
UCSC RESEARCH
The UCSC strives to create lasting research-practice partnerships that bridge the divide between research and practice, contributing directing to our partners’ efforts to both “know” and “do” what works on behalf of children.
Explore Our Research
We believe that healthy, successful children emerge when families, schools and communities work together. Therefore, the center’s activities are interdisciplinary and represent the most pressing issues facing today's children. We strive to create lasting research-practice partnerships that bridge the divide between research and practice, contributing directing to our partners' efforts to both "know" and "do" what works on behalf of children. We invite you to learn more about some of the center’s ongoing research and evaluation activities.
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Real Dads Read 1 file(s) 222 downloads |
Research | February 8, 2023 | Download |
Mindfulness 1 file(s) 178 downloads |
Research | February 8, 2023 | Download |
Atlanta 323 1 file(s) 167 downloads |
Research | February 8, 2023 | Download |
YMCA STEAM 1 file(s) 154 downloads |
Research | June 8, 2022 | Download |
YMCA Read Right From the Start (RRFTS) 1 file(s) 181 downloads |
Research | June 8, 2022 | Download |

With a focus on the unique needs of urban communities, the UCSC works in an interdisciplinary and collaborative fashion to identify problems, explore causal relationships, develop and evaluate solutions and assist in training and professional development.
Research-Practice Partnerships
- UCSC faculty and associates partner with professionals, educators, organizations and community leaders to assist in the design, implementation and evaluation and scaling of programs and research projects that promote the learning, development and positive educational outcomes for children and youth. By creating these partnerships, the center commits to an active, lasting role in the development of solutions to the most challenging issues facing urban children and youth today.
Program Evaluation Support
- Organizations often need data to drive their decision-making. UCSC faculty and associates have the content knowledge and expertise needed to design evaluations of program characteristics, processes and outcomes. The UCSC can help organizations identify what’s working, what can be changed and what to do next to achieve their goals through these independent evaluations.
Training & Technical Assistance
- UCSC faculty and associates have a wide array of specialized knowledge and skills and are available to support organizations with a broad range of activities, including information sharing, workshops, training and strategic planning.

With a comprehensive approach to enhancing the development of children, the UCSC engages stakeholders at the local, state and national levels to disseminate findings, bridge the gap between research and practice and promote the implementation of evidence-based practices.
Knowledge Utilization
- One primary goal of the UCSC is to support our partners in using the knowledge gained from evaluation projects and research studies to inform their practices with children and youth. In order to bridge the gap between research and practice, UCSC faculty and associates are committed to understanding the conditions that both prevent and facilitate the implementation of effective practices, supporting data-based decision-making and creating contexts for sustained use of evidence-based practices.
Dissemination
- An important part of translating research into practice is sharing knowledge gained from evaluation projects and research studies. UCSC faculty and associates participate in multiple activities to ensure that stakeholders have access to information from our projects, including presentations and local and national conferences, symposia, articles, reports and briefs.
Community Engagement
- UCSC faculty and associates are committed to engaging various stakeholders in our work. As members of a major public research university, significant effort goes into involving students — the next generation of practitioners, community leaders, policymakers and scholars. Students participate actively in all UCSC activities, including working directly with schools, families and community partners.

Armed with both the knowledge gained from research and evaluation efforts as well as content expertise about evidence-based practices needed to solve targeted problems, the UCSC will work to inform and change policy and practices to serve the best interest of urban children and youth.
Policy
- UCSC faculty and associates advocate for policies, services and programs that support the unique needs of children and youth living in urban areas. Fundamental to our approach is a belief that children’s well-being is tied to the well-being of their families, schools and communities. Therefore, we strive to support public policy that preserves and protects them all.
Collective Impact
- UCSC actively seeks out opportunities to be involved in collective impact initiatives focused on children and youth living in urban areas. Moving beyond partnerships, successful collective impact initiatives are characterized by a group of organizations working together toward a shared agenda, shared indicators of effectiveness, constant communication between partners and active involvement by all partners. Taking this approach, the UCSC can support large-scale change in the complex challenges facing urban children and youth.
Presentations
Quinn, M. & Bingham, G. E. (2017 July). Examining children’s early composing skills: Conceptual, methodological, and developmental considerations. In Hope Gerde (chair), Early writing and later writing development: An examination of important contexts across time. Symposium conducted at the annual conference of the Society for the Scientific Studies of Reading, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Gerde, H. McRoy, K., Quinn, M., Zhang, X., & Bingham, G. E. (2017 April). The feasibility of online teacher professional development for writing. Poster paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Austin, TX.
