Dear colleagues,

I am an instructional designer and TESOL-trained educator developing a structured home reading program specifically for Japanese-speaking families raising bilingual children. The program, Ippo-English, employs an Orton-Gillingham-based approach to teach early English decoding and pronunciation, adapted for Japanese learners. It integrates multisensory instruction, contrastive phonology, and will soon include AI-based pronunciation feedback.

I am seeking an academic collaborator to support one or more of the following:
-Validation of instructional methods, particularly decoding and contrastive pronunciation strategies for Japanese-English learners.
-Design of an embedded assessment protocol to track phonological awareness, decoding, or L2 pronunciation gains over time.
-Study design for publication or pilot evaluation in collaboration with a university lab or graduate student researcher.

Relevant areas of interest may include: applied linguistics, second language acquisition, phonology, orthographic depth, biliteracy development, or early reading interventions.

Our primary focus is on Japanese children aged 4 to 7, with plans to extend the program to upper elementary. These children are typically dominant in Japanese and have limited exposure to structured English instruction. The program is designed for home use by caregivers, many of whom are not fluent in English, and emphasizes culturally responsive, bilingual, and explicitly scaffolded materials.

If you are conducting research in this area—or know someone who might be interested in partnering—I would be delighted to connect. I am especially open to working with graduate students or labs seeking an applied, community-facing project.

Warm regards,
Devon Whitham
M.A. TESOL, Instructional Designer
[email protected]

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics
Language Acquisition
Phonology
Writing Systems

Subject Language(s): Japanese (jpn)