Holly Peretz: Researcher, Educator, and Architect of Evidence-Informed Early Childhood Practice

Who Is Holly Peretz?

Dr. Holly Peretz is a developmental psychologist and applied educational researcher whose work bridges rigorous cognitive science with scalable classroom practice. Since joining the University of Michigan’s School of Education in 2012, she has led over 14 federally funded projects totaling $12.7 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Education (IES), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Her research focuses on how young children—particularly those aged 3 to 8—acquire foundational literacy skills, executive function capacities, and social-emotional competencies under conditions of linguistic diversity, economic marginalization, and instructional variability. Unlike theoretical models detached from implementation realities, Peretz’s scholarship is defined by iterative co-design with educators: over 220 preschool and elementary teachers across 37 school districts in Michigan, Ohio, and New Mexico have contributed directly to the refinement of her interventions.

Foundational Research on Oral Language and Narrative Comprehension

Peretz’s earliest influential work centered on oral language as the bedrock of reading acquisition. In a landmark 2015 longitudinal study published in Child Development, her team tracked 412 children from Head Start programs across three states from pre-K through second grade. Using standardized measures—including the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test–Fifth Edition (PPVT-5) and the Test of Narrative Language–Second Edition (TNL-2)—they found that narrative comprehension at age 4.5 predicted word reading accuracy at age 7.8 with β = 0.43 (p < .001), even after controlling for socioeconomic status, home language status, and phonological awareness. Critically, this predictive relationship held strongest for dual language learners (DLLs), where each standard deviation increase in TNL-2 scores correlated with a 9.2-month gain in reading comprehension on the Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation (GRADE) by third grade.

The Role of Decontextualized Language

Peretz identified decontextualized language—talk about events not immediately present—as a key differentiator between high- and low-growth readers. Her coding analysis of 1,286 teacher–child interactions revealed that only 12% of classroom discourse in typical pre-K settings involved decontextualized language. When teachers received targeted coaching using her Narrative Scaffolding Protocol, that figure rose to 38% within 10 weeks. Students in coached classrooms showed an average effect size of d = 0.61 on narrative retell tasks—a gain equivalent to 5.7 months of additional development compared to control groups.

Impact on Dual Language Learners

Her 2018 IES-funded randomized controlled trial (RCT) with 1,023 Spanish–English DLLs demonstrated that embedding bilingual narrative supports—such as cognate-rich story maps and sentence frames in both languages—increased expressive vocabulary growth by 2.3 words per week in English and 1.8 words per week in Spanish, as measured by the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test–Fourth Edition (EOWPVT-4) and its Spanish counterpart (EOWPVT–Spanish). These gains persisted through end-of-year assessments, with intervention students outperforming controls by 14 percentile points on the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) Next Oral Reading Fluency subtest.

Designing the Literacy Launchpad Curriculum

In 2019, Peretz led the design and validation of Literacy Launchpad, a Tier 1 preschool curriculum now used in over 412 early childhood programs across 21 states. Developed in partnership with the nonprofit organization Teaching Strategies and aligned to the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework (ELOF), Literacy Launchpad integrates evidence-based practices into daily routines—not as add-on lessons, but as embedded scaffolds. The curriculum comprises 36 weekly thematic units, each containing 5 evidence-anchored components: Storytime Deep Dive (focused on inferencing and perspective-taking), Sound & Symbol Lab (phoneme-grapheme mapping), Word Weaving Circle (morphological awareness via compound word construction), Narrative Builders (guided storytelling with visual sentence frames), and Reflect & Connect (social-emotional reflection tied to story themes).

Implementation Fidelity Metrics

A critical innovation of Literacy Launchpad is its built-in fidelity dashboard. Teachers complete brief weekly self-assessments scored against observable benchmarks—for example, “Used at least 3 open-ended ‘why’ or ‘how’ questions during shared reading” or “Recorded at least one student-generated narrative sentence in the class journal.” Data from a 2022 external evaluation by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) showed that programs achieving ≥85% fidelity compliance for 8+ consecutive weeks saw mean gains of 0.72 standard deviations on the Preschool Language Scale–Fifth Edition (PLS-5) compared to 0.28 SD in low-fidelity sites. Notably, fidelity was strongly associated with teacher experience level: novice teachers (<3 years) required an average of 5.2 hours of live coaching to reach benchmark fidelity, whereas veteran teachers needed just 2.1 hours.

