Professor Helen Breadmore

• Chartered Member of the British Psychological Society
• Office for National Statistics Accredited Researcher
• 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

Helen joined the University of Birmingham as an Associate Professor Psychology in Education in 2021. She was promoted to Professor in Literacy and Psychology in Education in 2024.

Helen completed her PhD in Psychology at the University of Birmingham in 2008, supervised by Dr Andrew Olson and Prof Andrea Krott. 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 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. She then held research focused roles 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), 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). 

Module Lead for LH Language and Literacy in Education and LH Psychology in Education Research Project/Dissertation.

Professor Helen Breadmore is experienced in research student supervision in both psychology and education. She has examined a variety of research degree theses in the Uk and internationally (e.g., PhDs in Education, Psychology and Applied Linguistics, Doctorate in Applied Educational and Child Psychology). Please get in touch with her directly with proposals for postgraduate research projects or examination requests. Helen is keen to supervise and exam doctoral students with an interest in literacy and language development and evidence-informed approaches to supporting literacy, particularly those with an interest in morphological processes, spelling and/or literacy difficulties.  

Previous postgraduate research students who have completed their studies:

• Parminder Khela, PhD. Understanding the impact of children’s exposure to digital texts.
• Sara Whylie, PhD. Morphological development: From the beginner to the proficient reader.
• Jodie Enderby. MScR. Prosody, phonology and morphology in reading and spelling.
• Katherine Hall, PhD. Patterns of verbal and nonverbal memory and executive function predict language and literacy ability.  

Current postgraduate research students:

• Zhenyan Yin. PhD. Working title: The Role of Morphological Awareness and Cross-language Morphological Transfer in Bilingual Children with Dyslexia. Supervisory team: Prof Helen Breadmore and Dr Yaling Hsiao (University of Reading).
• Kathryn Cawley. PhD. Working title: Developing the effectiveness of spelling teaching in mainstream classrooms to improve outcomes for all learners. Supervisory team: Prof Julia Carroll, Prof Helen Breadmore and Dr Sarah Critten (Open University).

Professor Helen Breadmore’s research focuses on understanding the processes and skills that underpin successful reading and writing. She works with educators, programme developers and policy makers to apply this knowledge to support best practice in literacy education. Helen has applied a wide range of research methods to her work, including experimental and cross-sectional studies and large scale randomised controlled trials.

Ongoing and recent empirical research includes studies that explore the time course of cognitive processes during reading and spelling (particularly morphological processes), the cognitive skills and motivational factors that underpin literacy, understanding teacher confidence in literacy instruction, and evaluating the impact of evidence-informed approaches to literacy instruction such as Peer Assisted Learning Strategies for Reading (PALS-UK), Reading Planet Rocket Phonics and Charles Dickens Research School’s Fluency Focus.

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

• Chartered Member of the British Psychological Society
• Office for National Statistics Accredited Researcher
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Co-Editor in Chief of the Journal of Research in Reading
• Editorial Board of Scientific Studies of Reading, and Voting Member of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading
• Member of the Experimental Psychology Society, UK Literacy Association, Forum for Research in Language and Literacy
• Economic and Social Research Council Peer Review College
• Education Endowment Foundation Peer Review Panels