- The Phonics Roadshow (2017). Funded by the Department for Education, UK. (With Stainthorp, Stuart, and Flynn)
- Provision of Phonics Screening Check Review (2016). Funded by the Department for Education, UK. (With Stainthorp and Flynn
- Word Review of the Phonics Screening Check (2013). Department for Education, UK. (With Stainthorp and Ricketts
- Lead: Forum for Research in Literacy and Language (https://www.frill.org.uk/)
- Series Editor, Routledge: “Early Literacy, Language and Communication”
- Member of Editorial Board: British Journal of Developmental Psychology
- Member of Editorial Advisory Group: Journal of Research in Reading
- External Examiner: BSc/MSc Psychology: Middlesex University
- External Examiner: Professional Doctorate in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy: Tavistock and Portland NHS Trust
- Local advisor: Nine Mile Ride Primary School, Finchampstead, Wokingham
- Chartered member: British Psychological Society
- Voting member: Experimental Psychology Society
- Voting member: Society for the Scientific Study of Reading
Daisy Powell

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+44 (0) 118 378 2797
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Associate Professor
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Director, University of Reading Statistics Community of Practice
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Research supervision (PhD, EdD and MA)
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Theme co-Lead (Neuroscience and Cognition), Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism (CeLM)
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Teaching (see below)
Areas of interest
Research interests
- The development of reading and writing abilities in English and other languages
- The role of the environmental factors (e.g. socio-economic status; the home language and literacy environment) in literacy acquisition
- Rapid automatized naming (RAN) and its link to reading development
- Orthographic knowledge
- Connectionist models of reading
- The role of technology in children's literacy
Postgraduate supervision
Current Doctoral Students
- Emma Hartnell-Baker: the impact of using a purpose-built mobile application to expose Key Stage One children to ‘exception words’ organised according to grapho-phonemic structure
- Dawn Dance: What can error analysis tell us about profiles of cognitive strengths and weakness in pupils with literacy difficulties?
- Dawn Burnham: What is practitioners’ perception of Co-regulation (CR) and how do they support Self-regulation (SR) development in young children
- Haifa Alamri: The Effect of Text to Speech Software on Reading Comprehension of Saudi Third and Fourth-Year Dyslexic pupils
- Lujain Almatrouk: Reading difficulties in bilingual English-Arabic children
- Alice Robinson: An exploration of primary teachers’ perspectives, beliefs and practices: What role do assessment and feedback have in the development of primary pupils’ writing?
- Sarah Alamoudi: A Sequential Explanatory Study of the Learning of Non- Semantically Transparent Linking Adverbials
- Haifa Alhumaid: The role of orthography and phonemic coding ability in the acquisition of phonology in a second language
- Beverley Jennings: Adolescent reading practices: a corpus linguistics approach to defining success
- Anne House: Speech recognition software in mainstream secondary schools
- Suhair Alhelfawi: How do reading skills differ across languages in Arabic-English bilingual students?
Teaching
- Module Leader: Child Development in Education (MA in Education)
- Ad hoc contributions to modules on the BA Ed, PGCE, MA and EdD programmes, particularly on topics related to child development and quantitative research methods
Research projects
- Does bilingualism mitigate the effects of social disadvantage on early literacy? Funded by University of Reading RETF Open Fund (with Holly Joseph)
- Co-designing a school readiness intervention with community members for pre-schoolers in an area of high deprivation. Funded by Research England (with Holly Joseph and Carol Fuller)
- The impact of a dialogic book-sharing training programme on child cognitive and socio-emotional development: a randomised controlled trial within UK Children's Centres (Supplementary grant). Funded by the Nuffield Foundation (with Lynne Murray and Peter Cooper)
- Learning to read in monolingual and bilingual children: does cognitive flexibility play a part? Funded by the University of Reading Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme
- Analysis of cross-language transfer in early literacy acquisition among bilingual Malay-English speaking children in Malaysia. Funded by the British Academy Newton Mobility Grant (with Tze Peng Wong)
- Precursors of reading in pre-school: longitudinal investigation of the role of cognitive and environmental factors (with Lynette Chesson)
- The role of the home literacy environment in young children's emergent literacy
- A longitudinal investigation of Rapid Automatized Naming performance and its relationship to reading: the role of orthographic processing. (ESRC funded: Powell, D., Stainthorp, R., & Stuart, M.)
- Investigating cognitive processes and their relation to reading in children with rapid automatized naming deficits (ESRC funded: Stainthorp, R., Stuart, M. & Quinlan, P.)
