Representatives from the Singapore Ministry of Education will visit Austin this month to work alongside researchers from The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk and see the center’s research in action in local classrooms.
The three-person delegation—Lai Shan Teo, Celine Chia, and Zhan Zhi Wong—will visit from October 29 to November 2. The agenda includes observing classrooms participating in MCPER’s Project BASIC, Reading and Anxiety project, and Project ELITE; exploring MCPER’s many available resources on response to intervention; and exchanging research on progress monitoring.
The ministry reached out to MCPER Executive Director Sharon Vaughn for the visit because of the center’s prominence in the research community on these topics. MCPER Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Schnakenberg organized and will lead the visit, and Dawn Stanco handled the coordination. Other MCPER leads for the various events include Pam Bell, Phil Capin, Nathan Clemens, Shannon Giroir, Letti Grimaldo, and Elizabeth Stevens.
The ministry’s goals for the visit include developing knowledge in (1) Tier 3 literacy interventions for primary-age students with significant literacy difficulties, (2) coaching models that build schools’ capacity to support students with significant literacy difficulties, (3) school processes to sustain on-the-ground efforts, and (4) literacy development and intervention for preschool students with literacy and language difficulties.