Executive Function and Classroom Ecology

Peretz’s work extends beyond literacy into the architecture of classroom environments that nurture self-regulation. Her NSF CAREER award project (2020–2025) examines how physical space, temporal structure, and adult responsiveness jointly shape executive function development. Using direct behavioral observation (via the Behavioral Mapping Observation System, BMOS) and biometric data (heart rate variability collected via WHOOP straps worn by 217 children ages 4–6), her team discovered that classrooms with clearly demarcated learning zones—e.g., a quiet ‘Focus Nook’ with acoustic panels rated at NRC 0.85 and adjustable lighting (300–500 lux)—produced 23% fewer off-task episodes during independent work time than classrooms without such features.

The 3-2-1 Transition Routine

One widely adopted strategy from this line of work is the 3-2-1 Transition Routine: a 30-second auditory cue (a chime tuned to 256 Hz), followed by 2 verbal reminders (“We’re moving to math in 2 minutes”), then 1 visual countdown (a digital timer projected on the whiteboard). In a cluster RCT across 42 kindergarten classrooms, schools implementing this routine saw transitions shorten from a mean of 6.4 minutes to 2.1 minutes, with concurrent reductions in teacher-reported stress (measured by the Teacher Stress Inventory, TSI) of 31%. Children’s performance on the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders (HTKS) task improved by 1.8 items per month relative to controls.

Teacher Cognitive Load and Scaffolding Efficiency

Peretz also investigated how teacher cognitive load impacts scaffolding quality. Using eye-tracking glasses (Tobii Pro Glasses 3) during small-group instruction, her lab recorded gaze patterns and response latency among 68 educators. Findings revealed that when teachers managed more than four simultaneous instructional goals (e.g., monitoring behavior, tracking participation, delivering content, documenting progress), their verbal scaffolds became significantly less precise: 64% of prompts shifted from conceptual (“What made you think that?”) to procedural (“Raise your hand first”) or directive (“Say it again”). This shift correlated with a 40% drop in student verbal elaboration, as coded via the CLASS Pre-K Emotional Support and Instructional Support domains.

National Policy Influence and Technical Assistance

Since 2021, Peretz has served as a Senior Advisor to the National Center on Improving Literacy (NCIL), a cooperative agreement between the U.S. Department of Education and the American Institutes for Research. In this role, she co-authored NCIL’s 2023 Early Literacy Implementation Playbook, which synthesizes findings from 31 state-level literacy initiatives. The Playbook includes decision trees for selecting screening tools—recommending the DIBELS 8th Edition for universal screening in K–2 due to its strong predictive validity (AUC = 0.89 for third-grade reading proficiency) and its efficient administration time (under 3 minutes per student).

Partnerships with Assessment Providers

Peretz collaborated directly with NWEA to calibrate the MAP Growth Early Literacy assessment for pre-K use. Her team analyzed item response theory (IRT) parameters across 78,000 test administrations and recommended removing 11 items with differential item functioning (DIF) against Spanish-speaking learners. Post-revision, the assessment’s classification accuracy for identifying students at risk for reading difficulty improved from 72% to 89%, as validated against the Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Oral Language.

Head Start Collaboration Outcomes

From 2020 to 2023, Peretz directed the Head Start Cares initiative, supporting 112 grantee agencies in implementing evidence-based practices. Participating programs reported measurable improvements: average CLASS Instructional Support scores rose from 3.2 to 5.7 on a 7-point scale; family engagement (measured by attendance at parent–teacher conferences and completion of home literacy activity logs) increased by 44%; and kindergarten readiness scores on the Desired Results Developmental Profile (DRDP) climbed from the 41st to the 63rd percentile nationally.

Measurable Outcomes Across Settings

The cumulative impact of Peretz’s work is reflected in quantifiable outcomes across diverse contexts. Below is a summary of key metrics derived from peer-reviewed publications, federal evaluations, and district-level implementation reports:

These numbers reflect more than statistical significance—they represent concrete shifts in opportunity. For example, a d = 0.54 effect on PLS-5 translates to approximately 8.3 additional expressive vocabulary words for a child at the 50th percentile—enough to close the gap with peers from higher-resource backgrounds by 62%, according to normative growth curves.

Peretz’s approach rejects one-size-fits-all mandates. Instead, she champions what she terms “precision adaptation”: maintaining core active ingredients (e.g., consistent use of decontextualized language, predictable transition cues) while permitting local customization of materials, pacing, and cultural references. In New Mexico, for instance, Literacy Launchpad units were adapted to include Tewa-language story stems and land-based numeracy activities developed with Pueblo educators—resulting in a 27% increase in family participation rates compared to the national average.

Her commitment to equity is operationalized through access design. All professional learning resources—including video exemplars, fidelity checklists, and multilingual family handouts—are hosted on a free, mobile-optimized platform (launched in 2021) that requires no login and functions offline. As of June 2024, the site has served 247,000 unique users across all 50 U.S. states and 17 countries, with 41% of sessions originating from devices with screen readers or voice navigation enabled.

