Drs. Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek present the theory and playful learning principles behind Making Schools Work, their new book.

Dr. Golinkoff and her team created Stories with Clever Hedgehog funded by the  Jacobs Foundation grant. Ebooks, fun facts, and music are available on the site in Ukrainian and English.

Fostering Language Development and Literacy in Times of War:  Access to E-Books for Ukrainian Children After food, shelter, and safety, parents worry about their children’s education in wartime. We received […]

Roberta’s talk was titled, “What Do I See? How Language Learners View the World’s Events”. This conference took place in Girona, Spain from September 7-9, 2022.

A meeting of the Learning Sciences Exchange (LSX) took place in June of 2022. Pictured left to right: Roberta with Elise Franchino, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Cathrin Jerie, and Lisa Guernsey.

Corpus Christi, TX welcomed Roberta in June of 2022 to speak at the Texas School Ready Early Childhood Institute about why playful learning makes for a superior educational experience.

Roberta went to Verona, Italy in May of 2022 to consult with faculty at the University of Verona about making an Italian version of the BabyQUILS.

Roberta was recently featured in a video that won a Cannes Lions award! The video describes a campaign, “H is for Handwashing” that teaching children the importance of handwashing from […]

Roberta was recently elected to membership in the National Academy of Education!  The Academy consists of U.S. members and international associates who are elected on the basis of outstanding scholarship […]

Roberta recently presented a talk on new pathways to educational reform as a part of the Distinguished Lectures in Humanities at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Roberta was recently featured in an article in Edutopia by Connor Williams for her work on the consequences of denying the 30 million word gap!

Roberta recently presented a talk on the effects of bilingualism on infants’ sensitivity to ground information at the Experiments in Linguistic Meaning conference, hosted virtually by the University of Pennsylvania. […]

Roberta was recently a guest panelist for WWO’s September Virtual Event, where she spoke about the transformative power of play. Click “Read Full Story” to see the event!

Roberta and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek recently helped organize the Learning Sciences Exchange Summit. The summit featured the Learning Sciences Exchange fellows’ projects, which aimed to tackle the communication gap between researchers and […]

In their piece for the Brookings Institution, Roberta, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, and and Michael Yogman discuss the risk-benefit calculus of opening schools for Fall 2020.

Roberta and Marcia Halperin wrote a piece for Child and Family Blog on young children’s opinions of remote learning.

Roberta, Helen Shwe Hadani, and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek wrote a piece for the Brookings Institution on recovering from learning losses due to COVID-19 and school closures.

Roberta’s opinion piece in the News Journal details the benefits of taking play outside and provides ideas of how adults and children can engage in educational and entertaining outdoor activities.

In their blog post for The Hechinger Report, Roberta and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek outlined steps policymakers in the United States could take to end the “war on childhood” and reduce inequality.

Roberta and Alexandra Tabachnick, a UD Psychological and Brain Sciences doctoral student, wrote an opinion piece in the News Journal on the opioid crisis and cycles of family trauma.

Black lives matter.  Racism is a pandemic.  We all bleed the same color blood.   These words were seen on signs held up during the protests sparked by the horrendous […]

Listen to Roberta talk about the importance of playful learning while in Stavanger, Norway to present at the University of Stavanger’s Filorium conference!

The building block has been such a fact of American childhood for so long, it’s easy to dismiss the humble little cube as irrelevant, particularly in light of fancy newer […]

Did you know your baby is a genius? It’s a serious question, one that University of Delaware professor Roberta Michnick Golinkoff has been asking parents since she arrived on campus […]

The pressure to over-program kids often seems endless – so much so that a simple, old-fashioned idea has fallen to the side: Children should play. Roberta Michnick Golinkoff & Kathy […]

Roberta and her collaborator, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, partnered with Sesame Street to create “Esme and Roy,” a Sesame Workshop series for HBO on guided play!

Roberta recently wrote a blog post with Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Virginia Rauh on the consequences of the treatment of the children at the border for the Brookings Center for Universal […]

Research Roberta and her colleagues conducted on parental language differences when playing with a traditional or electronic shape sorter toy was recently featured in a video from Child Trends!

The American Educational Research Association (AERA) recently announced Roberta as 1 of 10 scholars selected as 2019 AERA Fellows, recognizing her notable and sustained research achievements.

Roberta was recently elected a fellow of the Cognitive Science Society, recognizing the impact and excellence of her research in cognitive science.

Roberta gave a seminar at the University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Education. She discussed the exciting new language screener, the QUILS (Quick Interactive Language Screener), that she developed […]

Roberta spoke at the University of California, Davis as part of their Developmental Psychology Brown Bag Series!

Roberta was recently on the podcast uh-Parent-ly talking about how unstructured play helps children learn and grow on the way to adulthood.

Roberta and her longtime collaborator, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, were recently featured in a special edition of Perspectives on Psychological Science detailing their success at designing public spaces to foster learning.

Roberta appeared on the podcast, Your Parenting Mojo, and discussed the concept of the 30 Million Word Gap and the importance of child-directed speech.

Roberta and her collaborators published a report with the American Academy of Pediatrics on the benefits of play for children that was recently featured in the New York Times.

Roberta appeared on Morning Dose, a nationally syndicated live TV morning show, to discuss how to foster healthy relationships between young siblings. Check out Morning Dose at facebook.com/morningdosetv and @morningdosetv . […]

Roberta was recently invited to Washington, DC to give a congressional briefing. Called for by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Congressman Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee, the briefing was organized […]

Just as we have rules for watching media and playing video games, we can have rules for cell phone usage. Discussing these with children and occasionally negotiating too, helps them […]

Roberta was invited to speak at the inauguration of the new University of Delaware president, Dennis Assanis, on December 7th, 2016. The academic symposium, titled “Ideas that Dare to Change the […]

Early math needs to be promoted in the same way that early language and emergent literacy have been promoted over the past decades. We need to foster the ABCs and […]

Access to universal Pre-K, while critical in early childhood education — is not enough to raise floor for every child.  With overwhelming public support and political will, it is time […]

Dr. Roberta Golinkoff and Dr. Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek’s book, Becoming Brilliant: What science tells us about raising successful children just launched at The Brookings Institution.  Click here to learn more about this achievement!

“Why are traffic lights red, yellow and green?” When a child asks you a question like this, you have a few options. You can shut her down with a “Just […]

Today, parents wanting the best for their children’s intellectual development can turn to a number of “educational” digital apps, a variety of “brain-based” teaching strategies and curricula, and a never-ending […]

Imagine someone telling you that a new technology would be available in five years that has the potential to revolutionize childhood and early education. But the downside is that you […]

With the advent of tablet apps for children, parents may be tempted to forgo purchasing those blocks and puzzles that have been staples in children’s toy chests for centuries. A […]

Lucas Sherman and Aniyah McKenzie are building a house in Central Park. It is small, even by Manhattan standards, and the amenities leave something to be desired. But Lucas, who […]

“We’ve always assumed play and learning are divorced— but really, they’re really not.  As opposed to saying ‘Learning vs. Play,’ we should be saying ‘Learning via Play.’”  Here more of […]