James S. Kim

James Kim is an expert on literacy intervention and experimental design. His professional mission is to conduct a systematic program of policy relevant research in literacy that focuses on improving outcomes for low-income students and struggling readers at scale. He leads the  READS Lab (Research Enhances Adaptations Designed for Scale in Literacy), a joyful, agile research team that builds long-term partnerships with school districts to solve grand challenges in literacy and education. His research priority is to understand how building students’ domain knowledge and reading engagement can foster long-term improvements in reading comprehension.  Consistent with the principles of Open Science, the READS Lab promotes open data, open materials, preregistration information, and replication data for its core experimental studies. The Model of Reading Engagement (MORE), a spiraled and sustained content literacy intervention co-developed by researchers and schoolteachers, has been shown to improve first to third-grade students’ reading comprehension in science, English language arts, and math.  A review by the U.S. Department of Education’s indicated that research on MORE meets WWC standards without reservation and long-term follow-up suggests that the impact of MORE persists through fourth grade.  Kim’s core value is to be a servant leader, who serves school districts and scholars. His vision is to inspire all learners to know the written word and to find beauty, goodness, and truth in the natural and social world.

He holds an Ed.D. from Harvard University.