Kelly B. Cartwright

Kelly B. Cartwright, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Teacher Preparation at Christopher Newport University (CNU) where she directs the Reading, Executive function, And Development Lab (READ Lab) and serves as a Research Scholar for the Center for Education Research and Policy. Kelly’s work explores the development of skilled reading comprehension and the neurocognitive and affective factors that underlie comprehension processes and difficulties from preschool through adulthood. Her work has appeared in Journal of Educational Psychology, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Research in Developmental Disabilities, Reading Research Quarterly, and a range of other research publications. Her books on reading comprehension include Executive Skills and Reading Comprehension: A Guide for Educators, Word Callers: Small Group and One-to-One Interventions for Children who “Read” but Don’t Comprehend, and Literacy Processes: Cognitive Flexibility in Learning and Teaching, which was nominated for the Ed Fry Book Award in 2008. Kelly has served on the Board of Directors of the Literacy Research Association and was a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. Her research has been supported by grants from the Virginia State Reading Association and the United States Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. Kelly regularly works with teachers in public and private schools throughout the US to better understand and improve reading comprehension for struggling readers, and these experiences inform her research.

• PhD Experimental Psychology | University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Arkansas, USA [1997]
• MA Psychology | University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Arkansas, USA [1995]
• BS Psychology | Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA [1989]

• American Educational Research Association
• American Psychological Association
• Cognitive Development Society
• International Literacy Association
• International Mind, Brain, & Education Society
• Literacy Research Association, Past Board Member
• Society for Research in Child Development
• Society for Neuroscience
• Society for the Scientific Study of Reading

Professor | Christopher Newport University, Newport News, Virginia [1998-present]

Editorial Board Member| Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy [2020-Present]

Executive Board Member, Ethics Committee Chair | Literacy Research Association [2013-2016]

President | Virginia College Reading Educators [2011-2013]

Member| International Reading Association Professional Standards & Ethics Committee [2010-2013]

• Executive Skills and Reading Comprehension: A Guide for Educators, Guilford Press, 2015
• Word Callers: Small Group and One-to-One Interventions for Children who “Read” but Don’t Comprehend, Heinemann, 2010
• Literacy Processes: Cognitive Flexibility in Learning and Teaching, Guilford Press, 2008

• Cartwright, K. B., Bock, A. M., Clause, J. H., Coppage August, E. A., Saunders, H. G., & Schmidt, K. J. (2020). Near- and far-transfer effects of an executive function intervention for 2^nd to 5^th grade struggling readers. Cognitive Development, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100932
• Duke, N. K., & Cartwright, K. B. (2021). The science of reading progresses: Communicating advances beyond the simple view of reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 56, S25-S44.
• Cartwright, K. B., Marshall, T. R., Huemer, C. M., & Payne, J. B. (2019). Executive function in the classroom: Cognitive flexibility supports reading fluency for typical readers and teacher-identified low-achieving readers. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 88, 42-52.
• Cartwright, K. B., Bock, A. M., Coppage, E. A., Hodgkiss, M. D., Nelson, M. I. (2017). A comparison of cognitive flexibility and metalinguistic skills in adult good and poor comprehenders. Journal of Research in Reading, 40, 139-152.
• Cartwright, K. B., Coppage, E. A., Lane, A. B., Singleton, T., Marshall, T. R., & Bentivegna, C. (2017). Cognitive flexibility deficits in children with specific reading comprehension difficulties. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 50, 33-44.
• Cartwright, K. B. (2012). Insights from cognitive neuroscience: The importance of executive function for early reading development and education. Early Education and Development, 23, 24-36.

• Students with Reading Comprehension Difficulties: Identification and Supports, US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences Reading Summit: Linking Data and Learning, 2021
• Executive function strategies to support reading comprehension. The 34^th annual Learning Differences Conference at Harvard Graduate School of Education, Boston, MA, 2019
• Executive skills and reading: Classroom strategies that facilitate executive functions. The Dyslexia Foundation’s conference on Dyslexia and Literacy: Understanding Executive Functions, Language, and Reading, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 2019.

• Cartwright, K. B. (2017). Executive-level thinking: Teaching 21st century skills for effective reading comprehension. Literacy Today, 34 (6), 38-39.
• Cartwright, K. B. (2017, February). Teaching your students to read like pros. Invited blog post for Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation.
• Cartwright, K. B. (2017, January). Executive skills and the struggling reader. Invited blog post for Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation.