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Literacy Squared is a proven research-based biliteracy instructional framework

Literacy Squared Researchers and Staff

Susan Hopewell, PhD Director and Co-Founder of Literacy Squared®
Associate Professor; Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy; CU Boulder
Susan Hopewell earned her Ph.D. in the division of Education Equity and Cultural Diversity at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her research focuses on strengthening biliteracy education for Spanish – English bilingual children in the United States. She is currently examining issues related to children’s oracy development and classroom pedagogies that increase students’ metalinguistic awareness. She has been associated with Literacy Squared since 2004.

Dr. Hopewell served as the Chair of the Bilingual Education Research Special Interest Group of the American Education Research Association, the Secretary/Program Chair on the Board of Directors for the Colorado Association for Bilingual Education, and as an Editorial Assistant for the Bilingual Research Journal. Her K-12 teaching experience includes eight years as a classroom teacher in a dual-language elementary school and four years as the literacy coach in a maintenance bilingual program.

Jody Slavick, PhD Director of Professional Development for Literacy Squared®
Research Associate; CU Boulder
Jody Slavick is a research associate for the University of Colorado Boulder and manages professional development for the Literacy Squared® team. Jody received her Ph.D. in Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity and her MA in Bilingual Special Education, both from CU. Prior to joining Literacy Squared®, Jody’s professional experiences included her roles as a dual language coach, district ESL/dual language resource teacher, middle school ESL & Spanish language arts teacher, elementary bilingual teacher, and adult ESL teacher. Her research interests include the design and implementation of bilingual/dual language programs, strategies to promote biliteracy, and preparing teachers to work with emerging bilingual students.

Khanh Nguyen Le, PhD Professional Development Specialist for Literacy Squared
Research Associate, CU Boulder
Dr. Khanh Nguyen Le earned her Ph.D. in multicultural and bilingual education from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She specializes in the study of the cultural competencies that are critical for teachers to properly serve students from traditionally underserved populations.

Her work examines how linguistic and cultural competencies influence the ways in which teachers relate to linguistic and cultural minority students and interpret their behavior in class, and the ways in which these interpretations shape the effectiveness with which they teach diverse students. She has been involved in various projects for developing strategies for Colorado school districts to structure action plans that promote culturally sensitive school climates. She has designed and implemented research-based professional development courses for teachers and administrators on best practices for English language learners. She has been with Literacy Squared since 2013.

Olivia Ruiz-Figueroa Co-Founder of Literacy Squared®
Consultant
Olivia Ruiz-Figueroa has worked with the Tucson Unified School District for 27 years as a bilingual classroom teacher, Project Specialist, and Reading Teacher. During that time, she participated in the development and implementation of bilingual education materials from assessment and evaluation, to content and curriculum. She was trained as a Reading Recovery Teacher Leader at Texas Women’s University and is one of the original authors of the reconstruction of Reading Recovery in Spanish and the Spanish Observation Survey. Since the development of the Descubriendo La Lectura Project and El Instrumento de Observación, she has trained teachers and teacher leaders nationally in its implementation.

With the support of Dr. Marie Clay, she presented the Spanish Reconstruction of Reading Recovery at the International World Congress of Reading in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Presently, Olivia works with Pearson Learning Group as the National Bilingual/ESL Consultant in both English and Spanish Literacy.

Kathy Escamilla, PhD Co-Founder of Literacy Squared®
Professor Emeritus; Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy; CU Boulder
Dr. Kathy Escamilla is a professor emeritus of education in the Division of Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy. She is one of the creators of the Literacy Squared program. Dr. Escamilla’s research focuses on issues related to the development of bilingualism and biliteracy for Spanish-speaking emerging bilingual children. Her recent research has also examined assessment practices for emerging bilingual learners.

Dr. Escamilla has also been a classroom bilingual teacher, a resource teacher, and a school administrator. Dr. Escamilla is a member of numerous professional organizations and served two terms as the president of the National Association for Bilingual Education. She has also served as a co-editor of the Bilingual Research Journal, and as the chairperson of the Bilingual Special Interest Group for the American Education Research Association (AERA). She has authored five books and over 50 research articles on topics related to (bi)literacy for Spanish-speaking children in the U.S.

