The Language to Literacy Research Lab The Language to Literacy

About

Dr. Rebecca Silverman

I began my career in education as an elementary school teacher in my hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana. My research is focused on language and literacy development and instruction of early childhood and elementary age children from diverse backgrounds. I am particularly interested in how to best support children who may have difficulty in learning to read and write. In my exploratory research, I have studied the relationship between language skills and reading and writing outcomes. I have examined the association between instructional practices and students' literacy development. In my experimental work, I have investigated interactive and extended read alouds, peer learning, multimedia supports, and small group intervention for diverse learners. My goal is to shed light on innovative ways for facilitating the language and literacy development of diverse learners in order to ensure that all children have the opportunity to become proficient readers and writers in school and beyond.

Research Team

Rebecca Deutscher
Dr. Rebecca Deutscher has worked as a Senior Research Associate at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education since 2014. She has served as a project director and researcher on a variety of projects in areas that include digital personalized learning, literacy/social-emotional curriculum implementation, and middle school math & science curriculum development/professional learning. Dr. Deutscher previously worked at the Lawrence Hall of Science as the lead evaluator on various science and technology programs in both formal and informal learning environments. She also worked at a charter school researching and evaluating programs on parent involvement, motivation, achievement, hands-on learning, and teachers’ perspectives on an inquiry-based astronomy program. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Arizona State University, a M.A. in Clinical Psychology from San Diego State University, and a B.A. from University of California, Davis.

Lindsey Hasak  
Dr. Lindsey Hasak is the Director of Research and Partnerships for the BOOST project at Stanford's Language to Literacy Research Lab in the Graduate School of Education. She has worked in research-practice partnerships across public and private K–8 schools, leading projects focused on early literacy instruction, the cognitive neuroscience of reading skills, and inclusive teaching practices. Her doctoral research examined how linguistic factors and educational experiences shape spelling acquisition through the co-design of instructional strategies with teachers. Lindsey holds a B.S. in Psychology and a B.A. in English from the University of Florida, and a Ph.D. in Developmental and Psychological Sciences from Stanford University.

Hsiaolin Hsieh  
Hsiaolin Hsieh is a Senior Research Associate and the Research Project Lead at The SCALE Initiative. Her research focuses on ensuring equitable opportunity and access to learning for multilingual learners. She uses natural language processing and machine learning to analyze complex student dialogic participation in the classroom. Formally trained in educational measurement and assessment, Hsiaolin has extensive experience in the design, implementation, and evaluation of tests in the K-12 context. As a mixed-methods researcher, she uses qualitative and quantitative approaches to conduct research across (quasi-)experimental and research-practice-partnership settings. Her background in educational technology enables her to examine and leverage alternative tools to assist student learning. Hsiaolin holds a PhD in Education from Stanford University and a Master’s in Learning, Design, and Technology, also from Stanford University.

Annie Camey Kuo
Annie Camey Kuo is the project director for CLAVES at Stanford University. She is the Director of Research-Practice Partnerships for Understanding Language-Center to Support Excellence in Teaching at the Graduate School of Education. She is a 1.5-generation immigrant from Taiwan and has taught at various levels across K-20. Her areas of research and expertise include project-based learning, addressing the needs of multilingual learners, and design thinking. She holds a BA in English and Chinese from the University of California, Santa Barbara, MA in TESOL and Foreign Language Education from New York University, and a PhD in Language, Literacy and Culture from the University of Washington.

Erin Peters 
Erin Peters is a research assistant primarily working on the CLAVES project as an instructional coach. With her M.Ed and California Multiple Subject Credential, she spent several years as a 4th and 5th grade classroom teacher in San Francisco schools. She earned her RLAA (Reading and Literacy Added Authorization) in order to better understand how individuals of all ages and language backgrounds interact with and respond to targeted literacy development and intervention. She currently works as a literacy support provider for children and adults in the community.

Yukie Toyama 
Yukie Toyama leads quantitative analyses for intervention studies, including CLAVES and Boost Reading, to examine program efficacy and moderating conditions. She also conducts psychometric analyses to validate comprehension-focused measures for the Rapid Online Reading Assessment (ROAR, https://roar.stanford.edu/). Yukie holds a PhD in Quantitative Methods and Evaluation from UC Berkeley and an MA in Comparative Education from Stanford University. With extensive experience in mixed-methods research from her tenure at UC Berkeley’s BEAR Center and SRI Education, her expertise spans explanatory IRT modeling, meta-analyses of online learning, and expert-novice research with teachers and technicians. 

