Kathleen Rastle is a cognitive psychologist and Professor of Cognitive Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London where she was previously the Head of Department of Psychology (2015-2019). Her research has made fundamental contributions to understanding of reading and learning to read.

Kathleen Rastle
OccupationProfessor of Cognitive Psychology
Known forResearch on reading and learning to read.
AwardsEconomic and Social Research Council ‘Celebrating Impact’ Prize for International Impact (2020)
British Psychological Society Cognitive Section Prize (2018)
Experimental Psychology Society Mid-Career Prize (2017)
Academic background
Alma materPomona College (BA)
Macquarie University (PhD)
Academic work
DisciplinePsychology
Sub-disciplineReading
InstitutionsRoyal Holloway, University of London
WebsiteFaculty Page

Education edit

Rastle did her PhD with Professor Max Coltheart at Macquarie University, where she contributed to the development of the DRC model of reading,[1][2] a computational theory of how adults read aloud single words.

Career edit

Subsequently, her work has focused on the statistical regularities present in written language,[3] and on how learners acquire knowledge of these through instruction[4][5] and experience.[6][7]

She has been particularly interested in understanding how written language conveys meaningful (morphological) information and in how skilled, adult readers use this information in the initial stages of word recognition.[8][9]

Rastle won the British Psychological Society Cognitive Section Prize (2018)[5] and the Experimental Psychology Society Mid-Career Prize (2017).[6] She is a fellow of the Academia Europaea, Academy of Social Sciences, and the British Psychological Society. Rastle is President of the Experimental Psychology Society and the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Memory and Language. Her research has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, Leverhulme Trust, British Academy, Royal Society, and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

Influence edit

Rastle’s research has influenced policy and practice globally in the area of reading instruction. These impacts were recognised through an Economic and Social Research Council ‘Celebrating Impact’ Prize for International Impact (2020) which she won alongside Kate Nation and Anne Castles for their work on ending the reading wars.[10]

References edit

  1. ^ Rastle, Kathleen; Coltheart, Max (1999). "Serial and strategic effects in reading aloud". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 25 (2): 482–503. doi:10.1037/0096-1523.25.2.482.
  2. ^ Coltheart, Max; Rastle, Kathleen; Perry, Conrad; Langdon, Robyn; Ziegler, Johannes (2001). "DRC: A dual route cascaded model of visual word recognition and reading aloud". Psychological Review. 108 (1): 204–256. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.108.1.204. PMID 11212628.
  3. ^ Ulicheva, Ana; Harvey, Hannah; Aronoff, Mark; Rastle, Kathleen (2020). "Skilled readers' sensitivity to meaningful regularities in English writing". Cognition. 195 (103810): 204–256. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2018.09.013. PMID 30509872. S2CID 53970836.
  4. ^ Rastle, Kathleen; Lally, Clare; Davis, Matthew; Taylor, Jo (2021). "The Dramatic Impact of Explicit Instruction on Learning to Read in a New Writing System". Psychological Science. 32 (4): 471–484. doi:10.1177/0956797620968790. PMID 33634711. S2CID 232058062.
  5. ^ a b Taylor, Jo; Davis, Matthew; Rastle, Kathleen (2017). "Comparing and validating methods of reading instruction using behavioural and neural findings in an artificial orthography". Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 146 (6): 826–858. doi:10.1037/xge0000301. PMC 5458780. PMID 28425742. S2CID 3463052.
  6. ^ a b Rastle, Kathleen (2019). "EPS mid-career prize lecture 2017: Writing systems, reading, and language". Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 72 (4): 677–692. doi:10.1177/1747021819829696. PMID 30767609. S2CID 73431375.
  7. ^ Tamminen, Jakke; Davis, Matthew; Rastle, Kathleen (2015). "From specific examples to general knowledge in language learning". Cognitive Psychology. 79: 1–39. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2015.03.003. PMID 25898155. S2CID 214140.
  8. ^ Rastle, Kathleen; Davis, Matthew (2008). "Morphological decomposition based on the analysis of orthography". Language and Cognitive Processes. 23 (7–8): 942–971. doi:10.1080/01690960802069730. S2CID 13782751.
  9. ^ Rastle, Kathleen (2019). "The place of morphology in learning to read in English". Cortex. 116: 45–54. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2018.02.008. PMID 29605387. S2CID 3598023.
  10. ^ Castles, Anne; Rastle, Kathleen; Nation, Kate (2018). "Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert". Psychological Science in the Public Interest. 19 (1): 5–51. doi:10.1177/1529100618772271. PMID 29890888. S2CID 48364148.

External links edit