College of Education
Educational Psychology and Special Education faculty awarded $2.94 million grant
1/29/2008
David Houchins and Kristine Jolivette, associate professors in the Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education, were awarded a $2.94 million grant to be used for a four-year study of reading, writing and spelling instruction for incarcerated youth. The grant is entitled “Project LIBERATE” (Literacy Instruction Based on Evidence through Research for Adjucated Teens to Excel) and is provided by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). The grant was awarded under the Reading, Writing and Language Development competition in special education. The competition is very competitive and uses a peer review method to choose its awardees. Houchins will serve as principal investigator and Jolivette as co-investigator.
The goal of Project LIBERATE is to determine the effectiveness of literary instruction for incarcerated struggling readers with and without disabilities. Also considered are student motivation and teacher implementation factors. The importance of the research that will be done with this grant centers around how to teach literacy skills to struggling readers at the secondary level, which little is known about despite the fact that approximately 45% of incarcerated students nationally having disabilities.
"Project LIBERATE will be the most scientifically rigorous literacy study ever conducted in juvenile justice,” says Houchins. “We are looking forward to providing the field with data on the best method of providing literacy instruction to a much needed population of students."
For more information on Project LIBERATE, contact David Houchins at dhouchins@gsu.edu and Kristine Jolivette at kjolivette@gsu.edu.