Dr. Rosa Kit Wan Kwok

Rosa graduated from Indiana University with a BA in General Studies, and went on to complete an MSc in Reading, Language, and Cognition and Ph.D. in Psychology at University of York. Her PhD work (under the supervision of Prof. Andy Ellis) has shown that young dyslexic adults have problems both in pronouncing and learning new written words.  During her first post-doctoral position, in collaboration with The University of Oxford, Bangor, Birmingham, Kent and Liverpool, Rosa was involved in building and managing the largest database of bilingual toddlers (UKBT) in the UK. This project investigates the factors affecting bilingual vocabulary development across 12 target languages (including Bengali, Cantonese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hindi/Urdu, Italian, Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish, and Welsh) as a precursor to the design of a universal bilingual assessment tool. Dr. Caroline Floccia and Rosa are currently utilizing the result of the database to build an assessment tool that can help to identify whether a particular bilingual child has the potential to have language delay at age 2.Since March 2015, she have worked in the area of literacy development as a research associate at Coventry University.

• Zhao, J., Kwok, R. K. W., Liu, M. L., Liu, H. L., & Huang, C. (in press). Underlying skills of oral and silent reading fluency in Chinese: perspective of visual rapid processing. Frontiers in Psychology.

• Kwok, R. K. W., Cuetos, F., Avdyli, R. and Ellis, A. W. (2016). Reading and lexicalisation in opaque and transparent orthographies: a study of word recognition and word learning in English and Spanish. Manuscript submitted for publication.
• Kwok, R. K. W. and Ellis, A. W. (2015). Visual word learning in skilled readers of English. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 68(2), 326-349.
• Kwok, R. K. W. and Ellis, A. W. (2014). Visual word learning in adults with dyslexia. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 264-276.

• The feasibility and efficacy of a computer-based intervention aimed at monolingual and bilingual children with poor reading comprehension ability: The project investigates the feasibility of building a computer-based intervention for children at age 7.
• UK Bilingual Toddlers (UKBT): This project investigates the factors affecting bilingual vocabulary development across 13 target languages as a precursor to the design of a universal bilingual assessment tool.