Faculty Profiles

Dr. Elizabeth Hadley

Associate Professor, literacy studies

Hadley headshot

Email: hadleye@usf.edu 
Curriculum Vitae
Google Scholar Profile

Dr. Elizabeth Burke Hadley is an associate professor of literacy studies at the University of South Florida. Dr. Hadley studies young children’s language and literacy development in pre-k classrooms. Her research focuses on how teachers can help foster young children’s oral language growth through conversations, shared book-reading, and play. She is also interested in identifying pre-k literacy instructional methods that support later reading comprehension. 

Dr. Hadley’s research has been published in the top journals in her field, including Educational Researcher, Reading Research Quarterly, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, and the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. She has been awarded grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Spencer Foundation, and the American Educational Research Association (AERA). She is the recipient of the Early Career Award from the Early Education/Child Development SIG from AERA and the Faculty Outstanding Research Award from USF. Her research includes a high degree of community-engaged scholarship, with active collaborations with local school districts and community organizations. 

Dr. Hadley’s current strands of research include: 

  • Vocabulary interventions and assessment in pre-k
  • The impact of state-funded pre-k on children’s language and literacy development
  • Understanding the pre-k classroom language environment and its relationship to child language growth
  • Use of new technology to capture and analyze teacher and child talk in pre-k classrooms