The Building Blocks of Preschool Success

Katherine A. Beauchat, EdD, is Associate Professor at Middle Georgia State University, where she teaches graduate classes in literacy education and dyslexia. Her educational career includes teaching in Head Start, PreK, and kindergarten. She has served as a PreK-3 reading specialist, a middle school reading coach, and an Early Reading First Head Start coach. Her research interests include professional development in literacy and language instruction for early childhood educators, in the context of the science of reading, and effective strategies to bolster at-risk young children's oral language and vocabulary development.

Katrin L. Blamey, PhD, is Associate Dean of the School of Education at DeSales University in Center Valley, Pennsylvania, where she teaches courses in the Elementary Education certification program. Her research interests include implementing effective vocabulary instruction in the early childhood classroom and working with preservice and inservice teachers to provide effective literacy instruction for all students. Sharon Walpole, PhD, is Professor in the School of Education at the University of Delaware. She has extensive school-based experience designing and implementing tiered instructional programs. Dr. Walpole has also been involved in federally funded and other schoolwide reform projects. Her current work involves the design and effects of schoolwide reforms. She has coauthored or coedited several books, including How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction, Second Edition: Resources for Grades K-3; The Literacy Coach's Handbook, Second Edition; and Organizing the Early Literacy Classroom. Dr. Walpole is also Series Editor, with Michael C. McKenna, of The Essential Library of PreK-2 Literacy. She is a recipient of the Early Career Award for Significant Contributions to Literacy Research and Education from the Literacy Research Association and the Excellence in Teaching Award from the University of Delaware.