Jane Oakhill

Jane Oakhill is Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Sussex. She worked briefly as a primary school teacher, and her interest in children’s reading comprehension problems led to a DPhil (Ph.D.) on that topic. Since completing her DPhil, she has worked on various research projects, but has always maintained a research interest in children’s reading comprehension (in particular, individual differences). Oakhill has published widely, including approximately 100 refereed journal articles; she has also co-authored or edited nine books. Her books in the area of reading and comprehension include: Becoming a Skilled Reader, with Alan Garnham; Children's Problems in Text Comprehension, with Nicola Yuill; Reading Comprehension Difficulties: Processes and Remediation, with Cesare Cornoldi; Reading Development and the Teaching of Reading: A Psychological Perspective, with Roger Beard; Children’s Comprehension Problems in Oral and Written Language, with Kate Cain; and most recently, Understanding and Teaching Reading Comprehension, with Kate Cain and Carsten Elbro. In 1991, she was awarded the British Psychological Society's Spearman Medal for outstanding published work in the first decade of her career as a psychologist. More recently, in 2019, she received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Society for Text and Discourse.