping to build homes for low-income families. I also am interested in efforts to address climate change (e.g., recycling, composting, solar power).Project ideas
Supporting Home Book Reading in Libraries
Early language is critical to later literacy and book reading is the activity that most consistently has been found to be a setting that fosters growth. It is not just book reading, but how books are read that is important. In this project you will work with a children's librarian to develop a method of introducing parents to effective book reading in a reading hour in the children's section of the library. You will identify and practice effective strategeis, with the help of the librarian identify books appropriate for children at different ages, and advertise your sessions. At your sessions you will distribute questionaires and attempt to get parent to volunteer to be contacted by you afterwards. These data will allow you to see how attendees responded to your session, find if some of them adopt and use your methods, if they return for later sessions, and if they note changes in their child's engagement with books. Prerequisites: A willingness to talk with librarians and parents you do not know and to promote your workshop.