Enterprise activity; external roles and consultancy
Publications
- Powell, D. , Busby, A. , Wellsted, D. , Cooper, P. , Murray, L. (2022) Report: Extension of the impact of Early years Provision in Children’s Centres (EPICC) trial on child cognitive and socio-emotional development. Nuffield Foundation
- Joseph, H. and Powell, D. (2022) Does a specialist typeface affect how fluently children with and without dyslexia process letters, words and passages?. Dyslexia , 28 (4). pp. 448-470. ISSN: 1099-0909 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/dys.1727
- Flynn, N. , Powell, D. , Stainthorp, R. , Stuart, M. (2021) Training teachers for phonics and early reading: developing research-informed practice. Journal of Research in Reading , 44 (2). pp. 301-318. ISSN: 1467-9817 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9817.12336
- Papastefanou, T. , Marinis, T. , Powell, D. (2021) Development of reading comprehension in bilingual and monolingual children—effects of language exposure. Languages , 6 (4). ISSN: 2226-471X | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/languages6040166
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Powell, D.
ORCID: 0000-0002-3607-2407 and Atkinson, L. (2021) Unraveling the links between rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological awareness, and reading. Journal of Educational Psychology , 113 (4). pp. 706-718. ISSN: 0022-0663 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/edu0000625
- Papastefanou, T. , Powell, D. , Marinis, T. (2019) Language and decoding skills in Greek-English primary school bilingual children: effects of language dominance, contextual factors and cross-language relationships between the heritage and the majority language. Frontiers in Communication , 4 ISSN: 2297-900X | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2019.00065
- Atkinson, L. , Slade, L. , Powell, D. , Levy, J. (2017) Theory of mind in emerging reading comprehension: a longitudinal study of early indirect and direct effects. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology , 164 pp. 225-238. ISSN: 0022-0965 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.04.007
- Fuller, C. , Powell, D. , Fox, S. (2017) Making gains: the impact of outdoor residential experiences on students’ examination grades and self-efficacy. Educational Review , 69 (2). pp. 232-247. ISSN: 1465-3397 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2016.1199538
- Powell, D. (2015) The challenges of learning to read and write in English. Patoss Bulletin , 28 (1). pp. 2-6. ISSN: 1476-1521
- Powell, D. , Stainthorp, R. , Stuart, M. (2014) Deficits in orthographic knowledge in children poor at rapid automatized naming (RAN) tasks?. Scientific Studies of Reading , 18 (3). pp. 192-207. ISSN: 1088-8438 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2013.862249
- Cowan, R. and Powell, D. (2014) The contributions of domain-general and numerical factors to third-grade arithmetic skills and mathematical learning disability. Journal of Educational Psychology , 106 (1). pp. 214-229. ISSN: 0022-0663 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0034097
- Stainthorp, R. , Powell, D. , Stuart, M. (2013) The relationship between rapid naming and word spelling in English. Journal of Research in Reading , 36 (4). pp. 371-388. ISSN: 1467-9817 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jrir.12002
- Powell, D. and Dixon, M. (2011) Does SMS text messaging help or harm adults’ knowledge of standard spelling?. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning , 27 (1). pp. 58-66. ISSN: 1365-2729 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2010.00403.x
- Stainthorp, R. , Stuart, M. , Powell, D. , Quinlan, P. , Garwood, H. (2010) Visual processing deficits in children with slow RAN performance. Scientific Studies of Reading , 14 (3). pp. 266-292. ISSN: 1088-8438 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10888431003724070
- Powell, D. , Stainthorp, R. , Stuart, M. , Garwood, H. , Quinlan, P. (2008) The relationship between phonological awareness, phonological memory, Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) and reading in monolingual and bilingual English children. International Journal of Psychology , 43 (3-4). pp. 18-18. ISSN: 0020-7594 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207594.2008.10108483
- Powell, D. , Stainthorp, R. , Stuart, M. , Garwood, H. , Quinlan, P. (2007) An experimental comparison between rival theories of rapid automatized naming performance and its relationship to reading. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology , 98 (1). pp. 46-68. ISSN: 0022-0965 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2007.04.003
- Powell, D. , Plaut, D. , Funnell, E. (2006) Does the PMSP connectionist model of single word reading learn to read in the same way as a child?. Journal of Research in Reading , 29 (2). pp. 229-250. ISSN: 0141-0423 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9817.2006.00300.x