Tsvia Walden

Tsvia Walden

Tsvia Walden (Hebrew: צביה ולדן‎; born on October 20, 1946) is an Israeli psycholinguist. She is a senior lecturer at Beit Berl^[1] Academic College and Ben-Gurion University.

Biography

Walden specializes in child language, literacy and computer applications in language and literacy acquisition. She is the creator and presenter of popular TV series about language instruction and language acquisition. Recently she was among the creators of a five episode series London corner of Ben Yehuda.^[2] She was among the founders of the pluralistic Beit Midrash Kolot (Voices), where she studied and taught Jewish Texts for over 12 years. In 2010 Walden was conferred an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew Union College.^[3] In addition to her professional work, she is involved in promoting active listening and dialogue through social issues such as promoting human rights, the Middle East peace process and feminist action.

Walden earned her doctoral degree in Psycholinguistics at Harvard University in 1981 and a B.A. in Psychology, as well as a teaching certificate in French, at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem where she also taught Hebrew as a second language. Dr. Walden is the eldest daughter of Shimon Peres the president of the State of Israel and his late wife Sonia. Walden is married to Professor Raphael Walden, Vascular Surgeon and deputy director of the Sheba Medical Center, Co-Chair of Physicians for Human Rights.

Professional work

Walden was among the promoters of Whole Language, advocating the use of books rather than textbooks for reading instruction. She founded the publication Written Thoughts, established the Child Language Center at Beit Berl College in 1984 and the Institute for Whole Language and Computers in 1996.

Writing

Walden edited some key publications in the area of Literacy. She wrote, translated and edited children's books from French, Italian and English

Some Books and Publications

• Emergent Literacy - Practice and Reflections(ed.) C.L.C: Beit Berl College, 1984 (in Hebrew)
• Word of Action: Whole Language North and South of Israel, Yesod: Holon, 2000 (in Hebrew)
• From Speech to Writing. On the Way to Literacy (with Nurit Peled-Elhanan), Carmel: Jerusalem, 1996 (in Hebrew)
• At Teachers' Expense: Gender and Power in Israeli Education (with Esther Herzog), Carmel: Jerusalem, 2010 (in Hebrew)
• Parole D'Israélienne - Langue Promise sur une Terre Maternelle. Plon: Paris, 2001 (in French)
• Behukotai- If Ye Walk in My Statutes, in Naftali Rothenberg (ed.) Wisdom by the Week. Yeshiva University Press and the Van Leer Institute: N.Y. and Jerusalem, 2011 (in English)

External links

• Honorary Doctorate from Hebrew Union College
• Reading together
• Language development
• Language development starts even earlier

References