Dr Lee Ka Yan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. She teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses on language and literacy education, including courses on the teaching of reading and writing, children's literature, and curriculum planning for language subjects in primary and secondary schools. Her teaching places particular emphasis on helping trainee teachers recognise the different literacy needs of individual pupils in a mixed-ability classroom.
Her research looks at how young learners in Hong Kong acquire literacy across Chinese and English, and at the classroom conditions that support struggling readers before difficulties become entrenched. She works with local primary schools on classroom-based literacy interventions, and with kindergartens on early language enrichment programmes, drawing on this school-based work to inform her teaching materials and course design. She has a continuing interest in how everyday classroom talk, rather than formal instruction alone, contributes to early language development.
Within the Faculty, Dr Lee supervises postgraduate students researching language and literacy education, contributes to the department's curriculum panel for language teacher education, and takes part in professional development workshops that support serving teachers in developing reading and writing instruction in their schools. She also assists with the department's review of practicum arrangements for students specialising in language subjects.