Queen's University
A to Z
FACULTY OF
Education

Lesly Wade-Woolley

Professor of Education, Cognitive Studies, Graduate Faculty
BA (Tennessee), MA (McGill), PhD (Toronto)

Contact Information

Room: A208
Phone: 613-533-6000 x 77230
Email: wadewool@queensu.ca
Website: Language and Literacy Research Lab (langlitlab.ca)
Twitter: profwool

Research Interests

  • Reading development and reading disability in second language
  • Cognitive studies
  • Linguistics
  • Language development
  • Music and reading

Biography

Dr. Wade-Woolley's training is in Linguistics (B.A., University of Tennessee; M.A., McGill University) and Education (Ph.D., University of Toronto). Her research interests focus broadly on reading development and reading difficulties. Her most recent work has involved an exploration of linguistic stress, and how suprasegmental information such as prosody may be implicated in reading development and fluent reading. A new line of research investigates the relationship between music and reading. Much of her past work has centred on investigations of these issues in individuals who are reading in a non-native language. Over the years, this has involved English language learners, both children and adults (including speakers of Russian learning Hebrew and English, and Japanese speakers learning English), children in French Immersion, and children learning to read in English and Hebrew concurrently. She also works with schools and school boards that are interested in programs to prevent reading failure, and she had been consulted by the Ontario Ministry of Education to serve on expert panels on reading and special education (Early Reading Strategy, Education for All). From time to time, she does contract work for the Educational Quality Assurance Organization and the Ministry of Education. Like all academics, she reviews a lot of manuscripts, and she is on the editorial board of Scientific Studies of Reading and Reading and Writing.

Research to Practice

Dr. Wade-Woolley is extremely interested in building capacity among classroom teachers and communicating the findings of literacy research to foster evidence-based practice. One effort in this direction was her participation as co-Chair of a recent (2005) Expert Panel, convened by the Ontario Ministry of Education, to produce a report on literacy and numeracy instruction for students with special education needs. This report, which takes a noncategorical approach to special education, presents effective pedagogical strategies based on sound scientific research for reading and math for students in grades K-6. The Report, Education For All, is available from the Ontario Ministry of Education. A presentation that she made to the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada Forum giving an overview of Education For All is available on podcast at TVOntario.

In 2002, she served on the first Expert Panel convened by the Ministry of Education. This panel produced the Early Reading Strategy Report, which guided a wave of professional development for primary teachers throughout the province.

She also served on the steering committee of the Promoting Early Identification initiative of the Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario, a three-year project aiming to develop and promote best practices in screening, assessment and programming for children aged 4 – 8 at risk for school failure.

She is a member of the Society for the Scientific Studies of Reading (president-elect in 2014), the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the International Dyslexia Association. Closer to home, she is cross-appointed to the Department of Psychology.

For news and updates on Dr. Wade-Woolley's research, see http://langlitlab.ca/.

Current Funding

SSHRC Insight Grant: Untangling Prosody, Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension. Collaborators: Andrew Holliman, Coventry University; Linda Jarmulowicz, University of Memphis; and Clare Wood, Coventry University.

Representative Publications

Wade-Woolley, L. & Heggie, L. (2013, submitted). Linguistic stress and reading: More than phonological awareness.

Heggie, L. & Wade-Woolley, L. (2013, submitted). Elementary school children’s multisyllabic word reading and prosodic awareness.

Jared, D.J., Cormier, P., Levy, B. A., & Wade-Woolley, L. (2012). Cross-language activation of phonology in young bilingual readers. Reading and Writing, 25, 1327-1343.

Li, M., Kirby, J. R., Cheng, L., Wade-Woolley, L. & Qiang, H. (2012). Cognitive predictors of English reading achievement in Chinese English-immersion students. Reading Psychology, 33.

Pyle, A., Wade-Woolley, L. & Hutchinson, N. L. (2011). “Just listen to us”: The Role of Teacher Empowerment in the Implementation of Responsiveness to Intervention. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 57, 258-272.

Goodman, I., Libenson, A. & Wade-Woolley, L. (2010). Sensitivity to linguistic stress, phonological awareness and early reading ability in preschoolers. Journal of Research in Reading, 33, 113-221.

Wood, C., Wade-Woolley, L. & Holliman, A.  (2009). Phonological awareness: Beyond phonemes. In C. Wood & V. Connelly (Eds.) The Development of Reading and Spelling: Contemporary Perspectives, (pp. 7 -23). London: Routledge.

Clin, E. M., Wade-Woolley, L. & Heggie, L. (2009). Prosodic sensitivity and morphological awareness in children’s reading. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 104, 197-213.

Deacon, S. H., Wade-Woolley, L. & Kirby, J. R. (2009). Flexibility in young second-language learners: Examining the language-specificity of orthographic knowledge. Journal of Research in Reading, 32, 215-229.

David, D., Wade-Woolley, L., Kirby, J. R. & Smithrim, K. (2007). Rhythm and reading development in school-age children: A longitudinal study Journal of Research in Reading, 30, 169-183.

Goetry, V., Kolinsky, R. Wade-Woolley, L. & Mousty, P. (2006). The role of prosody processing abilities in the development of bilingual reading. Journal of Research in Reading, 29, 349-362.

Wade-Woolley, L. & Wood, C. P. (2006). Prosody and speech rhythm in reading: Introduction to the special issue. Journal of Research in Reading, 29, 253-257.

MacCoubrey, S. J., Wade-Woolley, L., Klinger, D. & Kirby, J. R. (2004). Early identification of at-risk readers in a second language,Canadian Modern Language Review, 61, 11-28.

Wade-Woolley, L & Geva, E.  (2000). Processing novel phonemic contrasts in the acquisition of L2 word reading. Scientific Studies of Reading, 4, 295-311.

Wade-Woolley, L. (1999). First language influences on second language word reading: All roads lead to Rome. Language Learning, 49, 447-471.

For more publications and presentations, see http://langlitlab.ca/publications.

Current Students

Dr. Wade-Woolley's previous students have entered into a number of different careers, as well as doctoral studies in education and psychology; for example: speech and language pathology, school/child clinical psychology, and post-secondary education.

For information about previous students and their thesis topics, see http://langlitlab.ca/lww-teaching/.

Bachelor's/Diploma Courses

Graduate Courses