“What happens in a person's mind when he reads?”
Hilde completed her teacher training at the Zeeland University of Applied Sciences. There the interest she already had in language was further stimulated and that is why she went on to study Dutch language and literature at Utrecht University. She chose to specialize in communication science. Her graduation research was about the influence of text structure on the understanding and appreciation of textbook texts in pre-vocational secondary education.
She worked in primary education for ten years and was a Dutch teacher at the Primary Education Teacher training course at the Zeeland University of Applied Sciences from 2012 to 2024. In the autumn of 2024 she will start as a senior researcher at the Excellence and Innovation in Education lectureship.
Hilde is interested in language development and in particular in how text comprehension is achieved and how education can use this knowledge. Based on this interest and the expertise she has built up during her PhD research, she is project leader of the Workshop for Educational Research on Reading Skills, in which teachers from primary education, secondary education, secondary vocational education and Zeeland libraries work together to strengthen their reading education. She also participates in a complementary study into Collaborative investigative work in regional networks (NRO), in which she follows the learning network 'reading with understanding and involvement' in Amsterdam.
Hilde's PhD research at Utrecht University is in the final phase. In this research project she conducted research into possibilities to integrate reading education into science & technology lessons in upper primary education. The focus was on learning knowledge about the structure of informative texts.