Sebastian Wren, Ph.D.

Dana Center Role

Sebastian serves as the senior program coordinator for research and development for Literacy First, a program of the Center dedicated to ensuring that all students learn to read by the end of second grade, allowing them to realize their full potential. His duties include facilitating the development of intervention curricula and managing the program’s assessment and data systems. Sebastian works to support Literacy First’s mission of providing high-quality reading interventions to young, underserved students in high-needs schools, ensuring they can better take advantage of public education opportunities.

Before Joining the Dana Center

Sebastian has worked in education since 1989, with a break in the ‘90s to attend graduate school. Before joining Literacy First, he held various positions, including administrator at a Title I elementary school, language arts curriculum specialist, instructional coach, and individualized instructor of all subjects for adolescent patients in a long-term psychiatric care unit. After graduate school, he was part of a team that was contracted to research systemic and sustained school-improvement models and data-driven decision-making for the U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Research and Improvement. He also served as an instructor of Statistics and Research Methods, the Psychology of Reading, Sensation, and Perception, and Methods of Reading Assessment at The University of Texas at Austin and Texas State University.

Education

• Ph.D., Psychology and Neuroscience, The University of Texas at Austin
• B.A., Psychology, The University of Texas at San Antonio

Selected Publications

• Wren, S., & Like, B. (2006). Reading assessment database for grades preK–3 [Database]. SEDL and American Institutes for Research.
• Wren, S., Litke, B., Jinkins, D., Paynter, S., Watts, J., & Alanis, I. (2000). The cognitive foundations of learning to read: A framework. SEDL Archive.

Developed Curriculum

• Literacy First Phonics: Levels I, II, & III