Kathy Rastle
@kathyrastle.bsky.social
Professor of Psychology, researching language and reading, using science to improve children's reading
Reposted by Kathy Rastle
Exclusive: A member of the Welsh Government’s expert literacy panel has resigned, warning the new £8.2m national programme to improve reading is “flawed” and “not fit for purpose”.
Full story below
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Full story below
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October 27, 2025 at 9:38 AM
Exclusive: A member of the Welsh Government’s expert literacy panel has resigned, warning the new £8.2m national programme to improve reading is “flawed” and “not fit for purpose”.
Full story below
🧵 1/
Full story below
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Special event for all the Little Wandlers out there!
Members! Join Prof @kathyrastle.bsky.social for 'Becoming a Reader' on Wednesday 26th November at 3:45 pm
💡 Why phonics works
🚫 Myths debunked
💬 45 lively, evidence-packed minutes
Tickets are going fast - so book now in Ongoing CPD! 🧡
💡 Why phonics works
🚫 Myths debunked
💬 45 lively, evidence-packed minutes
Tickets are going fast - so book now in Ongoing CPD! 🧡
October 27, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Special event for all the Little Wandlers out there!
Enjoyed writing this new manuscript with @dkcayado.bsky.social. We describe morphological systems that differ substantially from English, and show why these pose interesting questions for theories of reading. We argue that it's time to cast a wider net in this field.
🚨New preprint with @kathyrastle.bsky.social
We quantified how linguistically and typologically diverse the morphological processing and learning literature is. We also discussed how the heavy focus on English morphology limits theoretical progress.
Link: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
We quantified how linguistically and typologically diverse the morphological processing and learning literature is. We also discussed how the heavy focus on English morphology limits theoretical progress.
Link: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
October 27, 2025 at 9:19 AM
Enjoyed writing this new manuscript with @dkcayado.bsky.social. We describe morphological systems that differ substantially from English, and show why these pose interesting questions for theories of reading. We argue that it's time to cast a wider net in this field.
Reposted by Kathy Rastle
I am guest editing a special issue—"New Perspectives on the Mental Lexicon" in @qjep.bsky.social with @kathyrastle.bsky.social and Jo Taylor. Expression of interest until 20th Dec. Get in touch!
Call for papers now published for an upcoming special issue—"New Perspectives on the Mental Lexicon"—at QJEP (@qjep.bsky.social): journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/PD...
journals.sagepub.com
October 24, 2025 at 3:22 PM
I am guest editing a special issue—"New Perspectives on the Mental Lexicon" in @qjep.bsky.social with @kathyrastle.bsky.social and Jo Taylor. Expression of interest until 20th Dec. Get in touch!
Looking forward to this session with Little Wandle colleagues!!
Members! Join Prof @kathyrastle.bsky.social for 'Becoming a Reader' on Wednesday 26th November at 3:45 pm
💡 Why phonics works
🚫 Myths debunked
💬 45 lively, evidence-packed minutes
Tickets are going fast - so book now in Ongoing CPD! 🧡
💡 Why phonics works
🚫 Myths debunked
💬 45 lively, evidence-packed minutes
Tickets are going fast - so book now in Ongoing CPD! 🧡
October 20, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Looking forward to this session with Little Wandle colleagues!!
** New ** Seeking Postdoctoral Research Fellow (3 yrs) for ESRC project on skilled reading in Arabic. Based in my lab at @rhulpsychology.bsky.social and collaborating with @denisdrieghe.bsky.social (Soton) and Sami Boudelaa (UAE). Please share! jobs.royalholloway.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...
Job Opportunity at Royal Holloway University of London: Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Applications are invited for a 3-year, full-time Postdoctoral Research Fellow position in the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London.This position is funded by an ESRC resear...
jobs.royalholloway.ac.uk
October 1, 2025 at 7:07 AM
** New ** Seeking Postdoctoral Research Fellow (3 yrs) for ESRC project on skilled reading in Arabic. Based in my lab at @rhulpsychology.bsky.social and collaborating with @denisdrieghe.bsky.social (Soton) and Sami Boudelaa (UAE). Please share! jobs.royalholloway.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...
