About

Dr. Jill Grifenhagen is an Associate Professor in Literacy Education at NC State University's College of Education. Her research focuses on early language and literacy development, with a particular interest in academic vocabulary and language learning fostered by classroom practice. She explores preparation and support strategies to improve teacher practices in language and literacy, including teacher preparation and coaching professional development. Dr. Grifenhagen teaches literacy methods to undergraduate pre-service elementary teachers and courses in research and leadership to graduate students in literacy. Her scholarly work has been published in various academic journals, contributing to the fields of literacy education and teacher development.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Pedagogy
• Psychology
• Mathematics education
• Computer Science
• Linguistics
• Philosophy
• World Wide Web
• Multimedia
• Epistemology
• Social psychology

Selected publications

• Annual Annotated Bibliography of Research in the Teaching of English

  Research in the Teaching of English · 2026-02-01

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• Toward an equitable implementation of the science of reading: K-5 teachers' sensemaking and support needs

  Teaching and Teacher Education · 2025-11-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  This study investigates how elementary teachers conceptualize and navigate equitable implementation of the Science of Reading (SoR) amid U.S. state-mandated reforms. Drawing on open-ended survey responses ( n = 275) and interviews ( n = 14), we examine teachers' understanding of equity, multilevel barriers and enablers across individual, school, and system contexts, and support needs for responsive instruction. Findings reveal equitable SoR implementation as an adaptive, context-sensitive practice shaped by differentiation, systematic instruction, and institutional conditions. Teachers emphasized the importance of practice-embedded professional development, interdisciplinary collaboration, and coherent systemic support. The study extends sensemaking theory by demonstrating how institutional conditions shape teachers' interpretive work during high-stakes literacy reform and showing that principled adaptation can constitute fidelity to equity goals. Beyond the U.S. context, the findings contribute conceptual and empirical resources to international scholarship on literacy reform implementation, teacher sensemaking, and the relationship between standardization and equity as SoR-aligned mandates proliferate globally. • Teachers view equity in the Science of Reading as adaptive and context-sensitive. • Differentiation and institutional support shape equitable reading implementation. • Multilevel barriers constrain, while collaboration enables, responsive literacy. • Teachers seek practice-based professional development and interdisciplinary support. • Study advances understanding of teachers as sensemakers in literacy reform.

  PublisherDOI

• Annotated Bibliography of Research in the Teaching of English

  Research in the Teaching of English · 2025-02-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Barriers to Implementation and Strategies for Improvements in Elementary School Tiered Reading Intervention Processes

  Reading & Writing Quarterly · 2025-03-27 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Correlations between coaching quality and teacher change in social-emotional teaching practices

  Early Childhood Research Quarterly · 2025-01-01 · 2 citations

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• An examination of the coaching quality checklist using confirmatory factor analysis

  International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education · 2024-12-26 · 1 citations

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  Purpose We developed and studied an approach to measuring the quality of coaching meetings. Coaching is a professional development approach that has been implemented in education settings for several decades to support teachers and other practitioners in providing effective instruction. As coaching has become more prevalent, it has become clear that the field needs tools to measure coaching quality. Design/methodology/approach The coaching quality checklist (CQC) is a measure based on the empirical and theoretical literature on coaching. It has 26 items designed to measure three constructs: foundational, supportive and change-oriented coaching skills. In this study, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis of the CQC. Findings We found the one-factor model fit the data well. The hypothesized higher-order three subfactor model fit the data better but not significantly so. Additional research is needed to further validate the CQC using a larger sample and examine different types of validity. Originality/value The CQC is a promising tool for measuring coaching quality, which can help ensure that teachers are provided with high-quality professional development to support their use of interventions.

