Skip to main content
James S. Kim

James S. Kim

Dr. James Kim is a Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His research focuses on literacy interventions designed to improve reading and writing of upper elementary, middle, and high school students. In this interview, Kim talks about how to keep the “learning faucet” on during the summer, how summer reading builds background knowledge, and the power of dialogic read alouds.

Biography

James Kim is an expert on literacy intervention and experimental design, looking at policy-relevant research in literacy that focuses on improving outcomes for low-income students and struggling readers. He leads the READS Lab (Research Enhances Adaptations Designed for Scale in Literacy), a research-based collaborative initiative to identify and scale adaptive solutions for improving children’s literacy learning opportunities and outcomes. As part of the Reach Every Reader (RER) Initiative, the READS Lab is partnering with practitioners in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) and researchers at the MIT Integrated Learning Initiative (MITili) and Florida State University to improve Kindergarten to Grade 3 reading outcomes.

His current research priority is to understand how building children’s domain knowledge and reading engagement can foster long-term improvements in reading comprehension. He serves on the editorial boards of Reading Research Quarterly, the Journal of Educational Psychology, and the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness. Prior to graduate school, he was a middle school US history teacher.

Learn more at Dr. Kim’s website (opens in a new window).

Top