Reposted by Kathy Rastle
Academic papers ask "Does X improve learning?" but schools need to know "Does X improve learning enough to justify its implementation costs compared to alternative Y?"
September 11, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Academic papers ask "Does X improve learning?" but schools need to know "Does X improve learning enough to justify its implementation costs compared to alternative Y?"
🎯
An abbreviation (ABB) in a journal article (JA) or Grant Application (GA) is rarely worth the words it saves. Every ABB requires cognitive resources (CR) and at my age by the time I'm halfway through a JA or GA I no longer have the CR to remember what your ABB stood for.
August 19, 2025 at 7:00 AM
🎯
Reposted by Kathy Rastle
🥳 The ‘holy grail’ of reading inventions that was birthed in NZ & exported to the world has finally been dumped. Now the way is clear for children to receive scientifically-based instruction & stop being instructional casualties. H/T @kathyrastle.bsky.social
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
AJLD EMINENT RESEARCHER AWARD WINNER 2024 Professor James Chapman: The rise and demise of reading recovery in New Zealand
Reading Recovery (RR) was introduced throughout New Zealand during the 1980s, for children struggling the most with learning to read after 1 year of formal schooling. In May 2024, the Minister of E...
www.tandfonline.com
June 10, 2025 at 3:08 PM
🥳 The ‘holy grail’ of reading inventions that was birthed in NZ & exported to the world has finally been dumped. Now the way is clear for children to receive scientifically-based instruction & stop being instructional casualties. H/T @kathyrastle.bsky.social
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
I’m starting to get threatening emails from predatory journals. They are accusing me of deliberately not responding to their requests to publish a two-page paper in a journal from a different discipline and saying that I need to respond with 24 hr to “end it smoothly”. 🤣
June 8, 2025 at 7:39 PM
I’m starting to get threatening emails from predatory journals. They are accusing me of deliberately not responding to their requests to publish a two-page paper in a journal from a different discipline and saying that I need to respond with 24 hr to “end it smoothly”. 🤣
"Systematic phonics... is affordable, replicable and deliverable across thousands of state schools.... That matters. In education, if it doesn’t scale, it doesn’t work."
June 8, 2025 at 1:30 PM
"Systematic phonics... is affordable, replicable and deliverable across thousands of state schools.... That matters. In education, if it doesn’t scale, it doesn’t work."
Reposted by Kathy Rastle
Thrilled to announce that my book MORE THAN WORDS (Avery/Penguin Random House) is out! It explains why language production has huge positive effects on talkers: attention, emotion regulation, exec function & more. Accessible science for general audiences! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/724046...
More Than Words by Maryellen MacDonald, PhD: 9780593545270 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
"This beautifully written book by Maryellen MacDonald demonstrates how 'word-work' shapes both our experience of the world and the very brain that produced our capacity to articulate and generate our ...
www.penguinrandomhouse.com
June 3, 2025 at 12:07 PM
Thrilled to announce that my book MORE THAN WORDS (Avery/Penguin Random House) is out! It explains why language production has huge positive effects on talkers: attention, emotion regulation, exec function & more. Accessible science for general audiences! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/724046...
Reposted by Kathy Rastle
I had to read this several times as “prioritise growth” and “hit universities over the head” are so mutually contradictory
'Universities will be lucky to avoid being “completely hit over the head” in the UK government’s upcoming spending review as ministers look set to prioritise plans for growth – which could eat into core research funding – and save higher education reform for a later date.' 1/3
Universities face ‘tough’ spending review after brutal few months
Potential reprioritisation of parts of research budget could heap pressure on institutions already counting cost of immigration and tax changes
www.timeshighereducation.com
May 30, 2025 at 7:01 AM
I had to read this several times as “prioritise growth” and “hit universities over the head” are so mutually contradictory
Reposted by Kathy Rastle
Great blog about how children learn about morphology- @dccolen.bsky.social has been looking at this too and has some interesting ideas about how to structure the teaching in schools…
Couldn’t agree more… spelling teaching is patchy! And driven by an exam in Yr6.
bsky.app/profile/kath...
