Overview
Alice Klein is a national expert in early mathematical development and education, with a focus on designing effective interventions and practices that will enhance the math knowledge of children from underserved communities. Klein has been conducting rigorous research to examine the effectiveness of curricular interventions for 25 years, and she has broad experience developing curricula, implementation tools and assessment instruments in early mathematics.
As Co-Director of the Center for Early Learning, Klein has led multiple research projects funded by the U.S. Department of Education, including a recent randomized trial to examine the effectiveness of Pre-K Mathematics at a national level of scale. Pre-K Mathematics, an early mathematics curriculum that Klein developed with Prentice Starkey, has been tested in multiple randomized studies and found to have significant and substantively important impacts on math outcomes for children. Pre-K Mathematics has received the highest rating of effectiveness from the What Works Clearinghouse. Klein is also co-author with Nancy Jordan and Chun-Wei Huang of a screening instrument, the Screener for Early Number Sense (SENS), to identify children at risk for mathematical difficulties in early elementary school. The SENS is published by the Hammill Institute on Disabilities.
Prior to joining WestEd, Klein was a research psychologist in the Institute of Human Development at UC Berkeley. In addition to conducting research studies, she also taught at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara. Klein brings a deep knowledge of research methodology to conducting rigorous evaluations of educational interventions at WestEd.
Education
- Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Berkeley
- PhD in developmental psychology, Graduate Center of the City University of New York
- BA, Douglass College, Rutgers University
Select Publications
Jordan, N., Klein, A., & Huang, C.-W. (2024). Screener for early number sense. Hammill Institute on Disabilities.
Starkey, P., Klein, A., Clarke, B., Baker, S., & Thomas, J. (2022). Effects of early mathematics intervention for low-SES pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students: A replication study. Educational Research and Evaluation, 27.
Klein, A., Starkey, P., & DeFlorio, L. (2019). Improving the mathematical knowledge of at-risk preschool children: Two approaches to intensifying early math intervention. In D. Geary & D. B. Berch (Eds.), Informal and formal mathematics interventions: Cognitive foundations (Vol. 5). Academic Press.
Barnes, M. A., Klein, A., Swank, P., Starkey, P., McCandliss, B., Flynn, K., Zucker, T., Huang, K., Fall, A. M., & Roberts, G. (2016). Effects of tutorial interventions in mathematics and attention for low-performing preschool children. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 9(4), 577–606.
Klein, A., Starkey, P., Clements, D., Sarama, J., & Iyer, R. (2008). Effects of a pre-kindergarten mathematics intervention: A randomized experiment. Journal for Research on Educational Effectiveness, 1, 155–178.
Honors, Awards, and Affiliations
Served as Principal Investigator for Elementary School Mathematics on the What Works Clearinghouse
Member of IES Grant Review Panel for STEM Education
