Carol McDonald Connor (February 21, 1953 – May 14, 2020) was an educational psychologist known for her research contributions to the field of early literacy development in diverse learners, in particular for work on individualized student instruction interventions[1] and the lattice model of reading development.
[2][3] She held the position of Chancellor's Faculty and Equity Advisor in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine.
[8] She received her PhD in language, Literacy, and Culture from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2002, under the supervision of Holly K.
[8] In 2004, Connor was the Principal Investigator of a three-year grant from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) to develop the Individualized Student Instruction (ISI) intervention system, which includes the A2i software.
[11][12] Connor borrowed the concept of a Lattice Model from the field of Economics and applied it to the development of reading comprehension.
[3] She developed and applied this model during her time working on the Florida State University team of the IES Reading for Understanding Research Initiative with Principal Investigator Christopher J.
[3][13] In 2017, Connor received a four-year IES grant to develop electronic-books intended to provide adaptive support to improve reading comprehension, including strategies such as word learning, question generation, and summarization.
[16] The Network describes it as "an innovative, multidimensional assessment system" that will "generate reports to match effective recommended instructional practices with observed learning opportunities.