Gabriela Iturralde Graduate Research Assistant
PhD Student; Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy; CU Boulder
Gabriela Iturralde is a doctoral student in the Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy program in the School of Education at CU Boulder. She joined Literacy Squared in 2022 as a graduate research assistant. She is originally from Mexico City where she worked as an educator at middle, highschool, and university level. Her first experience with bilingual education was in Guatemala in a Maya Q'eqchi-Spanish school. She holds a masters degree in Bilingual Education from Texas A&M University where she worked as a research assistant providing professional development to in-service teachers. She has worked as a social-emotional and reading interventionist, biliteracy coach, and biliteracy coordinator in Colorado. Gaby’s research interests include culturally responsive assessment, literacy vs biliteracy development, language transfer and the bilingual trajectory, bilingual middle school programs, humanizing approaches to bilingual education such as Montessori, and equity and restorative justice.

Stephany Cáceres Mateo Graduate Research Assistant PhD Student; Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy; CU Boulder
Stephany Cáceres Mateo is a doctoral student in the Equity, Bilingualism, and Biliteracy program in the School of Education at CU Boulder. She joined Literacy Squared in 2023 as a graduate research assistant. She is originally from Honduras, where she obtained her degree in Teaching English as a Second Language and worked with multilingual communities, including students from K-12 and at the university level. She holds two master’s degrees: one in Teaching English as a Foreign Language and another in Languages, Literatures, and Cultures with a concentration in Spanish. Her research interests include emergent bilingual students' experiences in U.S. education systems, particularly in ELD/ESL contexts; transnational teachers' and students’ identities and experiences; and teacher preparation using humanizing pedagogies for CLD students and families.

Claudia Norez Graduate Research Assistant
PhD Student; Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy; CU Boulder
Claudia Norez is a doctoral student in the Equity, Bilingualism, and Biliteracy program in the School of Education at CU Boulder. She joined Literacy Squared in 2023 as a graduate research assistant. She is originally from El Paso, Texas, and obtained her master's degree in Elementary Education/TESOL from the University of North Florida. Her K-12 public school experience includes 2 years as an elementary bilingual teacher in Edinburg, TX, 5 years as an elementary TWI dual language teacher, and 7 years as a Curriculum and Instructional Specialist for the Dual Language K-12 Program in Jacksonville, Florida. Claudia’s research interests include translanguaging, metalinguistic connections, bilingual and biliteracy development and practices in K-12 dual language education, language policy, and teacher preparation for culturally and linguistically diverse education contexts.



Alumni/Legacy

María J. Ruíz-Martínez Graduate Research Assistant
PhD Student; Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy; CU Boulder
María J. Ruíz-Martínez is a doctoral student in the Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy program at the University of Colorado Boulder. She joined Literacy Squared in 2018 as a graduate research assistant. Prior to returning to graduate school she taught in bilingual and dual language K-3 classrooms in Milwaukee, WI. Her research interests interrogate how language and race impact the lives of transnational students in the US-Mexico borderlands. These lines of inquiry bring María to further probe how imposed categories of ethnicity, gender, class, indigeneity, sexuality, and legal status work in concert to oppress and marginalize multilingual students.

Sandra Butvilofsky, PhD Biliteracy Instructional Coach, Boulder Valley School District
Sandra A. Butvilofsky received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity at the University of Colorado Boulder with a specialization in biliteracy. She continues her work at CU Boulder as Deputy Director of the BUENO Center for Multicultural Education and is the Principal Investigator of a federally funded National Professional Development grant.

Dr. Butvilofsky has been involved in Literacy Squared since 2006, assisting in program development, conducting research, and providing professional development to bilingual teachers and administrators. Her research interests include examining the biliterate writing and reading development of simultaneous bilingual learners from preschool through fifth grade.

