Professor Gita Martohardjono Receives $1.48M Grant From NYSED

Professor Emeritus Gita Martohardjono (Linguistics), was awarded $1,148,000 for 2022–23 by the New York State Education Department (NYSED) for continuing to maintain and develop the Multilingual Literacy SIFE Screener (MLS), a digital, semi-adaptive literacy and math skills assessment in 18 languages: Arabic, Bengali, Burmese, Chinese, Dari, English, French, Fula, Haitian Creole, Maay-Maay, Nepali, Pashto, Russian, S’gaw Karen, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, and Urdu.

The MLS is designed to gauge early literacy skills, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and math skills in the home language of newly arrived immigrant children entering New York State schools. 

Part of New York State’s SIFE Identification Process, the MLS is strongly recommended for all New York State schools and is being used successfully in over 500 schools throughout the state. More information is available as a webinar, and the MLS is featured prominently on NYSED’s Office of Bilingual Education and World Languages SIFE Resources website.

Contact MLS for more information.

Martohardjono is the director of the Graduate Center's Research Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Society and its Second Language Acquisition Laboratory. She was previously the executive officer of the Linguistics Ph.D. program.