Marilyn Jager Adams is author of Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning About Print, Phonemic Awareness in Young Children, and is the Literacy Advisor for PBS's Sesame Street and "Between the Lions". She has been on the Planning or Steering Committee for the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) since 1992, and is currently charged with developing a vocabulary assessment for the NAAL (National Assessment of Adult Literacy). Her primary research is currently focused on uses of automatic speech recognition as both research tool for understanding reading development and as an instructional resource for providing one-on-one reading and comprehension support. Ms. Adams is a Visiting Professor in the Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences Department at Brown University and Chief Scientist for Soliloquy Learning, Inc. She holds a Ph.D. from Brown University in cognitive and developmental psychology.