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Biographical Sketch: Kelli Harris-Wright (kwright222@aol.com)

Kelli Harris Wright is the Instructional Coordinator for Title I and PreKindergarten for the DeKalb County School System in Decatur, Georgia. She is responsible for supervising and monitoring the instruction of Title I funded teachers for the BIDIALECTAL COMMUNICATION PROGRAM as well as lottery-funded prekindergarten in several schools.

She began her career in DeKalb as a Speech Language Pathologist in Special Education serving children from preschool to high school. She taught the Development Learning Class of preschool children with critical needs for receptive and expressive language development and collaborated with teachers at all levels to adapt curriculum for special needs students. In 1986, she was reassigned to the Department of Elementary Education to develop a language arts program for communication development requested by the superintendent. She researched, wrote and taught the pilot model for the BiDialectal Communication Program, including the use of videography and interactive formats for student learning. She also developed a summer-stipend course for teachers whose classroom instruction included significant use of African American dialect. In her current position, she continues the implementation and expansion of the Bidialectal Program.

She is a member of Georgia's Advisory Panel for the Lottery-funded PreKindergarten Program, the Board of DeKalb's Initiative for Children and Families, and the EOA Head Start Policy Council. She has participated in exchange and consulting programs in Japan and Western Australia, where a bidialectal program is being developed for speakers of aboriginal languages.

EDUCATION

Ms. Harris-Wright has a B.S. in Speech-Language Pathology and Education from Tennessee State University in Nashville and a Masters in Speech-Language Pathology from Kent State University. She is currently a candidate for a Specialist Degree in Educational Policy Studies and Leadership at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

PUBLICATIONS

in press

Enhancing Bidialectalism in Urban African-American Students. In C.Adger and O. Taylor (Eds.), Language and Academic Achievement among African-American Students: Making the Connections. McHenry, IL: Delta Systems and Center for Applied Linguistics.

1993

Appendix I. In S. Adler (Ed.), Multicultural Communication Skills in the Classroom (pp. 174-176). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

1987

The Challenge of Educational Coalescence: Teaching Non-Mainstream English Speaking Students. Journal of Childhood Communication Disorders, vol 2 (1), 209-215.

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in press	Enhancing Bidialectalism in Urban African-American Students. In C.Adger and O. Taylor (Eds.), Language and Academic Achievement among African-American Students: Making the Connections. McHenry, IL: Delta Systems and Center for Applied Linguistics.
1993	Appendix I. In S. Adler (Ed.), Multicultural Communication Skills in the Classroom (pp. 174-176). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
1987	The Challenge of Educational Coalescence: Teaching Non-Mainstream English Speaking Students. Journal of Childhood Communication Disorders, vol 2 (1), 209-215.