Ruth Pike

Profile

I am an ESRC-funded postgraduate researcher (White Rose DTP), exploring reading development in EAL children using a mixed-methods approach. EAL (English as an Additional Language) or multilingual learners represent over 20% of pupils in England (DfE, 2025). I am keen to explore whether dynamic assessment (DA) measures, which test potential rather than static progress (Nash et al., 2024), can improve the prediction of outcomes for EAL children.

Can DA help us more accurately identify EAL children at risk of different reading difficulties? What is the current picture of reading challenges and strengths among EAL learners and how can we build a strengths-based framework to help us understand these different reading profiles better? What do EAL children themselves and their teachers have to say about their reading and teaching experiences? Which factors predict reading comprehension in EAL children?

My desire to begin to unpick some of these pertinent and intriguing questions stems from interconnected academic, professional and personal experiences. I have a background in foreign languages and psychology. This began with studying foreign languages and literature as an undergraduate linguist at Cambridge and evolved through an MSc in Psychology, which included a dissertation on the impact of instructions on parent-reporting of infant vocabulary. I also took a few detours along the way into interpreting/translation and counselling, which have broadened my perspective on transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary research.

My outlook on research also draws strongly on my personal experiences of motherhood including supporting my own children with reading. It is shaped too by time spent living overseas in other cultural and linguistic contexts, including among indigenous jungle and mountain communities in Ecuador. My career to-date has been varied and certainly non-linear. However, a common thread has been curiosity and a desire to understand others better, especially those from other cultures who can challenge our own pre-conceptions and broaden our view of the world.

I firmly believe that teachers and pupils should be at the heart of any research which seeks to bring benefit to them. A key research priority for me is to try and address the issues which research users consider to be most pertinent and to gain the perspectives of teachers, pupils and their families wherever possible (see Chalmers et al., 2024).

I hope to extend my research in a collaborative way beyond my current PhD research project to explore other areas of literacy and language, in relation to both EAL and monolingual children, perhaps with more of an applied or intervention-based approach.

ORCiD

LinkedIn

Research Groups: Member of Leeds Developing Minds Lab, Language@Leeds, Young Worlds Research Centre, Community of Research Engaged Schools and Reducing Inequalities through Education (RITE).

Research interests

Language, reading, literacy, dynamic assessment, EAL, multilingualism, reading comprehension, language comprehension

Qualifications

• MSc Psychology
• MA Conference Interpreting and Translation Studies
• PGCert Interpersonal and Counselling Skills
• MA (Cantab) Modern and Medieval Languages