Dr Maria Nicholas has an interest in literacy development in the pre-school years and early years of schooling, specialising in the learning, teaching and development of reading. Maria’s interests also include digital literacies, teaching approaches, and the role of mediation in child development/learning. Maria will contribute to the Educated Child program, investigating adult-child shared reading using printed and electronic texts. She hopes that her work in the Centre will provide valuable insights into how to support young children to be agentic in their literacy development and support parents and educators to create conditions that enrich the development of agentic, literate children.

Maria’s doctoral project investigated mothers’ interactions with two-year-old children when reading printed and electronic texts. Her recent publications include co-authored papers on the development of an early years literacy iPad app to support letter-sound learning and further work on the design and use of phonics software applications in a first-year classroom. Maria is a lecturer in Education (Language and Literacy Education) at Deakin University.

Earliest digital memory
When I was 12 years old, programming the Logo turtle to draw a circle on my screen. It opened my eyes to the magic of technology and the power that comes with knowledge!