Hope Gerde

 
Hope Gerde is an assistant professor in Family and Child Ecology at Michigan State University. Gerde received her Bachelor’s degree from Rollins College and her Masters and Doctoral degrees from Purdue University. She received the Outstanding Doctoral Student Research Award from the Department of Child Development and Family Studies at Purdue. Gerde’s primary research interests focus on the development and evaluation of approaches to promoting children’s early language and literacy growth via professional development for teachers. She is especially interested in how at-risk children’s language and literacy development is affected by the quality of children’s verbal interactions with adults and the relation between adult behavior and their educational background. Her work includes longitudinal analyses of how teachers’ language relates to children’s growth in early language and literacy skills across multiple classroom contexts (e.g., book reading, free play). Also, she has interest in the relation between young children’s development across language and literacy skills. One of her current projects investigates the interconnectedness between children’s oral language, alphabet knowledge, and writing skills.
Ongoing Projects:
    References:
    LARC Publications

    • Gerde, H. K., & Powell, D. R. (in press). Teacher education, book reading practices, and children’s language growth across one year of Head Start.
    • Early Education and Development.
    • Diamond, K. E., Gerde, H. K., & Powell, D. R. (2008). Development in early literacy skills during the pre-kindergarten year in Head Start: Relations between growth in children’s writing and understanding of letters. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 23, 467-478.
    • Powell, D. R., Diamond, K. E., Bojczyk, K. E., & Gerde, H. K. (2008). Head Start teachers’ perspectives on early literacy. Journal of Literacy Research, 40, 422-460.