Directory
Assistant Professor in Reading/Literacy, Early Childhood and Elementary Education
Contact
lpiestrzynski@lsu.edu
123A Peabody Hall
225-578-6324
Education
Bachelor's Degree: Early Childhood Education, University of Illinois, 2001
Master's Degree: Curriculum and Instruction (Language and Literacy), University of Illinois, 2004
PhD: Teaching and Learning (Language, Literacy, and Culture), Vanderbilt University, 2020
Laura Piestrzynski, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Reading/Literacy at Louisiana State University. Dr. Piestrzynski's research focuses on how children develop understandings about literacy and literacy practices, and how educators, families, and learning environments support these processes in meaningful ways
Piestrzynski, L., Skinner, K., & Prudhomme, K. (in press). Expanding children’s opportunities to learn through an urban library-public university partnership. In R. Reardon & J. Leonard (Eds.), Leveraging digital and nondigital resources to enhance the education of students with disabilities. Wiley Publishing.
Skinner, K., Piestrzynski, L., Le, C., Herin, N., Empson, T., Boyle, M., Berryhill, M., & Milam, M. (in press). Generative AI as an instructional tool: A multiple-case study of teachers' experiences co-creating differentiated reading texts with children. Journal of Literacy and Technology.
Dyson, K. & Piestrzynski, L. (2025). The CLASS tool: A framework for fostering emergent writing. Dimensions of Early Childhood, 53(2), 18-25.
Le, C., Skinner, K., Piestrzynski, L., & Nguyen, H. (2025). Literate cultural capital building through father-child shared book reading: An interactional ethnography. Early Childhood Education Journal, 53, 3099-3113. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-025-01873-3
Piestrzynski, L. & Williams, J. (2024). The impact of service-learning engagement on teacher candidates in an elementary education literacy course. Journal of Teacher Education and Educators, 13(1), 5-27.
Rowe, D. W., Piestrzynski, L., Hadd, A., & Reiter, J. (2024). Writing as a path to the alphabetic principle: How preschoolers learn that their own writing represents speech. Reading Research Quarterly, 59(1), 32-56. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.526
Kucirkova, N., Rowe, D. W., Oliver, L., & Piestrzynski, L. (2019). Systematic review of young children’s writing on screen: What do we know and what do we need to know, Literacy, 53(4), 216-225. https://doi.org/10.1111/lit.12173
Piestrzynski, L., Le, C., & Skinner, K. (2025, December). Developing literacy during father-child shared book reading. Literacy Research Association annual meeting, Las Vegas, NV.
Piestrzynski, L., & Williams, J. (2024, December). Using talk to launch message writing in the preschool classroom. Literacy Research Association annual meeting, Atlanta, GA.
Piestrzynski, L., & Williams, J. (2023, April). The impact of service-learning engagement on pre-service teachers in an elementary education literacy course. Gulf South Summit annual meeting, University of Georgia.
Piestrzynski, L. (2022, April). Phonological awareness support during preschoolers’ writing. American Educational Research Association annual meeting, San Diego, CA.