Dr. Butvilofsky has over 18 years of experience in bilingual education. Her elementary teaching experience includes 5 years as a bilingual classroom teacher and 5 years as a trained Descubriendo la Lectura®/Reading Recovery® teacher.

Manuel Escamilla, PhD Consultant
Dr. Manuel Escamilla was the director of the BUENO Equity Assistance Center for Region VII at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He received his Ph.D. in Early Childhood Education from the University of Kansas and has been a professor of Bilingual Education in California and Arizona, he served as the Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs at the University of Arizona and at Metropolitan State College of Denver. He has also directed Head Start programs in Denver, Conejos-Costilla County and Huerfano-Las Animas Counties in Colorado.
Paty Abril-Gonzalez, PhD Assistant Professor, The University of Texas at Austin
Before becoming an assistant professor at the University of Texas, Paty was a graduate research assistant with the Literacy Squared team, while working on her PhD. She supported Literacy Squared efforts through professional development for teachers, observing children, analyzing reading and writing test scores, and contributing to district technical reports. Paty’s current work is tied to her dissertation, where she explores humanizing long-term relationship built with her former bi/multilingual Latinx elementary students, alongside understanding multimodal and multilingual expression, grounded in love, empathy, and Chicana feminism. Miramontes Scholar; STAR Fellow with the Literacy Research Association

Adriana Alvarez, PhD Assistant Professor, University of Colorado Denver
Adriana Alvarez was a bilingual teacher in the border community of El Paso, Texas for 11 years before beginning her doctoral program in Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity at CU Boulder, where she was part of the Literacy Squared team for five years. Adriana contributed to Literacy Squared professional development sessions for bilingual teachers in Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Texas, Illinois and Puebla, Mexico. She is currently Assistant Professor in the Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education program at the School of Education and Human Development at CU Denver. Her research interests center on biliteracy development and pedagogy, and family-school partnerships with a focus on equity-oriented and strength-based approaches in Latinx communities. Research Faculty Fellow – Renée Crown Wellness Institute

Meg Burns, PhD Assistant Professor, TESOL and Bilingual Education; Lesley University
Meg is a former Dual Language teacher from Massachusetts, who came to CU Boulder for graduate studies and considers herself lucky to have been part of the Literacy Squared team as a graduate assistant. Now back in Boston, she teaches courses in early childhood and elementary language and literacy development and recently helped develop Lesley University’s Bilingual Endorsement program. She is currently Co-PI with Dr. Ana Solano-Campos of Georgia State University on an AERA-funded project examining the implementation of two Literacy Squared strategies (theDictado and Lotta Lara) at the only Dual Language school in East Boston. She serves on the Massachusetts Board of Education’s English Learner Bilingual Advisory Council and on the executive board of the Multistate Association of Bilingual Education (MABE), Northeast.

Jaclyn Caires-Hurley, PhD Assistant Professor; Western Oregon University
Jackie joined Literacy Squared as a graduate research assistant in 2011. She co-planned the first summer institute in 2012 and supported the implementation of our project at Godsman Elementary through the completion of her dissertation work in 2015. After graduation she consulted in the Tucson Unified School District and at Pasco High School thinking through the implementation of Literacy Squared in secondary schools. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Multicultural Education and Critical Pedagogy at Western Oregon University. In this role she is able to partner with other Literacy Squared alumni in the Salem-Keizer School District. Her current research interests include culturally and linguistically responsive teacher education and higher education using such frames of whiteness studies. An example of a project that emerged from work with Pasco High School, include teaching teachers to use problem-posing and justice-oriented pedagogies that promote discipline-specific, connected discourses in two languages across the curriculum.

Caitie Dougherty Cu Boulder PhD Student, Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy
Caitie Dougherty is a doctoral student in the Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy program in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder and a research assistant with Literacy Squared. Her research interests revolve around the language development of culturally and linguistically diverse students and teacher language ideology and classroom practices. Her research interests are grounded in her experience working with students of diverse ages, language backgrounds, and cultures. Before coming to CU Boulder, she taught middle school ELA, Spanish and Social Studies at a dual language school in Baltimore, MD. In 2014 she received an MA in Bilingual/Bicultural Education from the University of Texas at Austin and prior to that she taught ESOL in Panama as a Peace Corps volunteer.

