Ed Psych researchers awarded $3.8 million grant to improve early language comprehension

Three Department of Educational Psychology researchers have been awarded a five-year, $3.8 million Institute of Education Sciences (IES) grant to scale up their ELCII (Early Language Comprehension Individualized Instruction) technology. Initially developed with IES funding and the College of Education and Human Development’s (CEHD’s) Educational Technology Innovations (ETI), ELCII provides supplemental early instruction in language comprehension skills to prevent long-term negative reading outcomes. Students use an interactive web-based application called Inference Galaxy to learn to make inferences—a core skill for language comprehension.

Panayiota (Pani) Kendeou, Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Guy Bond Chair in Reading in the Department of Educational Psychology’s psychological foundations of education program and Kristen McMaster, department chair and Stern Family Chair of Reading Success in the special education program will lead the project. 

Kendeou explained how this funding will help take ELCII to the next level.

“My vision is for every student in kindergarten, especially the most vulnerable, to have the opportunity to access and benefit from the personalized literacy teaching provided by ELCII.”

McMaster believes this is just the beginning of what University of Minnesota researchers can accomplish when they work across areas of expertise.

“ELCII is a great example of many interdisciplinary collaborations among faculty, staff, and students within our department and across CEHD units. Merging our expertise in theory, methods, and instructional innovation will ultimately lead to meaningful changes in practice.” 

Nidhi Kohli, John P. Yackel Professor of Educational Measurement and Assessment in the quantitative methods in education program will lead data management and analyses. CEHD’s Educational Technology Innovations (ETI)  will lead platform scale-up and dissemination.