Zhang, C., Bingham, G. E., & Quinn, M. (2017 April). The associations among preschool children’s growth in decoding, self-regulation and invented writing skills. In Haruka Konishi (chair), Self-regulation in early childhood and relations to emergent academic skills. Poster symposium conducted at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Austin, TX.
Quinn, M., Pattermann, P., Bingham, G. E., & Gerde, H. (2017 April). Early composing, language, and executive function: Relations across the prekindergarten year. Poster paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Austin, TX.
Crisp, T., Knezek, S., *Quinn, M., Bingham, G. E., *Starks, F., & *Girardeau, K. (2016 November). Transforming classroom libraries: The diversity of children’s literature in early childhood settings. Spoken paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Literacy Research Association, Nashville, TN.
Bingham, G. E., Gerde, H. K., & Quinn, M. (2016 November). Writing for meaning instead of meaningless writing: Implementing high quality writing environments and practices in preschool classrooms presented at the Annual Conference of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, Los Angeles, CA.
Bingham, G. E., & Quinn, M. (2016 September). Evaluating an online language and literacy approach: Read Right from the Start. Spoken paper presented at the 26th European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA) Annual Conference, Dublin, Ireland.
Quinn, M., Bingham, G. E., & Gerde, H. K. (2016 July). Understanding children’s early written composition using an item response model. Spoken paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Porto, Portugal.
Gerde, H. K., Bingham, G. E., Quinn, M., Goetsch, M. (2016 July). Feasibility study of innovative online teacher professional development for writing: An iterative approach to the design of professional development. In Gary E. Bingham (chair) Promoting early writing development: The role of interactions and interventions across multiple contexts. Symposium conducted at the Annual Conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Porto, Portugal.
Zhang, C., & Bingham, G. E. (2016, July). Infusing writing instruction into classroom routines. In Gary E. Bingham (chair) Promoting early writing development: The role of interactions and interventions across multiple contexts. Symposium conducted at the Annual Conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Porto, Portugal.
Gerde, H. K., Quinn, M., & Bingham, G. E. (May 2016). Teachers’ writing practices and children’s writing development: Guidelines for best practice. A paper presented at the Fifth Annual Early Childhood Care and Education Conference, Moscow, Russia.
Pendergast, M., & Bingham, G. E. (November, 2015). Teachers’ use of formative reading assessments: Linguistic diversity, education, and training. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Literacy Research Association. Carlsbad, CA.
Bingham, G.E. & *Quinn, M. (August 2015). Making it REAL: Using informational texts in early childhood read alouds. Presented at the 25th European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA) Annual Conference, Barcelona, Spain.
Webb, M., Terry, N. P., & *Mitri, S. M. (2015, July). A latent profile analysis of early literacy skills prekindergarten children who speak nonmainstream American English. Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, The Big Island, Hawaii.
Zhang, C., Bingham, G.E., & *Quinn, M. (July 2015). How Are Children’s Emergent Literacy Skills and Executive Function Related to Growth of Invented Spelling?. Annual Conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Hawaii.
Bingham, G.E., Gerde, H., & *Quinn, M. (July 2015). Teacher and Environmental Writing Supports: Associations with children’s writing development. Annual Conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Hawaii.
*Carriveau Pattermann, P., Washington, J., & Johnson, L. (2015, June). Comparing the Developmental Language Skills of Low-Income Preschoolers. Poster presented at the Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders, Madison, WI.
*Quinn, M., Bingham, G.E., & Stanzione, C. (2015, June). What do you think Mama Raccoon is saying?: The relationship between children’s Theory of Mind and early composing skills. Poster presented at the Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders Conference, Madison, WI.
*Edwards, E. (2015, April). Radical Youthwork as a Site of Liberatory Potential. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Conference, Chicago, IL.
*Edwards, E., McArthur, S., & *Russell, L. Emancipatory Research Methods for Black Girls. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Conference, Chicago, IL.
Bingham, G.E., Gerde, H., *Quinn, M. (2015, March). Children’s development of writing skills in early childhood: The impact of teacher scaffolding and environmental supports. Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Philadelphia, PA.
Catts, H., Evans, L., Terry, N.P., & Bingham, G. (2015, February) Language and Literacy Development: Panel Discussion. Atlanta Speech School Annual Montag Family Lecture and Professional Development Day, Atlanta, GA.
