Project 2: Using Precision Education Factors to Individualize Education (T2)

Using advancements in genomics, combined with rich data resources describing the environments around developing children, and an understanding of cognitive and behavioral correlates, precision education is a contemporary approach to individualizing education to the specific genes, environments, and psychological risk and protective factors (called “precision education factors”) of the individual child (Little et al., 2016). In this high-risk project, we leverage an existing sample of sample of 500 1st and 2nd grade children, selected from communities characterized by greater variability in neighborhood opportunity and enrolled in schools demonstrating a broad range of reading and language performance profiles. We combine theories and methods from genomics, geographical information systems (GIS), psychology, and education, to study the role of precision education factors in a sample reflecting the real world complexity of children who are learning to read. Matching the broader Center themes, we expand our classification systems to include everything we know about an individual’s genetics, environments, psychological functioning and factors that protect development, into a predictive model of student achievement, unexpected performance, and gene-environment interactions. We will collect new genomics, environmental, and cognitive/behavioral factors data, which when combined with the extensive reading and language data collected through the Virginia Language and Literacy Screening System (VALLSS) screening system will allow us to address the overall goal of the proposed research through three specific aims. First, we will apply a precision education approach to predict reading and language development (Specific Aim 1). Second, we will apply a precision education approach to predict unexpected performance (Specific Aim 2). Third, we will apply a precision education approach to determine the contexts most critical for reading achievement by estimating gene-environment interactions (Specific Aim 3). We will use bidirectional engagement, including recruitment coordinators from the local communities, a local advisory board of community stakeholders, and focus groups of community stakeholders to better understand the implication of findings from this project, allowing us to build bridges between research and practice.