Welcome, Shuqi!

Shuqi Yu is the newest member of the Language and Literacy Team, joining the lab as a postdoctoral researcher. Shuqi graduated her PhD from Human Development and Family Science at Virginia Tech in the United States and earned her B.S. degree in Department of Psychology at Beijing Normal University in Beijing, China.

To get to know Shuqi, we asked: what has your reading journey been like?

“When I was a child, my greatest joy was found in stories—whether from cartoons or from books. While the stories on television would end when the screen went dark, books felt like an endless ocean of imagination.

Each morning, my best friend and I would walk to school, reenacting scenes from the stories we had read or watched. When those stories ended, we created our own — expanding the worlds, weaving new plots, and inviting our classmates to join when we had simply made too many characters (I know!).

Through these spontaneous beginnings, I began to see the quiet thread that connects reading and creating. They have since stayed as a part of my life. As the forms of media continue to evolve, I remain someone who still finds the greatest joy in a physical, printed book (so sad). Yet, it makes me more curious about how children will learn to read and write anew in this digital age.

With my background, I hope to support children’s language and literacy development—to scaffold them discover, in new mediums, the same joy, or perhaps even greater joy, that once filled my childhood heart.”

Welcome to the team, Shuqi!