Couldn’t agree more… spelling teaching is patchy! And driven by an exam in Yr6.
bsky.app/profile/kath...
What can children learn about morphology when they read for pleasure? We analysed the words in 1200 books suitable for children and young people to find out! Read the blog post here: www.rastlelab.com/post/what-ca...
What can children learn about morphology from reading for fun?
A key part of becoming a skilled reader is understanding how words are built — that is, how small parts of words that carry meaning come together to form words. For example, the word unhappy is made u...
www.rastlelab.com
May 21, 2025 at 7:50 AM
Great blog about how children learn about morphology- @dccolen.bsky.social has been looking at this too and has some interesting ideas about how to structure the teaching in schools…
Couldn’t agree more… spelling teaching is patchy! And driven by an exam in Yr6.
bsky.app/profile/kath...
Couldn’t agree more… spelling teaching is patchy! And driven by an exam in Yr6.
bsky.app/profile/kath...
Reposted by Kathy Rastle
Updated our lab's psycholinguistic database page to include Kathy Rastle et al's new web interface for the Children and Young Peoples Books Lexicon (CYP-LEX). Check it out! Give me a holler if you want us to link to your dataset or know of others I've missed. www.reilly-coglab.com/data
Psycholinguistic Databases, Stimuli, Utilities — Concepts & Cognition Laboratory
www.reilly-coglab.com
May 20, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Updated our lab's psycholinguistic database page to include Kathy Rastle et al's new web interface for the Children and Young Peoples Books Lexicon (CYP-LEX). Check it out! Give me a holler if you want us to link to your dataset or know of others I've missed. www.reilly-coglab.com/data
What can children learn about morphology when they read for pleasure? We analysed the words in 1200 books suitable for children and young people to find out! Read the blog post here: www.rastlelab.com/post/what-ca...
What can children learn about morphology from reading for fun?
A key part of becoming a skilled reader is understanding how words are built — that is, how small parts of words that carry meaning come together to form words. For example, the word unhappy is made u...
www.rastlelab.com
May 20, 2025 at 5:56 PM
What can children learn about morphology when they read for pleasure? We analysed the words in 1200 books suitable for children and young people to find out! Read the blog post here: www.rastlelab.com/post/what-ca...
** New resource ** We analysed the characteristics of words in 1200 books suitable for children and young people. Properties of each word (frequencies, etc) are now available in an interactive website.
cyp-lex.rastlelab.com
cyp-lex.rastlelab.com
CYP-LEX
Discover what words children and young people encounter when they read
cyp-lex.rastlelab.com
May 20, 2025 at 5:53 PM
** New resource ** We analysed the characteristics of words in 1200 books suitable for children and young people. Properties of each word (frequencies, etc) are now available in an interactive website.
cyp-lex.rastlelab.com
cyp-lex.rastlelab.com
Campaign groups in the US, UK and India claim that TV subtitles will help children learn to read. But our new research published in @psychscience.bsky.social shows that children don't even look at subtitles until they can already read at around 1 word per second.
May 19, 2025 at 8:55 PM
Campaign groups in the US, UK and India claim that TV subtitles will help children learn to read. But our new research published in @psychscience.bsky.social shows that children don't even look at subtitles until they can already read at around 1 word per second.
** Subtitles - not a magic bullet for literacy **
Find out about our new research published in @psychscience.bsky.social. tinyurl.com/SLSubtitles
@rhulpsychology.bsky.social @notts-psych.bsky.social @nuffieldfoundation.org @niftyfoxcreative.bsky.social @royalholloway.bsky.social
Find out about our new research published in @psychscience.bsky.social. tinyurl.com/SLSubtitles
@rhulpsychology.bsky.social @notts-psych.bsky.social @nuffieldfoundation.org @niftyfoxcreative.bsky.social @royalholloway.bsky.social
May 13, 2025 at 1:31 PM
** Subtitles - not a magic bullet for literacy **
Find out about our new research published in @psychscience.bsky.social. tinyurl.com/SLSubtitles
@rhulpsychology.bsky.social @notts-psych.bsky.social @nuffieldfoundation.org @niftyfoxcreative.bsky.social @royalholloway.bsky.social
Find out about our new research published in @psychscience.bsky.social. tinyurl.com/SLSubtitles
@rhulpsychology.bsky.social @notts-psych.bsky.social @nuffieldfoundation.org @niftyfoxcreative.bsky.social @royalholloway.bsky.social
Reposted by Kathy Rastle
This Department for Education short course on ‘Supporting reading in secondary school’ is an excellent free resource with useful video to build understanding for this crucial area:
www.gov.uk/government/p...
