Amanda Goodwin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Language, Literacy, and Culture, Department of Teaching and Learning, Peabody College
VKC Member
Overview of Interests
Amanda P. Goodwin is an Assistant Professor in Language, Literacy, and Culture at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College. Professor Goodwin is a certified educator who has taught in public and private schools at the elementary, middle, and collegiate level. She is interested in how aspects of word knowledge, such as knowledge and awareness of morphemic units like roots and affixes, support the increased reading demands that adolescent readers face when reading content specific texts. Recent projects include exploring how middle school students build lexical representations for morphologically complex words like thermosphere and financially. Her research team is working on modeling how knowledge of different aspects of a root words like financial supports knowledge of different aspects of a derived words like financially for different words and readers. Her team is also examining morphological problem solving strategies that students, including English Learners, use to figure out unknown words. The ultimate goal of these projects is to use findings to develop instructional strategies that support students in learning this important word knowledge. Her work aims to improve understanding of how morphological awareness impacts reading achievement and ultimately lead to better design of morphological interventions and improved student literacy.
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