Bingham, G. (2015, February). Nonfiction Texts and Comprehension Strategies. Atlanta Speech School Annual Montag Family Lecture and Professional Development Day, Atlanta, GA. (presentation)
Terry, N.P., Day K. (2015, February). Writing/Emergent Writing: Development and Assessment for Instruction. Atlanta Speech School Annual Montag Family Lecture and Professional Development Day, Atlanta, GA. (presentation)
*Floyd, T.C.S., Towson, J., Bingham, G., & Patton Terry, N., (2015) Classroom Assessment Scoring System in Diverse Settings: Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Paper presented at the National Council on Measurement in Education Conference.
*Floyd, T.C.S., Towson, J., Bingham, G., & Patton Terry, N., (2015) PreK Teachers’ Language Practices: Examining the Effect on Student Language & Pre-Literacy Skills. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Conference.
Bingham, G. E., *Quinn, M. Ozturk, Z., & French-Lee, S. (December 2014). Early Literacy and Language Coaching in Head Start: Associations between Content, Intensity, and Teacher Behavior. Annual Conference of the Literacy Research Association, Marco Island, FL.
*Towson, J., *Floyd, T.C.S., Bingham, G., & Terry, N.P., (2014) Providing Children High-Quality Language Modeling: Instructional Support Construct of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System. Paper presented at the American Speech Language and Hearing Association.
*Towson, J.A., Marencin, N., *Floyd, T.C.S., Terry, N.P., & Washington, J.A. (2014). Evaluating the predictive validity of the DELV-ST: An examination with preschoolers who varied in their language use and dialect. Poster presented at the Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders, Madison, WI.
*Towson, J.A., Bingham, G., *Floyd, T.C.S., (2014) PreK Teachers’ Language Practices: Effects on Student language and Pre-Literacy Skills. Paper presented at the Division of Early Childhood Conference.
Webb, M., Terry, N.P., Lederberg, A., & Bingham, G. E. (2014, July). Assessing measurement invariance of the TOPEL-Phonological Awareness across DHH children with functional hearing and hearing minority children. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
*Towson, J., *Marencin, N., *Floyd, T., Washington, J., & Terry, N. P. (2014, June). Evaluating the predictive validity of the DELV-ST: An examination with preschoolers who varied in their language use and dialect. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Symposium on Child Language Disorders, Madison, WI.
*Payne, C., Bingham, G. E., & Terry, N. P. (2014, June). The relationship between peer-play interactions and early language and literacy development. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Symposium on Child Language Disorders, Madison, WI.
*Marencin, N., *Floyd, T.C, & Terry, N.P. (2013) Measurement Differences in Performance of Non-mainstream American English Speaking Pre-schoolers on the CELF-P2 . Presented at the American Speech Language and Hearing Association Conference.
*Towson, J., *Floyd, T.C., *Stuckey, A., & Terry, N.P. (2013). Teacher Fidelity of the Read Right From the Start Program: Implications on student language and literacy outcomes. Presented at the American Speech Language and Hearing Association Conference.
*Floyd, T.C., *Bakhtiari, D., Terry, N.P., & *Mitri Mansour, S., (2013). Contributions of Oral Language, Home Literacy Environment, and Parental Education to Diverse Learner’s Emergent Literacy. Presented at the Georgia Educational Research Association Conference.
*Floyd, T.C., *Towson, J., Bingham, G., & Terry, N.P., (2013) Teachers Language Practices: Examining the Association Across Measures and the Effect on Student Literacy. Presented at the Georgia Educational Research Association Conference.
*Marencin, N., *Floyd, T.C, & Terry, N.P., (2013) The Performance of Non-mainstream American English Speaking Pre-schoolers on the CELF-P2. Presented at the Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders.
*Floyd, T.C., Bingham, G., & Terry, N.P., (2013). Early Childhood Teachers’ Literacy and Language Knowledge, Self-efficacy Beliefs and Classroom Practices. Presented at the Consortium for Research on Educational Assessment and Teaching Effectiveness.
Terry, N.P., Brown, M., *Stuckey, A.A., & Washington, J. (2013). The construct of “spoken NMAE use”: Are we measuring what we think we are? Poster presented at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) 2013 Convention, Chicago, IL.
Terry, N.P., Washington, J., Brown, M., & *Stuckey, A.A. (2013). Contrasting theory-based approaches to language instruction for poor readers who speak nonmainstream American English. Poster presented at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) 2013 Convention, Chicago, IL.
*Albritton, K., *Stuckey, A. A., & Terry, N.P. (2013). Examining a Response to Intervention (RtI) Assessment Framework Among Preschool Age Children. Poster presented at the Consortium for Research on Educational Assessment and Teaching Effectiveness 2013 Annual Conference, Atlanta, GA.
