Spencer Foundation awards literacy professor $60,000 grant

Feb. 6, 2026 — DENTON — The Spencer Foundation awarded a $60,000 grant to Nancy Anderson, PhD, to support research on how children process sounds in literacy.
 
“Affirming, energizing and surprising in the best way,” Anderson said, describing her first thoughts when she heard the news. “I was honored the foundation saw the potential in my study.”
 
Anderson, a professor in Literacy & Language in the School of Education, will study how children use sounds while they write, not just in short, isolated test settings.
 
“Watching children write tells us much more about what they know and can do,” Anderson said. “Capturing and communicating the complexity of those moments is central to my research.”
 
Ultimately, the research will benefit young children and their teachers. Anderson hopes to better understand how phonological processing develops during writing and to create a tool to help teachers notice and build on what children are already doing well.
 
“We are very excited about Dr. Anderson’s Spencer Foundation award,” said College of Professional Education Dean Brigitte Vittrup, PhD. “Spencer grants support significant educational research projects, and they are very competitive. This is great recognition for Dr. Anderson and her work in early literacy.”
 
School of Education Director Juan Araujo, PhD, added, “Earning a Spencer Foundation grant is a phenomenal achievement in the field of education. It signals the highest level of research inquiry and practice.”
 
For Anderson, she is excited that her research is rooted in real classroom settings, and that the Spencer Foundation valued that.
 
“I think it reflects a commitment to careful, classroom-connected research that takes young children seriously as learners. Spencer values work that pushes thinking while staying grounded in real educational contexts, and that’s exactly what I aim to do,” she said. “This project is rooted in long-standing partnerships with teachers and schools. It reflects my commitment to research that stays close to classrooms and honors how children actually learn.”
 
The grant will fund research time, a doctoral research assistant, teacher collaboration, participant support and analytic tools. Anderson will provide graduate students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience while she uses video-based analysis and collaborates with teachers.
 
“That kind of deep, iterative, design-based work simply isn’t possible without dedicated funding,” Anderson said.

Page last updated 5:27 PM, February 6, 2026