Dr Helen Breadmore

School of Education
Associate Professor Psychology in Education

Contact details

Email: h.breadmore@bham.ac.uk

Address: School of Education
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Helen Breadmore is a psychologist whose research focuses on language and literacy development. She leads the School of Education literacy research network, and is interested in understanding the processes that underpin reading and writing, and how to apply this knowledge – working with educators and policy makers to deliver best practice in literacy education. Helen has applied a wide range of research methods to her work, from experimental and cross-sectional studies to large scale randomised controlled trials.

Ongoing projects include several studies exploring the time course of cognitive processes used during reading and writing (particularly those morphological processes), understanding how attitudes and motivation impact on literacy, and evaluation of the impact of literacy programmes such as Peer Assisted Learning Strategies for Reading (PALS-UK) and Reading Planet Rocket Phonics.

Dr Helen Breadmore’s research has been supported by funding from the Education Endowment Foundation, Nuffield Foundation, Economic and Social Research Council and Medical Research Council.

Qualifications

Chartered Member of the British Psychological Society
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Postgraduate Certificate in Academic and Professional Practice, Learning and Development Centre, University of Warwick, 2014
Ph.D. in Psychology, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, 2008
M.Res. in Psychology, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, 2004
B.Sc.(Hons) in Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, 2003

Biography

Dr Helen Breadmore joined the University of Birmingham as an Associate Professor Psychology in Education in 2021. Prior to joining UoB she was an Associate Professor (Research) at Coventry University (2014-2021), where she led two evidence reviews for the Education Endowment Foundation (Literacy Development: Evidence Review and A Systematic Review of Measures of Attainment in Literacy, Mathematics and Science), led several projects exploring the role of morphological knowledge in literacy development and was Co-Investigator of the delivery team for an Education Endowment Foundation randomised control trial of Peer Assisted Learning Strategies for Reading (PALS-UK).

Dr Helen Breadmore completed her PhD in Psychology at the University of Birmingham in 2008. Her thesis examined profoundly deaf children’s use of inflectional morphology in reading and spelling. She then continued to work in the School of Psychology first as a Research Associate and then as an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow (2008-2011) examining awareness of grammatical number marking during reading and studying eye-movement recording during reading. Her second postdoc was at the University of Warwick with Prof Julia Carroll (2012-2014) as Co-Investigator of a Nuffield Foundation Grant examining reading and spelling development of children with dyslexia and children with a history of repeated ear infections.

Teaching

BSc Psychology in Education. Module Lead for LI Quantitative Research Methods in Psychology – Part 2
LH Psychology in Education Research Project/Dissertation

Postgraduate supervision

Helen is keen to supervise doctoral students with an interest in literacy and language development and evidence-based education.

Previous PhD students who have completed their studies:

Parminder Khela. Understanding the impact of children’s exposure to digital texts
Sara Whylie. Morphological development: From the beginner to the proficient reader
Katherine Hall. Patterns of verbal and nonverbal memory and executive function predict language and literacy ability.

Other activities

Co-Editor in Chief of the Journal of Research in Reading
Chartered Member of the British Psychological Society
Office for National Statistics Accredited Researcher
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Voting Member of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading
Lead guest editor of Special Issue of the Journal of Research in Reading “Advances in understanding the role of morphemes in literacy development”