Peretz’s influence extends into preservice preparation. She co-developed the University of Michigan’s Early Childhood Pedagogy Sequence, a 3-course sequence requiring undergraduates to conduct micro-teaching cycles with real children, analyze video-recorded interactions using CLASS coding rubrics, and revise lesson plans based on formative feedback. Between 2020 and 2024, 92% of graduates who entered early childhood teaching roles reported implementing at least two Peretz-aligned strategies within their first semester—most commonly the Narrative Builders routine and the 3-2-1 Transition.

She actively challenges deficit narratives about marginalized learners. In a 2022 keynote to the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), she presented data showing that children in high-poverty classrooms demonstrated equal or greater growth in inferential questioning when teachers used her Question Ladder framework—which sequences prompts from literal (“What color was the bear?”) to evaluative (“Was the bear’s choice fair? Why or why not?”)—than peers in affluent districts. The difference lay not in capacity, but in opportunity: affluent classrooms averaged 8.3 inferential prompts per 30-minute read-aloud, versus 2.1 in under-resourced settings before intervention.

Peretz’s current work focuses on sustainable implementation science. Her 2024 IES grant ($3.2M) tests a “coach-the-coach” model in rural Appalachia, training regional education service agency staff to support district-level literacy leaders. Preliminary data from Year 1 shows that trained coaches delivered 3.7 times more actionable feedback per observation than untrained peers—and that their teacher mentees implemented evidence-based strategies with 89% fidelity, versus 54% in control districts.

She emphasizes that effective early childhood practice is neither intuitive nor incidental—it is learnable, measurable, and replicable. Her body of work demonstrates that when developmental science informs design, and design respects context, the result is not incremental improvement but systemic uplift: stronger language foundations, sharper executive function, deeper engagement, and demonstrably wider pathways to academic success.

Resources and Further Reading

Educators, researchers, and policymakers seeking to apply Peretz’s insights can access the following vetted resources:

• Free Implementation Hub: peretz-lab.education.umich.edu/resources — Includes downloadable lesson templates, fidelity trackers, multilingual family guides (English, Spanish, Arabic, Hmong), and annotated video libraries.
• Peer-Reviewed Publications: A curated list of 24 open-access articles, including her 2021 meta-analysis on oral language interventions in Review of Educational Research (n = 127 studies, k = 214 effect sizes).
• CLASS-Aligned Observation Tools: Downloadable versions of the CLASS Mini-Observation Protocol and the Narrative Interaction Coding Scheme (NICS), both validated against gold-standard reliability thresholds (≥90% inter-rater agreement across 3 coders).
• State Policy Briefs: Co-authored briefs for 12 state departments of education, detailing alignment between Peretz’s frameworks and state-specific early learning standards (e.g., Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines, California Preschool Learning Foundations).

For graduate students and researchers, the Peretz Lab maintains a public data repository on the Open Science Framework (OSF) containing de-identified datasets from all major trials—including raw behavioral codes, audio transcripts (with IRB-approved consent), and assessment metadata. As of July 2024, the repository hosts 4.2 terabytes of analyzable material, with documentation compliant with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable).

A Legacy Built on Evidence and Empathy

Holly Peretz’s contributions resist easy categorization. She is not solely a lab scientist, nor only a curriculum developer, nor exclusively a policy advisor. She is a translator—of neurocognitive findings into pedagogical moves, of classroom complexity into measurable levers, of structural inequity into actionable design criteria. Her work consistently centers what children actually do and say: the length of a child’s spontaneous sentence, the latency before they raise a hand to answer a why-question, the number of times they reference story characters’ feelings during play. These micro-behaviors, aggregated across thousands of observations, form the empirical backbone of her recommendations.

Her influence is visible in subtle but consequential ways: in a Detroit preschool where teachers now pause for 4 seconds—not 1—after asking inferential questions; in a New Mexico Head Start center where bilingual storyboards hang at children’s eye level alongside tactile vocabulary cards; in a rural Kentucky district where literacy coaches use tablet-based fidelity dashboards to adjust support in real time. These are not isolated innovations. They are nodes in a growing network of practice grounded in evidence—not ideology, not tradition, not convenience—but in what reliably works for children, especially those whom systems have historically underserved.

At its core, Peretz’s scholarship affirms a simple yet radical proposition: that every child’s developing mind deserves interventions designed with the same rigor applied to pharmaceutical trials or aerospace engineering. And that when we meet that standard—not occasionally, but systemically—we don’t just improve test scores. We expand the range of thoughts children believe they’re allowed to think, the kinds of stories they feel authorized to tell, and the futures they recognize as possible for themselves.