Neza Vidmar 
Neza Vidmar is a research assistant who graduated from the Faculty of Arts Ljubljana, Slovenia with two Bologna Process Master’s degrees (English Language and Literature, and Philosophy). Prior to assisting with research, she was an ESL teacher, tutor and translator in both Slovenia and the US. She still loves to return to the classroom not only as a research assistant but also as an advocate of diversity, inclusion and equity while supporting teachers and their learners, when they are faced with literacy, comprehension and curriculum implementation challenges.

Postdoctoral Fellows

Rachel Salia Rachel Salia completed her doctoral studies in International Comparative Education at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education in 2025. She researches social science curriculum in post- conflict settings, observing changes in curriculum over time and in conjunction with shifting global accountability norms. She also works on projects related to representation in social science curriculum, and in school leadership across the country. Rachel holds a BA in History and Linguistics from Columbia University, and received her Master of International Affairs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). Prior to Stanford, Rachel worked as a senior educational advisor for a national education organization that advocated for high-achieving, low-income students. She has a background in development and post-conflict education, and has worked in Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia and India. She has a love for language and all things food related, as well as a passion for helping students find the tools to empower themselves through education.

Graduate Students

Melissa Sofia Lewis 
Melissa Sofia Lewis is a PhD Candidate at Stanford University in the Developmental and Psychological Sciences Program housed within the Graduate School of Education. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Teacher Education, with a concentration in English as a Second Language, and a minor in Spanish from the University of Delaware. As a pre-service teacher excited to teach the next generation of scholars, she questioned how to support Multilingual Learners who simultaneously need both English Language Development and Special Education Services. With many questions remaining unanswered, she pursued a Ph.D., determined to accurately and efficiently differentiate between a language barrier and a learning difference to improve academic outcomes for these learners. Specifically, her research focuses on the writing development of upper-elementary-aged Multilingual Learners with learning disabilities. Since joining the lab, she has collaborated with numerous members as a research assistant on various literacy-related projects. Her developing expertise in writing has been an asset in coding elementary writing samples for Multilingual Learners and in advancing the lab's overall mission.

Jackelyn Rivera-Orellana  
Jackelyn Rivera-Orellana is a research assistant who received her MEd with an option in Reading from Cal State University, Los Angeles. She is interested in emerging bilingual and multilingual students' literacy development with books that focus on social justice. She has experience teaching in Newark, NJ, and Los Angeles as an elementary school and bilingual teacher. She has also coached teachers and led Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion seminars.

Megumi Takada 
Megumi Takada is a doctoral candidate in the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Her research focuses on elementary literacy, with an interest in equity-centered instruction that promotes student agency and school belonging. In her current research project, she works with district and community partners to design writing instruction that leverages multilingual students' languages, cultures, and identities. Her work is driven by her former experience as a public school teacher in South Korea and Seattle, as well as her cross-cultural upbringing in California and Japan.

Mei Tan  
Mei Tan is a PhD student studying education data science. Her research leverages AI/NLP to develop tools that measure and support instructional practice. She values working in direct partnership with both school districts and edtech companies. Mei is a former software engineer at Microsoft Education and volunteer high school computer science teacher. Outside of work, she is an overambitious home cook and enjoys hikes with her dogs.

Lab Alumni

  • Nallely Beulah Aceves-Romero
  • Alexander Blum
  • Elena Darkling-Hammond
  • Glenn M. Davis
  • Erika Johnson - Assistant Professor of Elementary Literacy at University of Iowa
  • Steve Juarez
  • Kristin Keane - Assistant Professor at University of California at Berkeley
  • Saurabhi Khanna
  • Cindy K. Lam
  • Kimiko E. Lange
  • Chris Mah - Program Manager at Anthropic
  • Jennifer McCartharn - Assistant Clinical Professor at University of Maryland
  • Irene Moore
  • Remyah Nguyen
  • Xander Paras
  • Swati Singh
  • Emily R. Southerton - Assistant Professor at West Chester University of Pennsylvania
  • Karen S. Taylor
  • Jane Weiss
  • Lillian Wolfe