Holly Joseph

Holly Joseph is Professor of Language and Literacy Development at the Institute of Education, University of Reading. Her research examines how children learn to read and understand written language, why some children experience difficulties, and how their opportunities to engage with reading are shaped by their linguistic, developmental and social circumstances. She combines experimental methods, particularly eye tracking, with research involving schools, families and communities.

Her work encompasses reading comprehension, vocabulary and word learning, multilingual literacy, family and shared reading, neurodiversity, disability, socioeconomic inequality and reading for pleasure. She has studied children of different ages, language backgrounds and neurodevelopmental profiles. She is particularly interested in how home languages, accessible books and inclusive reading practices can enable more children and families to participate in reading. She also critically evaluates the evidence behind reading interventions and popular claims about ways of making reading easier.

Holly completed her doctorate on children’s eye movements during reading at Durham University and subsequently spent five years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford. She is a former Director of the Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism and co-editor of The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literacy.

Further information about her research and publications can be found at http://www.reading.ac.uk/education/about/staff/h-joseph.aspx .