Project ¡LEER!
LEER Mission and Goals
As of the 2018-2019 school year, over 120 languages are spoken in Texas schools. Many students who are English Learners (ELs) struggle to make adequate academic progress due to barriers of language and culture. Project ¡LEER! will develop and provide Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) and professional development (PD) to improve the reading outcomes of ELs. In partnership with Local Education Agencies, Project ¡LEER! will develop and provide PD to support schools in understanding and implementing an MTSS framework, recognizing and supporting the social, behavioral, and academic needs of Els, and sharing evidence-based practices for serving the literacy needs of ELs.
In conjunction with the mission, Project ¡LEER! will plan and develop research-based MTSS-EL professional development (PD) to support academic language literacy. These PD modules and opportunities will focus on culturally responsive practices as well as evidence-based practices. An additional focus will be EBPs for social-emotional learning (SEL) utilizing a culturally responsive lens.
Project ¡LEER! is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the (1) Department of Educational Psychology at Baylor University (BU), (2) Department of Educational Psychology (Bilingual/ESL and Special Education Programs) at Texas A&M University (TAMU), and (3) Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching at the University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA).
Directors
Dr. Mack D. Burke
Director
Mack D. Burke, Ph.D., is a Professor of Special Education in the Department of Educational Psychology at BU. He received his doctorate from the University of Oregon and will be responsible for project oversight and meeting PD development, implementation, and evaluation deadlines. Dr. Burke’s signature areas of scholarship focus on MTSS, learning/behavioral problems and disorders, evidence-based literacy, and social and emotional practices for culturally and linguistically diverse learners. He was engaged in some of the original MTSS research at UO in the 1990s and has provided MTSS PD to two multiple state departments and school districts on implementing EBPs with at-risk culturally and linguistically diverse learners. Previously, he was in the Division of Special and Bilingual Education at TAMU, and his most recent grant focused on Improving Quality of Life Through a Culturally Responsive Lens: Developing Social-Emotional and Behavioral Supports for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students.
Dr. Lisa Bowman-Perrott
Co-Director
Lisa Bowman-Perrott, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Special Education in the Department of Educational Psychology at TAMU. She is bilingual, received her doctorate from The University of Virginia, and her research spans special education and bilingual education and focuses on culturally responsive practices. She will be responsible for developing, manualizing, and adapting PD related to peer tutoring for ELs with and without disabilities. Prior to joining the faculty at TAMU, Dr. Bowman-Perrott was a research professor with the Juniper Gardens Children’s Project at the University of Kansas (KU). While at KU, she was PI of an OELA grant entitled ‘LAS ESTRELLAS: Enhancing Secondary Teachers’ Repertoires in working with English Language Learners for Academic Success’, focused on providing PD to content area teachers on instructional strategies for ELs. She currently teaches bilingual special education coursework and is Co-PI of a doctoral training grant on preparing school psychology doctoral students to provide EBPs and services to ELs with disabilities and their families.
Dr. Richard Boon
Co-Director
Richard Boon, Ph.D., is a professor of special education in the Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching at UTSA. He received his Ph.D. in special education from George Mason University. He will be responsible for co-directing Project LEER and developing, manualizing, and adapting PD related to content area strategies, ELs with disabilities, inclusive education, and international special education. Dr. Boon has served as Co-PI on state and federally-funded grants and played key roles in several large-scale grant awards. He is a sought-after speaker on LD and has given talks in Ecuador, Costa Rica, Columbia, and Spain, amongst others. He is currently editing a textbook on ELs with learning disabilities and is an Associate Editor for the Journal of International Special Needs Education.
