Early Literacy in Action: The Language-Focused Curriculum for Preschool

Betty H. Bunce, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, was born and raised in a bilingual, bicultural community in southern Colorado. She earned a bachelor of science degree in education from the University of Colorado, a master of arts degree in speech from Temple University, and a doctoral degree in child language from the University of Kansas. She received her certificate of clinical competence in speech-language pathology in 1977. Dr. Bunce has taught kindergarten and preschool-age children and has worked as a school speech-language pathologist. She has also taught coursework at the university level in reading and language arts, early childhood education, and speech-language pathology. Dr. Bunce has written several chapters and articles on preschool education, bilingual and bicultural children, referential communication, and intervention techniques for both preschool- and elementary-age children. She has presented workshops to practitioners in the fields of early childhood education and speech-language pathology and has presented papers at several national and state association conventions. She is the director of the Language Acquisition Preschool at the University of Kansas, where an important part of her job is to train speech-language pathology graduate students in conducting naturalistic language intervention in classroom settings. Dr. Bunce's fields of scientific interest include child language, language intervention therapy and research, preschool education, English as a second language, and relationships between oral language abilities and literacy skills. Her most recent research has focused on naturalistic intervention techniques and their effectiveness.

Laura M. Justice is Assistant Professor of Reading and Communication Disorders at the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education, Charlottesville. She directs the Preschool Language and Literacy Lab at the University of Virginia, which conducts basic and applied research on preschool literacy and language development, language disorders, parent-implemented early childhood language and literacy interventions, and classroom-based language and literacy programs for at-risk preschoolers. Dr. Justice's cross-disciplinary research has received awards from the International Reading Association (2001 Distinguished Finalist, Dissertation of the Year), the Council for Exceptional Children (2003 Early Career Award, Division for Research), and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (2004 Editor's Award, American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology). She recieved her doctorate in speech and hearing sciences from Ohio University under the mentorship of Dr. Ezell.

Dr. Rice received her doctoral degree from the University of Kansas, where she is University Distinguished Professor of Speech-Language-Hearing and Director of the Child Language Doctoral Program and the Merrill Advanced Studies Center. She has held Visiting Scientist appointments at the Center for Cognitive Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has extensive research and clinical experience with children with specific language impairment (SLI). Early in her career she worked as a speech-language pathologist in public schools. In collaboration with Kim A. Wilcox, she established the demonstration Language Acquisition Preschool (LAP) at the University of Kansas. Her current research addresses several aspects of the condition of SLI: social and academic consequences, morphology, lexical learning, and preschool language intervention. Her publications include the edited volumes The Teachability of Language and Toward a Genetics of Language, as well as numerous journal articles and invited chapters.