Daniel Garzon CU Boulder PhD Student; Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy
Daniel Garzon is a doctoral student in the Equity, Bilingualism & Biliteracy program at the University of Colorado Boulder. He taught Spanish for 1st-6th grades in Northern Virginia prior to pursuing the PhD at CU Boulder. His research interests include teacher and student cultural identity and ideologies of language in dual language programs in a majority Latinx but strongly English-oriented school district. Through a critical race framing of the sociohistorical context with connections to class, gender, and immigration/refugee contexts, his research looks for ways to improve equity in education for Latinx students.


Adria Padilla-Chavez Graduate Research Assistant PhD Student; Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy; CU Boulder
Adria Padilla-Chavez is a first-year doctoral student in the Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy program at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Prior to becoming a doctoral student and part of the Literacy Squared team, Adria was a public school teacher for nineteen years. This immeasurable time in the field included ELD coaching and teaching kindergarten through 5th grade in both ESL and transitional bilingual programs. Her research interests employ a critical race framework to examine English only models, standards and assessments. Additionally, Adria envisions connecting this analysis to the vital research of culturally and linguistically responsive teaching and teacher preparation.

Ofelia Schepers, PhD Assistant Professor; MSU Denver
Ofelia Schepers had the opportunity to work closely with a variety of the Literacy Squared schools and districts. Her professional development and mentorship focused on the foundational introductions of Literacy Squared and our writing trainings. She is currently an Assistant Professor at MSU Denver in their School of Education in the Department of Elementary Education and Literacy. Her work there brings the lenses of multicultural, anti-racist, and bilingual pedagogies into general education classroom settings. Imbedding these facets into foundation courses and methods courses allow all students to have exposure to these content areas even if they do not enroll in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education courses. Currently, she helping spearhead MSU Denver’s initiative on developing a Trauma-Informed Practices curriculum and program for their pre-service educators.

Lucinda Soltero-González, PhD Assistant Professor; Responsive Literacy Education, University of Colorado Denver
Lucinda Soltero-González received her Ph.D. in Language, Reading and Culture at the University of Arizona. Her research has focused on early biliteracy learning and teaching in young Spanish-speaking children and biliteracy practices in U.S. schools. She investigates ways to create and sustain culturally- and linguistically-responsive learning environments to increase equitable educational opportunities for students from non-dominant backgrounds in school. Dr. Soltero-González has also been a faculty member in CU Boulder’s School of Education, a district biliteracy coordinator, and an elementary classroom teacher and special education teacher for several years in Mexico and the U.S. Her work has been published in a variety of peer reviewed journals, edited volumes, and handbooks. She is co-author in the book, Biliteracy from the Start: Literacy Squared in Action, and co-editor of the book, Abriendo brecha: Antolgía crítica sobre la educación biingüe de doble inmersión. Dr. Soltero-González serves on the Board of Directors of the Colorado Association for Bilingual Education and on the Executive Board of Worlds of Words at the University of Arizona.

Wendy Sparrow, PhD Coordinator of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education; Boulder Valley School District
Wendy Sparrow has worked in the field of bilingual education for over 20 years and has been associated with Literacy Squared since 2005. She began her career as a bilingual classroom teacher and Title I biliteracy and math instructor at the elementary level. After earning her M.A. in Instruction and Curriculum in the Content Areas and her Ph.D. in Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity, Wendy served as a Professional Research Associate and Instructor for the BUENO Center at CU Boulder. While there, she researched and supported the bilingual literacy development of Latino elementary school children, as well as fidelity of program implementation in dual language programs and interventions. She is currently a Coordinator of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education for the Boulder Valley School District. Her work has been published in various journals and book chapters, and she coauthored Biliteracy from the Start: Literacy Squared in Action (Caslon, 2014). Wendy also serves on the executive board of the Colorado Association for Bilingual Education.