Our people

Dr Danielle Colenbrander

Lecturer for the Advancement of Literacy
The Australian Centre for the Advancement of Literacy

Areas of expertise: word reading, spelling, and reading comprehension assessment and instruction; roles of vocabulary and morphology in word reading, spelling and reading comprehension; morphology instruction; set for variability/mispronunciation correction; irregular word reading instruction; vocabulary instruction

Phone: +61 2 9465 9594

Email: Danielle.Colenbrander@acu.edu.au

Location: ACU North Sydney Campus

ORCID ID: 0000-0001-5577-7501

Dr Colenbrander is a Lecturer in the Australian Centre for the Advancement of Literacy. She received her PhD in 2015 from Macquarie University and then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bristol, UK. Dr Colenbrander returned to Macquarie University in 2019 to work as a postdoctoral researcher and manage the Macquarie University Centre for Reading.

Dr Colenbrander’s research investigates word reading, spelling, and reading comprehension assessment and instruction, with a particular focus on the roles of vocabulary and morphology. With a keen interest in translating research into practice, she has worked closely with teachers and teaching assistants across Australia and the UK.

In addition to her research work, Dr Colenbrander has designed and conducted professional learning workshops for individual schools, school systems, and not-for-profit organisations. She has presented her work at numerous teacher-focused conferences and teacher podcasts. Dr Colenbrander has also worked as an Educational Adviser for SPELD NSW.

Current research includes the effectiveness of morphology instruction for improving reading, spelling and reading comprehension outcomes; spelling assessment and profiles of spelling knowledge in high school students; how beginning readers read “potentiophones” – irregular words sound like a different word when phonically decoded; and the effects of context on children’s ability to correct mispronunciations while reading.

Publications

• Martinez, D., Colenbrander, D., Inoue, T., Falcon, R., Rubi, R., Parrilla, R., & Georgiou, G. (Accepted). The effects of explicit morphological analysis instruction in early elementary Spanish speakers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.
• Behzadnia, A., Ziegler, J., Colenbrander, D., Bürki, A., & Beyersmann, E. (2023). The role of morphemic knowledge during novel word learning. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218231216369.
• Colenbrander, D., & Kohnen, S. (2023). Word reading: The role of the speech-language pathologist. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 8, 1168-1185. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_PERSP-23-00054
• Martinez, D., Colenbrander, D., Inoue, T., & Georgiou, G. K. (Accepted). How well do school children and adolescents know the form and meaning of different derivational suffixes? Evidence from a cross-sectional study. Applied Psycholinguistics. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716424000043.
• Wegener, S., Wang, H., Beyersmann, L., Nation, K., Colenbrander, D., & Castles, A. (2023). Orthographic expectancies in the absence of contextual support. Scientific Studies of Reading, 27, 187-197. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2022.2127356
• Beyersmann, E., Wegener, S., Pescume, V. N., Nation, K., Colenbrander, D., & Castles, A. The effect of oral vocabulary training on reading novel complex words. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 76, 1321-1332. https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218221113949.
• Colenbrander, D.,Kohnen, S., Beyersmann, E., Robidoux, S., Wegener, S., Arrow, T., Nation, K., & Castles, A. (2022). Teaching children to read irregular words: A comparison of three instructional methods. Scientific Studies of Reading, 26, 545-564. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2022.2077653.
• Miles, K. P., McFadden, K., Colenbrander, D., & Ehri, L. C. (2022). Maximising access to reading intervention: Comparing small group and one-to-one protocols of Reading Rescue. Journal of Research in Reading, 45, 299-323. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9817.12383.
• Wegener, S., Wang, H-C., Beyersmann, E., Nation, K., Colenbrander, D., & Castles, A. (2022). The effects of spacing and massing on children&rsquos orthographic learning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 214, 105309. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105309.
• Colenbrander, D., Parsons, L., Bowers, J. S., & Davis, C. J. (2022). Assessing the effectiveness of Structured Word Inquiry for children with reading and spelling difficulties: A randomized controlled trial. Reading Research Quarterly, 51, 307-352. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.399.
• Colenbrander, D. (2020). Oral vocabulary and reading comprehension: What intervention studies have taught us. Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech Language Pathology, 22, 8-12.
• Colenbrander, D., Wang, H. C., Arrow, T., & Castles, A. (2020). Teaching irregular words: What we know, what we don’t know, and where we can go from here. The Educational and Developmental Psychologist, 37, 97-104. https://doi.org/10.1017/edp.2020.11.
• Colenbrander, D., Miles, K. P., & Ricketts, J. (2019). To see or not to see: How does seeing spellings support vocabulary learning? Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 50, 609-628. https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_LSHSS-VOIA-18-0135.
• Colenbrander, D., Ricketts, J., & Breadmore, H. L. (2018). Early identification of dyslexia: Understanding the issues. Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 49, 817-828. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_LSHSS-DYSLC-18-0007.
• Colenbrander, D., Nickels, L., & Kohnen, S. (2017). Similar but different: Differences in comprehension diagnosis on the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability and the York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension. Journal of Research in Reading, 50, 403-419. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9817.12075.
• Colenbrander, D., Kohnen, S., Smith-Lock, K., & Nickels, L. (2016). Individual differences in the vocabulary skills of children with poor reading comprehension. Learning and Individual Differences, 50, 210-220. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.07.021.
• Kohnen, S., Colenbrander, D., Krajenbrink, T., & Nickels, L. (2015). Assessment of lexical and non-lexical spelling in students in Grades 1-7. Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties, 20, 15-38. https://doi.org/10.1080/19404158.2015.1023209.
• Colenbrander, D., Nickels, L. & Kohnen, S. (2011). Nonword reading tests: review of the available resources. Australasian Journal of Special Education, 35, 137-172. http://dx.doi.org/10.1375/ajse.35.2.137.