*Rodriguez, M., *Gold, K., *Krasselt, M., Brown, M., Washington, J., & Terry, N.P. (2013). Finding Common Ground: Phonological Characteristics of AAE & Latino English Speakers. Poster presented at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Chicago, IL.
*Marencin, N., & Terry, N.P. (2012, November). Performance of Non-Mainstream American English-Speaking Pre-Kindergarteners on the CELF-P2. Annual meeting of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association. Atlanta, GA.
Terry, N. P., Mills, M., Bingham, G., Mansour, S., & *Marencin, N. (2012, November). A Comprehensive Evaluation of Narrative Skills Among African American Pre-Kindergarteners. Annual meeting of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association. Atlanta, GA.
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Publications
Bingham, G. E., Jeon, H., Kwon, K., & Lim, C. (2017). Parenting styles and home literacy opportunities: Associations with children’s early language and literacy skills. Infant and Child Development. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2020
Bingham, G. E., Quinn, M. F., Gerde, H. K. (2017). Examining early childhood teachers’ writing practices: Associations between pedagogical supports and children’s writing skills. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 39, 35-46.
Bingham, G. E., Culatta, B., & Kenyon-Hall, K. M. (2016). Systematic and Engaging Early Literacy: Phonological awareness effects for kindergarten children. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 30, 494-512
Crisp, T., Knezek, S. M., Quinn, M., Bingham, G. E., Girardeau, K., & Starks, F. (2016). What’s on our bookshelves?: The diversity of children’s literature in early childhood classroom libraries. Journal of Children’s Literature, 42(2), 29-42
Gorman, B., Bingham, G. E., Fiestas, C., & Terry, N. P. (2016) Spanish-speaking English Language Learners’ performance on a Spanish adaptation of the Narrative Assessment Protocol. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 36, 307-317
Pendergast, M., Bingham, G. E., & Terry, N. P. (2015) Examining the relationship between emergent literacy skills and invented spelling of pre-kindergarten Spanish-speaking Dual Language Learners. Early Education and Development.
Terry, N. P., Connor, C. M., Johnson, L. C., Stuckey, A., & Tani, N. (2015). Dialect variation, dialect shifting, and reading comprehension in second grade. Reading and Writing.
Terry, N. P., Mills, M., Bingham, G., Mansour, S., & Marencin, N. (in press). Oral narrative skills of African American pre-kindergarteners who speak Nonmainstream American English. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools.
*Mitri, S. M., & Terry, N. P. (2014). Phonological awareness skills in young African American English speakers. Reading and Writing, 27(3), 555-569. DOI: 10.1007/s11145-013-9458-z.
Connor, C. M., Phillips, B., Kaschak, M., Apel, K., Kim, Y., Al Otaiba, S., Crowe, E., Thomas-Tate, S., Johnson, L. C., & Lonigan, C. (2014). Comprehension tools for teachers: Reading for understanding from prekindergarten through fourth grade. Educational Psychology Review, 26 (3),379-401.
Bingham, G., & Terry, N. P. (2013). Early language and literacy achievement of Early Reading First students in kindergarten and first grade in the United States. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 27 (4), 440-453. doi: 10.1080/02568543.2013.822952.
*Green, K., Terry, N.P., & Gallagher, P. (2013). Progress in language and literacy skills among children with disabilities in inclusive Early Reading First classrooms. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education. 33 (4), 249-259. doi: 10.1177/0271121413477498.
Terry, N. P., Mills, M., Bingham, G., *Mansour, S., & *Marencin, N. (2013). Oral narrative skills of African American pre-kindergarteners who speak Nonmainstream American English. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 44 (3), 291-305. doi: 10.1044/0161-1461.
Terry, N. P. (2012). Dialect variation and phonological knowledge: Phonological representations and metalinguistic awareness among beginning readers who speak nonmainstream American English. Applied Psycholinguistics. Available on CJO DOI: 10.1017/S0142716412000276.
Terry, N. P. & Connor, C.M. (2012). Changing nonmainstream American English use and early reading achievement from kindergarten to first grade. American Journal of Speech Language Pathology, 21, 78-86.
Terry, N. P., Connor, C. M., Petscher, Y., & Conlin, C. (2012). Dialect variation and reading: Is change in nonmainstream American English use related to reading achievement in first and second grade? Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 55, 55-69.
Terry, N. P., Connor, C. M., Thomas-Tate, S., & Love, M. (2010). Examining relationships among dialect variation, literacy skills, and school context in first grade. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 53, 126-145.
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