  PublisherDOI

• Examining highly successful partnerships between literacy coaches and novice teachers

  Professional Development in Education · 2024-12-24

  article1st authorCorresponding
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• Theorizing Digital Dialogic Comprehension Pedagogy With Rural Primary Teachers: A Relational Praxis of Knowledge, Space, and Time

  Literacy Research Theory Method and Practice · 2024-11-20 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  This grounded theory study explored how primary-grade teachers perceive and enact dialogic English Language Arts (ELA) comprehension pedagogy in the novel context of pandemic-induced digital learning. The study involved nine diverse rural primary teachers teaching digitally during the coronavirus disease pandemic. The researchers followed a constructivist, postmodern orientation to co-construct substantive theory with the knowledge of participating teachers. The researchers conducted two rounds of virtual interviews and collected digital artifacts of ELA comprehension instruction. Qualitative data were analyzed using constant comparative analysis to address teacher perceptions and enactments of digital dialogic comprehension instruction. The emergent substantive theory represents connected, iterative processes of teachers perceiving and enacting dialogic, digital instruction. First, teachers espoused a dialogic stance toward ELA instruction based on their beliefs in various comprehension paradigms, diverse funds of knowledge, and multiplicity of voices in discourse. Relatedly, teachers responded to particularities of virtual contexts, digital discourses, and pandemic times to enact dialogic ELA comprehension instruction through a reconstruction of literacy pedagogies. Implications for research and practice are discussed, including the need for ongoing negotiation of dialogic pedagogy in diverse instructional contexts, to cultivate teachers’ dialogic literacy practices in locally and culturally responsive ways.

  PublisherDOI

• Lessons learned from remote, early-literacy instruction

  Journal of Early Childhood Literacy · 2024-08-31 · 2 citations

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  The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly shifted primary-grade literacy instruction which had rarely been implemented online before the pandemic. Remote early literacy instruction is thus an emerging field of research, and research is needed to understand the affordances and limitations of this crisis-driven instruction and how it may inform early literacy instruction moving forward, both in remote and traditional settings. This mixed methods case study examined how 106 novice primary-grade teachers in the United States implemented literacy instruction in the remote platform during the COVID-19 pandemic with a desire to understand both successful and challenging literacy practices. The main data sources entailed 106 teacher interviews conducted using a semi-structured interview protocol and teacher self-ratings of their implementation of evidence-based literacy practices. Qualitative analyses of teachers’ perspectives yielded findings that remote early literacy instruction increased the involvement of families, required teachers to navigate multiple boundaries to implement literacy instruction, remote instruction was most conducive to teacher-led literacy instruction, and resulted in teachers’ difficulty knowing and addressing children’s literacy needs. Quantitative data analysis of Likert-scale questions about teachers’ early literacy instructional practices revealed teachers reported their highest quality literacy instructional practices as read alouds, collaboration with children’s families, and building an effective learning community for remote literacy instruction. Teachers rated their remote implementation of writing instruction, literacy assessment processes, and differentiation of literacy instruction as lower quality. The findings add to the literature by providing an in-depth understanding of remote early literacy instruction, successes and challenges reported by teachers providing literacy instruction to primary-aged children, and implications for post-pandemic instruction.

  PublisherDOI

• Reimagining Discourse in the Classroom

  The Reading Teacher · 2022 · 13 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Pedagogy
  • Psychology

  Abstract Classroom discourse serves an important role in language, literacy, and other content area learning in early childhood and elementary classrooms. In this article, the authors define discourse as it relates to teaching and learning and overview the background of research on the topic. Then classroom discourse is reconsidered in the current context, including the field's growing understanding of the importance of knowledge for literacy, increasingly diverse student populations, and the rising prevalence of technology for instruction. Two traditional classroom discourse practices, sharing time and small‐group discussions, are revisited with these considerations. Suggestions are presented for how educators may update their approach to facilitating these types of discourse activities.

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Frequent coauthors

• Erica M. Barnes

  10 shared

• David K. Dickinson

  Vanderbilt University

  8 shared

• Sarah Carrier

  North Carolina State University

  4 shared

• Jill S. Jones

  North Carolina State University

  3 shared

• Dennis S. Davis

  North Carolina State University

  2 shared

• Janet K. Outlaw

  Pearson (United States)

  2 shared

• Danielle R. Scharen

  2 shared

• Robyn DeIaco

  North Carolina State University

  2 shared