Accolades or awards

• In July 2023, Dr. Danielle Colenbrander won an Early Career Outstanding Paper Award from the Society for the Scientific Studies of Reading for her paper, Teaching Children to Read Irregular Words: A Comparison of Three Instructional Methods.

Public engagement activities

Selected presentations:

• Colenbrander, D., & Kohnen, S. Irregular words: Myths, misconceptions and methods of instruction. Workshop presented at the March 2024 Dyslexia Speld Foundation (DSF) Language, Literacy and Learning Conference, Perth, Australia.
• Colenbrander, D., von Hagen, A., Kohnen, S., Wegener, S., Ko, K., Beyersmann, E., Behzadnia, A., Roebuck-Krautz, A., Parrila, R., & Castles, A. Morphology instruction and literacy outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Talk presented in July 2023 at the 30^th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (SSSR), Port Douglas, Australia.
• Colenbrander, D., Kohnen, S., Beyersmann, L., Robidoux, S., Wegener, S., Arrow, T., Nation, K., & Castles, A. How should we teach irregular words? Talk presented in July 2021 at the 28^th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (SSSR). Virtual meeting.

• Colenbrander, D. Vocabulary instruction. (May 2024). Invited presentations for the South Australian Department of Education 2024 Literacy Summit. (Filmed presentations for online course).
• Colenbrander, D. Expanding vocabulary knowledge through morphology. (April 2024). Invited presentation delivered at the City Country Alliance of Schools conference, Gol Gol NSW.
• Colenbrander, D. What we do and do not know about teaching irregular words. (Sep 2023). Invited presentation delivered at Sharing Best Practice Sydney, Marsden Road Public School, Sydney.
• Colenbrander, D. Wonderful words and how to teach them. (June 2023). Invited presentation NSW Department of Education Lead Specialists Annual Conference, Stamford Plaza Sydney Airport.
• Colenbrander, D. Approaches to teaching irregular words: What research tells us. (April 2023). Invited presentation delivered at Sharing Best Practice Illawarra, Corrimal High School, Corrimal NSW.
• Colenbrander, D. Teaching irregular words: How, why, and what we’ve yet to learn. (Oct 2022). Invited presentation delivered at ResearchED Sydney.
• Colenbrander, D. What research tells us about reading irregular words. (Oct 2022). Invited presentation at “A Day with Linnea Ehri and Friends”, hosted by Learning Difficulties Australia.
• Colenbrander, D. Reading comprehension. (Oct 2022). Invited professional development workshops for NSW Department of Education COVID Intensive Learning Support Program Academic Series.

Podcasts:

• Interview for Melissa and Lori Love Literacy podcast. (average 100 000 downloads per month). Episode: How to teach students to read irregular words. (March 2024).
• Interview for Teaching Literacy podcast. Episode: Teaching irregular words. (Nov 2022).
• Interview for Thinking Deeply About Primary Education podcast. Episode: Teaching children to read irregular words. (Jun 2022).
• Interview by Shannan Salvestro for the New South Wales Department of Education Literacy and Numeracy Podcast. (Mar 2020)