Research

How can we support multilingual students’ sense of agency in schools? Here’s an article that offers suggestions!

Vaughn, M., Lammert, C., Carrizales, & Arlington, K.A. (2025). Multilingual learners and possibilities for agency. Peabody Journal of Education. 100(4). 482-494.

Here is an article with colleagues in Austria about teachers’ perspectives towards German language learning and what these policies mean for multilingual students.

Hassani, S., Zupan, K., Vaughn, M., & Schwab, S. (2025). Teachers’ perspectives towards German language learning for multilingual pupils in pull-out classes. International  Journal of Multilingualism, 1-20.

There is widespread attention on the science of reading in early elementary grades. What do foundational skills mean for adolescents and its connection to student agency?

Vaughn, M., & Masterson, J. (2025). Supporting foundational skills for adolescents with agency. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. 68(4), 363-368.

Here is an article where I work with colleagues across the globe to explore the important relationship between school climate factors and students’ sense of agency. It’s a fascinating read – highlighting how supporting students’ sense of agency can have deep implications for school climate.

Vaughn, M., Carbonneau, K.J., Mameli, C., Solheim, O.J., Lammert, C., Arlington, K.,   Sæbø, J.U., O’Toole, V., Arrow, A., Grazia, V. (2025). A cross-cultural study of  school climate and student agency in literacy. Journal of Educational Research. 118(3), 233-242.

The role of adaptive teaching in supporting equitable and effective instruction is essential. In this new article, my colleagues and I address the role of adaptive teaching with the debate surrounding the science of reading in Reading Research Quarterly.

The article is featured in a special issue in Reading Research Quarterly. The Science of Reading: Supports, Critiques, and Questions — contains 26 peer-reviewed articles written by a total of 77 authors who represent diverse, innovative, and challenging ideas and perspectives that reframe the science of reading debate. This is the first of two special issues on the topic, with a second issue set for Spring 2021.

The article titled, “Aligning the Science of Reading with Adaptive Teaching,” adds nuance in the discussion of teaching related to the science of reading (SOR). The piece demonstrates that adaptive teaching is a vital characteristic of effective reading teachers and recommend that scholars—those who study reading processes and reading acquisition (i.e., SOR proponents) and those who study effective literacy instruction—work across epistemologies and methodologies to investigate the nuances of these processes in real-world classrooms, particularly in ways that eliminate homogenizing literacy practices.

“The goal of this issue is to highlight how bridging of perspectives via accurate and meaningful information can move us forward,” RRQ editors Amanda Goodwin and Robert Jiménez said. “We [know] much more than was coming out in the discussions taking place. In other words, the science of reading is much broader than what was being used to inform theory, research, policy, and practice.”

New article! Examining Agency in Children’s Nonfiction Picture Books

Here’s a great piece about how student agency intersects with subjects in nonfiction children’s picture books. You can access the full text via Researchgate / Springer, listed on my researchgate page. One of my favorite things about this research was exploring how picture books can help us understand how agency can be cultivated. This project has made me think about ways to understand agency and to contextualize it for practice.

Themed issue on Visioning in Educational Spaces forthcoming in the Peabody Journal of Education (2021). Please check in on this issue of which I am honored to be the guest editor.

The Guided Reading Library is a free, digital collection of published books developed by Margaret Vaughn and created by practicing classroom teachers, undergraduate and graduate students, and elementary students. The goal of this project is to support literacy across the Pacific Northwest and other regions that have a high percentage of high poverty districts that lack financial resources to purchase leveled reading books.  A second goal of this project is to model to preservice teachers authentic writing instruction. Currently, I am working with several teachers (some former preservice teachers) who are using the curriculum to have their elementary students publish books and submit to the Guided Reading Library.

To visit the Guided Reading Library, please go here:

https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/guidedreading/