Alice Klein is a Senior Project Director on WestEd’s Mathematics content area team and a Co-Director of the Center for Early Learning at WestEd. Klein has studied early mathematical development for three decades. Her research focuses on educational interventions to enhance the mathematical knowledge of preschool and kindergarten children from underserved communities. She has a particular interest in low-performing students and the most effective ways to prepare them for standards-based mathematics instruction in elementary school. Her current research focuses on the rigorous evaluation of large-scale math interventions and multitiered systems of support for low-performing students who are at-risk for mathematical difficulties in school.
Klein coauthored with Prentice Starkey an early mathematics curriculum, Pre-K Mathematics, which has been tested in multiple randomized trials and received the highest rating of effectiveness from the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). She has also developed an effective tier 2 tutoring intervention, Pre-K Mathematics Tutorial, which was examined in a prior randomized study and rated as effective by the WWC. It is currently being examined in a rigorous replication study with Kylie Flynn.
Klein has assessment expertise as well. She developed the Child Math Assessment with Nancy Jordan to measure young children’s informal mathematical knowledge, and the Screener for Early Number Sense to identify children at risk for mathematical difficulties in early elementary school. She served on the What Works Clearinghouse as Principal Investigator for Elementary School Mathematics, and on IES grant review panels, and she has published numerous articles on early mathematical development and education.
Prior to joining WestEd, Klein was a Research Psychologist in the Institute of Human Development at University of California (UC) Berkeley and taught at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara.
Klein received a PhD in developmental psychology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.