Assistant Professor, Literacy Education
Office: 107G Schindler Education Center, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Phone: (319) 273-2983
Email: sunah.chung@uni.edu
Education: Ph.D. (Curriculum and Instruction), University of Illinois at Chicago
Research Interests: Children's literature (informational literature), Literacy in early childhood
Dr. Sunah Chung’s research concerns children's literacy learning and children’s interpretation of nonfiction picture books while they read. She is specifically interested in the way accompanying visuals can either support or detract from a child’s learning experience, and how caregivers can guide children’s overall understanding of visual content. However, her work is poised to take off in many directions as she integrates other topics into her academic arsenal, such as diversity and biases in children’s literature, and community engaged literacy practices, and technology; creativity.
Chung’s path to literacy and elementary education originates from her time working as an English language teacher in Korea just after earning her B.A. in English Language Education at Chung-Ang University in Seoul. In teaching English to South Korean teens, she found that introducing her students to children’s informational picture books and simple, image-rich biographies enhanced both their language and disciplinary knowledge. “Nonfiction books were much better for them because they could learn basic English and gain factual knowledge at the same time,” she said. Chung’s only problem was finding challenging enough nonfiction picture books in South Korea to interest and motivate her adolescent students.
Then she took another job--this one more oriented towards elementary education-- in a government-funded agency connected to South Korea’s Intellectual Property Office. This agency developed elementary student programs in STEM-related areas that fostered children’s learning and creativity. Her fascination with children’s learning began to grow, and led her to join a developmental psychology lab for a year where the focus was on four to six years old children’s interactions with adults. She considered staying in South Korea and earning her Ph.D. in developmental psychology, but decided to earn her doctorate in the United States instead, choosing a curriculum and instruction Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago. Here, she brought together all her previous influences: instruction using nonfiction children’s books; children’s learning and creativity, elementary education, and children’s interactions. Her dissertation focused on children's nonfiction picture books and how caregivers interact with children when they read nonfiction picture books together.
Dr. Chung began teaching in UNI’s Literacy Education program in 2021. In the U.S., she has found a rich world of English language nonfiction picture books to study and incorporate into her research. Her findings suggest that children can benefit by reading nonfiction books alongside caregivers, who can help them ponder the meaning of visuals, connect their daily experiences with the illustrations and photos, and help them clarify what these visuals mean. “When we think about nonfiction children's literature,” she says, “we believe that all those photographs are meant to support children's learning and understanding of the content. But when I observe children's reading with their caregivers at home, the pictures don’t always support children's comprehension, and misinterpretation sometimes make them even more confused.” Arguing that visuals are as important as texts, Chung advocates that adults encourage children to read and interpret children’s nonfiction book photos and illustrations.
While she continues her line of research having to do with caretaker interaction with children while reading, Chung has also contributed important articles to top literacy journals about the stereotypical visual representations in informational picture books; the diversity of protagonists in ILA book choices; and the biographies of women in the Robert Sibert Award.
She is currently working on analyzing adult readers’ responses to Indigenous picture books. She believes that education for caregivers and educators needs to be aligned with educating children’s literacy development. As adults are the moderators to communicate with children on challenging history in the US, it is vital to learn about adult readers’ responses to Indigenous populations’ life, history, and portrayals in children’s literature. She is also turning back to her roots in English education, this time looking at immigrant populations in the U.S. and considering how nonfiction books can support their English language learning. “Here in America,” she observes, “we have lots of nonfiction literature for children and young adults.,,so that will be my future research: how can we use children's nonfiction books to encourage immigrant children's English language learning while at the same time building up their content knowledge?” Through her research, she seeks to make children's literature more equitable and inclusive and to create learning spaces to develop disciplinary knowledge and literacy.