www.gov.uk/government/p...
April 29, 2025 at 6:05 AM
This Department for Education short course on ‘Supporting reading in secondary school’ is an excellent free resource with useful video to build understanding for this crucial area:
www.gov.uk/government/p...
www.gov.uk/government/p...
Reposted by Kathy Rastle
A reminder of a pretty etymology to brighten the day. The ‘daisy’ takes its name from the Old English ‘dæges ēage’, ‘day’s eye’, because it opens its petals at dawn, and closes them again at dusk.
April 18, 2025 at 8:40 AM
A reminder of a pretty etymology to brighten the day. The ‘daisy’ takes its name from the Old English ‘dæges ēage’, ‘day’s eye’, because it opens its petals at dawn, and closes them again at dusk.
Reposted by Kathy Rastle
EPS Meeting: University of Dundee. 8th – 11th July 2025.
A joint meeting with the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science (CSBBCS).
Submission portals for this meeting will open at 10am (UK Time) on April 7th 2025 for a minimum of 24 hours.
eps.ac.uk/next-meeting/
A joint meeting with the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science (CSBBCS).
Submission portals for this meeting will open at 10am (UK Time) on April 7th 2025 for a minimum of 24 hours.
eps.ac.uk/next-meeting/
Next Meeting
EPS Meeting: University of Dundee. 8th – 11th July 2025. This will be a joint meeting with the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science (CSBBCS), and will include the 53rd B…
eps.ac.uk
April 4, 2025 at 12:13 PM
EPS Meeting: University of Dundee. 8th – 11th July 2025.
A joint meeting with the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science (CSBBCS).
Submission portals for this meeting will open at 10am (UK Time) on April 7th 2025 for a minimum of 24 hours.
eps.ac.uk/next-meeting/
A joint meeting with the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science (CSBBCS).
Submission portals for this meeting will open at 10am (UK Time) on April 7th 2025 for a minimum of 24 hours.
eps.ac.uk/next-meeting/
Reposted by Kathy Rastle
Word of the day is ‘quiddler’ (18th century): one who focuses on unimportant issues while avoiding the important ones, or who fiddles/plays golf while Rome burns.
April 4, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Word of the day is ‘quiddler’ (18th century): one who focuses on unimportant issues while avoiding the important ones, or who fiddles/plays golf while Rome burns.
Reposted by Kathy Rastle
Very important work led by the brilliant Anastasiya Lopukhina shows that widely publicised claims about subtitles helping children learn to read need to be tempered - just published in PsychScience: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
Where Do Children Look When Watching Videos With Same-Language Subtitles? - Anastasiya Lopukhina, Walter J. B. van Heuven, Rebecca Crowley, Kathleen Rastle, 2025
Influential campaigns in the United Kingdom and the United States have argued that same-language television subtitles may help children learn to read. In this s...
journals.sagepub.com
April 4, 2025 at 9:11 AM
Very important work led by the brilliant Anastasiya Lopukhina shows that widely publicised claims about subtitles helping children learn to read need to be tempered - just published in PsychScience: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Kathy Rastle
Had an amazing time talking about my work on visual word recognition and Tagalog morphology @exppsychsoc.bsky.social! 🧠🔤🔡 Thanks to everyone who attended my talk. 🫶🏻
April 4, 2025 at 7:21 AM
Had an amazing time talking about my work on visual word recognition and Tagalog morphology @exppsychsoc.bsky.social! 🧠🔤🔡 Thanks to everyone who attended my talk. 🫶🏻