Kausalai Wijekumar
About
Dr. Wijekumar focuses all her energies on eradicating illiteracy through the careful development, evaluation, and refinement of web-based tools for reading and writing in English and Spanish in K-12 settings. She is the architect of numerous tools for student instruction, teacher professional development, and 360 degree support for intervention implementation. She is actively engaged in dissemination through monthly webinars that support an international literacy teacher professional learning community. Dr. Wijekumar is a musician and avid gardener.
Associated IES Content
Grant
Efficacy and Replication Trial of the Individualized Adaptive ITSS with 4th and 5th Grade Students in High Poverty Schools
The purpose of this replication project is to test the efficacy of the Intelligent Tutoring system for the Structure Strategy (ITSS), an online tutor for fourth and fifth grade students that teaches them about different structures for text (e.g. comparison, cause and effect) to improve reading comprehension outcomes. One problem that many students who struggle to read may encounter is the inability to understand and remember what they read. The structure strategy is a method of understanding...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A150057
Grant
Development of a Web-Based Writing Partner (Strategic Writing Assisted by intelligent tutoring for 5th grade Youth (SWAY)) to Improve Writing Persuasive Essays for 5th Grade Students
Writing is an important skill for learning, communication, and self-expression. However, national assessments indicate many students in the United States do not write proficiently. Persuasive writing is an especially important tool for communication, and the Common Core State Standards indicate that students need to be able to write persuasive essays by the end of fifth grade. The goal of this project was to develop and test a fifth-grade writing intervention, called Strategic Writing Assist...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A130705
Grant
Improving Reading Comprehension of Middle Grades English Language Learners by Combining Structure Strategy with Web-Based Adaptive Tutoring for EL Learners (SWELL)
English language learners (ELLs) are at particularly high risk for poor education outcomes due to poor reading performance. This risk becomes more apparent as ELLs progress through school and knowledge of academic language becomes increasingly important for learning. This project will extend a web-based intelligent tutoring system, Intelligent Tutoring using Structure Strategy (ITSS), designed to teach students explicit strategies for using knowledge of the structure of informational text to...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A130704
Grant
Efficacy and Replication Research on the Intelligent Tutoring System for the Structure Strategy—Rural and Suburban Schools Grades 4, 5, 7, and 8
Understanding and remembering what you read is a very important skill, but one that troubles both young and old. The structure strategy is a way of studying a wide variety of reading materials, including textbooks, newspaper articles, and magazine stories. Many careful studies have shown that this strategy helps readers of all ages improve their reading comprehension. The web-based Intelligent Tutoring System for the Structure Strategy (ITSS) has shown positive outcomes in experimental studi...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A080133
report
Evaluation Report
A Multisite Cluster Randomized Trial of the Effects of CompassLearning Odyssey® Math on the Math Achievement of Selected Grade 4 Students in the Mid-Atlantic Region
This report was prepared for the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, under contract ED-06C0-0029 with Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic administered by Pennsylvania State University. IES evaluation reports present objective information on the conditions of implementation and impacts of the programs being evaluated. IES evaluation reports do not include conclusions or recommendations or views with regard to actions policyma
Nov 09, 2024
Program Information
2023 Program Information includes Agenda, Keynote Speakers and Session Materials
Grant
Promoting Reading Comprehension and Learning With Multimodal Science Texts (PRISM)
To build science literacy, the research team will combine supports for reading comprehension and visualizations in an intelligent tutor called PRISM, which stands for Promoting Reading Comprehension and Learning with Multimodal Science Texts. PRISM is focused on preparing middle grade students to read and comprehend information that is essential for scientific literacy. The efficacious web-based intelligent tutoring system for the text structure strategy (ITSS) and the visualization instruct...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A220015
Grant
Efficacy Trial of the We-Write Intervention with 4th- and 5th-Grade Students
Writing is an important skill for learning, communication, and self-expression; however, national assessments indicate that many students in the U.S. do not write proficiently. The purpose of this project is to test the efficacy of We-Write, a web-based intelligent tutoring system that is paired with teacher-led lessons to improve 4th and 5th grade student writing outcomes. We-Write was developed in a previous IES study, and is delivered within the intelligent tutoring system for the structu...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A180212
Grant
Efficacy Trial of Text Structure Strategy Instruction on the Web for Spanish-Speaking English Learners (SWELL) in Grades 4 and 5
Reading and comprehending expository texts in English is an important skill that remains elusive for many English learners (ELs) in the U.S. school system. The text structure strategy is a learning approach that helps student understand academic texts by organizing concepts into cognitive structures that parallel those used to communicate main ideas in text. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the efficacy of the Structure Strategy with Web-Based Adaptive Tutoring for English Language...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A180060
FY2015
Single-Session Panels
report
Evaluation Report
A Multisite Cluster Randomized Trial of the Effects of CompassLearning Odyssey® Math on the Math Achievement of Selected Grade 4 Students in the Mid-Atlantic Region
This report was prepared for the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, under contract ED-06C0-0029 with Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic administered by Pennsylvania State University.
Nov 01, 2009
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