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Faculty of Education and Language Studies > People Profiles > Natalia Kucirkova

Natalia Kucirkova

Research Student

The Open University Faculty of Education and Language Studies Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology



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Profile

I am in the third year of my Phd at CREET. My primary research area lies in parent-child shared book reading and the role of personalisation in the development of children's early literacy. I am particularly interested in the role of personalisation in book reading, that is to say how books created specifically for each child affect the processes through which children learn from books.

Teaching Interests

DSE212 Exploring psychology

Research Interests

Personalisation

Shared book reading

Early literacy

Language development

Current Research

 

Role of personalisation in children's language acquisition

Role of personalisation in children's spontaneous speech

Personalised stories created on iPads, project undertaken in UK and Spanish pre-schools

The iPad: a new direction for early literacy in the digital age? Internally funded pilot project, with Professor David Messer and Dr Rosie Flewitt

Evaluating MakeBelieve Arts' Helicopter Technique, project undertaken with Teresa Cremin, Joan Swann, Rosie Flewitt and Dorothy Faulkner

Publications

Book Chapter
Kucirkova, Natalia; Messer, David and Sheehy, Kieron (2012). Deti ako autori vlastnych kniziek na ipadoch: Hl'Adanie strednej cesty (Children as authors of their own iPad books: searching for a balance. In: Mi?ová, Monika ed. Predprimárne vzdelávanie v sú?asnosti. Presove, Slovakia: Presovska univerzita v Presove, Pedagogic fakulta. Slovensky vybor Svetovej organizacie pre predskolsku vychovu, pp. 285–298.
Journal Article
Kucirkova, Natalia; Messer, David; Sheehy, Kieron and Flewitt, Rosie (2013). Sharing personalized stories on iPads: a close look at one parent-child interaction. Literacy (In press).
Kucirkova, Natalia; Messer, David and Whitelock, Denise (2012). Parents reading with their toddlers: the role of personalisation in book engagement. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy (ahead of print).
Kucirkova, Natalia; Messer, David and Whitelock, Denise (2010). Sharing personalised books: a practical solution to the challenges posed by home book reading interventions. Literacy Information & Computer Education Journal, 1(3), pp. 263–272.