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Margaret Shavlik

Research Scholar
Research Area: Developmental Science


Early literacy, achievement gaps, parent-child interaction

I am interested in how early factors such as literacy and socioeconomic status impact children’s cognitive abilities across development.

Currently, I am working on identifying and evaluating potential strategies to scaffold children’s literacy and language skills.

Lab Website

Representative Publications

Shavlik, M. (2023). Making early literacy interventions work for everyone: Exploring a potential barrier to effectively teaching dialogic reading strategies [Doctoral dissertation, Vanderbilt University]. Vanderbilt University Institutional Repository. http://hdl.handle.net/1803/18172

Bae, J., Shavlik, M., Shatrowsky, C. E., Haden, C. A., & Booth, A. E. (2023). Predicting grade school scientific literacy from aspects of the early home science environment. Frontiers in Educational Psychology.  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1113196

Shavlik, M., Köksal, Ö., French, B. F., Haden, C. A., Legare, C. H., Booth, A. E. (2022). Contributions of causal reasoning to early scientific literacy. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 224, 105509. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105509

Booth, A. E., Shavlik, M., & Haden, C. A. (2022). Exploring the Foundations of Early Scientific Literacy: Children’s Causal Stance. Developmental Psychology, 58(12), 2302–2309.  https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001433

Booth, A. E., Shavlik, M., & Haden, C. A. (2020). Parents’ causal talk: Links to children’s causal stance and emerging scientific literacy. Developmental Psychology, 56(11), 2055-2064. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001108

Shavlik, M., Davis-Kean, P. E., Schwab, J. F., & Booth, A. E. (2020). Early word-learning skills: A missing link in understanding the vocabulary gap? Developmental Science, 24(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13034

Shavlik, M., Bauer, J.-R., & Booth, A. E. (2020). Children’s preference for causal information in storybooks. Frontiers in Developmental Psychology, 11(666). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00666