The Institute for Evidence-Based Education - School of Education and Human Development

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Institute for Evidence-Based Education

In a world in which the ability to read is crucial to academic, personal, and professional success, poor literacy levels among diverse populations remain high. In 2003, SMU responded to this crisis with the creation of the Institute for Evidence-Based Education, whose primary mission is to promote reading skills through research in the areas of developing reading interventions for children at-risk for failing to learn to read, children with mild to moderate mental retardation, and children who are either bilingual or who speak Spanish exclusively in the early primary grades.

Formerly known as The Institute for Reading Research, the Institute for Evidence-Based Education seeks to carry out this mission by focusing on three main objectives:

To conduct and disseminate cutting edge research related to reading and reading disabilities, language acquisition, and teaching and learning.
To provide leadership on a local and national level through the publication of research manuscripts, curricula and coursework packages, and through the delivery of staff-development workshops.
To provide leadership training to future educators, researchers, and statisticians through applied experiences in the execution of large-scale field-based research while also being committed to the delivery of programs and activities that serve the reading-enhancement needs of the community at large.

The Institute is part of SMU’s Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development. Its faculty teaches in the teacher education program, including preschool teacher education, learning therapy, the Master Reading Teacher program, and the Bilingual Education program.

Since 2003, the Institute and its collaborating faculty have received approximately $12.6 million in external funding for various research studies. The initial funding allowed for the creation of a data center designed for the management and analyses of large sample size studies through the application of leading technology. Today, the data center functions as the nucleus of all research project operations.