Full PreFrontal: Exposing the Mysteries of Executive Function Ep. 82: Kelly Cartwright, Ph.D. - Good Readers Are Good Thinkers!
Traveling through time, visiting imaginary places, witnessing wars and famines, and reliving crusades, is all made possible by reading. It engages visual imagination, invokes emotions, and challenges our preconceived notions and it single-handedly helps us change our mind. The reading journey begins from making sense of a written word to gathering new information from English, science, or social studies texts to eventually connecting it all to one’s own knowledge, ideas, and beliefs. But such a profoundly relevant, complex, and meaningful learning process is often overlooked.
On this episode, my guest Kelly Cartwright, Ph.D., who’s motto is “Good readers and good thinkers” joins us to discuss why educators must make every attempt to teach executive function skills to actively support reading comprehension.
About Kelly B. Cartwright, Ph.D.
Kelly B. Cartwright is Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Teacher Preparation at Christopher Newport University (CNU) where she directs the Reading, Executive function, and Development (READ) Lab. Kelly’s research explores the development of skilled reading comprehension and the neurocognitive and affective factors that underlie comprehension processes and difficulties from preschool through adulthood. Her work has appeared in Journal of Educational Psychology, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Research in Developmental Disabilities, and a range of other research publications. Her books on reading comprehension include Executive Skills and Reading Comprehension: A Guide for Educators, Word Callers: Small-Group and One-to-One Interventions for Children who “Read” but Don’t Comprehend. and Literacy Processes: Cognitive Flexibility in Learning and Teaching, which was nominated for the Ed Fry Book Award in 2008. Kelly has served on the Board of Directors of the Literacy Research Association and was a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. Her research has been supported by grants from the Virginia State Reading Association and the United States Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. Kelly regularly works with teachers in public and private schools throughout the US to better understand and improve reading comprehension for struggling readers, and these experiences inform her research.
Website
Books
- Executive Skills and Reading Comprehension: A Guide for Educators
- Word Callers: Small-Group and One-to-One Interventions for Children who “Read” but Don’t Understand
- Literacy Processes: Cognitive Flexibility in Learning and Teaching
Helpful Resources