STAFF
Dr. Kristen Padilla
Co-Principal Investigator
Dr. Kristen Padilla is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Educational Psychology Department at Baylor University and directs the Baylor Center for Developmental Disabilities. Dr. Padilla is a Licensed Specialist in School Psychology (LSSP) and a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA). Her research focuses on the validity and reliability of assessments based on applied behavior analysis, behavior analytic practices in school settings, and training future behavior analysts. As Director of the BCDD, Dr. Padilla supervises graduate students, providing intervention and assessment services. She also serves as the parent and community liaison coordinates programming efforts, and works with local agencies to provide training in working with children with autism spectrum disorder and behavioral difficulties. Dr. Padilla has several years of experience working with children in school and clinical settings. Dr. Padilla has served as a co-investigator on multiple state and federal grants focusing on parent coaching, teacher training in ASD, interdisciplinary professional training in ASD, and working with English Learners with and without disabilities.
Dr. Fuhui Tong
Co-Principal Investigator
Dr. Fuhui Tong is a Professor of Bilingual/ESL Education in the Department of Educational Psychology at TAMU and Co-Director of the Center for Research and Development in Dual Language and Literacy Acquisition (CRDLLA). She will be responsible for leading the project evaluation and providing input on the quantitative analysis. Her primary expertise is research design and quantitative methodology in bilingual/English as a Second Language Education, second language acquisition, longitudinal data analyses, assessment, and program evaluation. Dr. Tong was the recipient of the 2015 AERA Bilingual Research SIG Early Career Award. Dr. Tong serves as Co-PI and lead methodologist on three large-scale U.S. Department of Education validation grants and four OELA national professional development grants providing intensive professional development, coaching, and mentoring for teachers working with ELs in elementary and middle schools. She is a WWC-certified reviewer.
Virginia Reynolds
Project Coordinator
Virginia Reynolds is pursuing a Ph.D. in School Psychology in the School of Education at Baylor University. She received her M.S.Ed. in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis in instructional coaching at the University of Texas at Tyler and her undergraduate degree in secondary education from Brigham Young University. Her research interests include autism, systems of support, and self-regulated learning.
Project LEER Research Team
Dr. Zohreh Eslami
Professor
Dr. Eslami has more than 20 years of experience in ESL/EFL teacher education, both in the USA and overseas. She has publications in the areas of ESL teacher education, content area literacy for ELLs, reading in a second language, Intercultural and Instructional Pragmatics, and Intercultural Communication.
Dr. Lisa Rodriguez Sanchez
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Lisa Rodriguez Sanchez, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral research associate in the department of Educational Psychology at Baylor University. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Texas A&M University and her master’s in special education from Texas A&M-San Antonio. Her research areas include Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), emotional and behavioral disorders, and coaching teachers to implement evidence-based practices.
Celeste Martinez
UTSA Doctoral Student
Celeste Martinez is a doctoral student at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is a first-year doctoral scholar in the Bilingual-Bicultural department in the Culture, Language, and Literacy program. Her research interests are Emergent bilinguals and the intersection of race, language, and disability. Outside of academia, she enjoys art, literature, and animals.
Cameron Blaies
Baylor Doctoral Student
Eboni Lynn Bailey Bonaiti
Texas A&M Doctoral Student
Eboni L. Bailey-Bonaiti, a Project Diverse OSEP scholar, is a globally-minded fluent trilingual (Italian, English, and Spanish) multilingual educational trendsetter who embraces her call as a second language and at-risk educator via innovative learning communities where student empowerment yields ownership. Multilingualism and multicultural instruction are best attained through three key components: maximizing comprehensible input via empowering skill sets, increasing strong student efficacy, and strengthening campus culture, teacher efficacy, and student achievement through reciprocal parent and community engagement. Serving at-risk learners as well as bridging academic achievement gaps is key to campus excellence for all. As a dual-citizen to both the United States and Italy and having been raised in a military and federal background home, Eboni L. Bailey-Bonaiti is passionate about serving professional educational communities through her multicultural bridge and multilingual capacities as she expands instructional practices that focus on Culturally and Linguistically Diverse populations impacting campus culture utilizing policy as a tool for generations to come.