Scholars

Wijekumar, Kausalai

Professor

Positions:

Houston Endowed Professor, Teaching, Learning and Culture
Director, Center for Urban School Partnerships, Teaching, Learning and Culture
Professor, Teaching, Learning and Culture

Research Areas:

Teacher effectiveness, Education and state, Literacy, Reading, Intelligent tutoring systems--Design, Writing

Single Page Bio

k_wijekumar@tamu.edu

Co-author Network

Map of Science

Co-investigator Network

Websites

Literacy

ORCID

0000-0002-0768-5693

Research Areas:

Teacher effectiveness, Education and state, Literacy, Reading, Intelligent tutoring systems--Design, Writing

Twitter

Tweets by @kaywije

overview

Dr. Wijekumar designs, develops, and tests intelligent tutoring systems to improve literacy practices with students and teachers. She focuses on reading comprehension, writing, and teacher professional development. The web-based tutoring systems and all the supporting materials are available in English and Spanish. Dr. Wijekumar's work has received accolades from the What Works Clearinghouse and U.S. News and World Report. She has received over 60 million dollars in grant funding from many Federal agencies. Currently she serves as Principal Investigator on five US Department of Education grants totaling 17 million dollars in funding.

education and training

Ph.D. in Instructional Systems, Pennsylvania State University - (State College, Pennsylvania, United States) 2000

selected publications

Academic Articles30

Joshi, R. M., & Wijekumar, K. (2020). Introduction to the special issue: Teacher knowledge of literacy skills international perspectives. Dyslexia. 26(3), 245-246.
Joshi, R. M., & Wijekumar, K. (2020). Introduction to the special issue: “Teacher knowledge of literacy skills”. Dyslexia. 26(2), 117-119.
Wijekumar, K., Meyer, B. J., Lei, P., Beerwinkle, A. L., & Joshi, M. (2020). Supplementing teacher knowledge using web‐based Intelligent Tutoring System for the Text Structure Strategy to improve content area reading comprehension with fourth‐ and fifth‐grade struggling readers. Dyslexia. 26(2), 120-136.
Wijekumar, K., Beerwinkle, A., McKeown, D., Zhang, S., & Joshi, R. M. (2020). The “GIST” of the reading comprehension problem in grades 4 and 5. Dyslexia. 26(3), 323-340.
Wijekumar, K., Graham, S., Harris, K. R., Lei, P., Barkel, A., Aitken, A., Ray, A., & Houston, J. (2019). The roles of writing knowledge, motivation, strategic behaviors, and skills in predicting elementary students’ persuasive writing from source material. Reading and Writing. 32(6), 1431-1457.

Chapters10

Meyer, B., & Wijekumar, K. K. (2016). Intelligent Tutoring of the Structure Strategy. Adaptive Educational Technologies for Literacy Instruction. (pp. 82-103). Routledge.
Wijekumar, K. K., Harris, K. R., Graham, S., & Meyer, B. (2016). We-Write. Adaptive Educational Technologies for Literacy Instruction. (pp. 184-203). Routledge.
Wijekumar, K. K., Meyer, B., Harris, K. R., Graham, S., & Beerwinkle, A. (2016). Comparing learning outcomes and implementation factors from student-managed vs. Teacher-managed intelligent tutoring systems. Intelligent Tutoring Systems: Structure, Applications and Challenges. (pp. 175-200).
Wijekumar, K. K., Meyer, B., & Lei, P. (2016). Improving Content Area Reading Comprehension with 4–6th Grade Spanish ELLs Using Web-Based Structure Strategy Instruction. Competencies in Teaching, Learning and Educational Leadership in the Digital Age. (pp. 123-135). Springer International Publishing.
Wijekumar, K. K., Harris, K. R., Graham, S., & Meyer, B. (2016). We-write: A web-based intelligent tutor for supporting elementary classroom teachers in persuasive writing instruction. Adaptive Educational Technologies for Literacy Instruction. (pp. 184-203). Routledge.