Emily J. Solari is associate professor of education. She serves as the director of the Reading and Academic Development Center and is an affiliated faculty member at the MIND Institute. Her research focuses on language and reading development in students considered at risk for reading failure, including Spanish-speaking English learners who also have reading difficulties or a reading disability. Her current research project stems from a four year grant  from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) testing the efficacy of Reading RULES, a program developed by Solari and colleagues for first-grade students who are at risk for reading difficulties in word reading and comprehension, in authentic classroom settings. Recently, she also received  seed funding through the UC Davis Committee on Research to test the applicability of Building Vocabulary and Early Reading Strategies, an intervention develop with a previous IES grant,  for use with elementary school-age children with autism spectrum disorders at-risk for comprehension difficulties.