Fleur Harris

Fleur Harris, PhD, has 33 years of speech-language therapy and early childhood education experience, specialising in language and literacy learning, and tertiary teaching. Since completing her PhD in language and literacy learning for Maori children (New Zealand’s indigenous people), Fleur has focused particularly on how educators can create education contexts that are linguistically and culturally appropriate for children from a range of diverse backgrounds. She is also particularly interested in bilingualism and how bilingualism influences language and literacy learning. Fleur is currently an adjunct fellow with the Communication Disorders Department, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, and a freelance early childhood education consultant. Previously, she lectured at the Institute of Early Childhood at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, and in early childhood education at the College of Education, University of Canterbury.