Karon Harden

Karon Harden is an expert in international education. She has 25 years of experience in language and literacy education, including in teaching, curriculum and materials development, teacher training and coaching, assessment, research, and project management.

Ms. Harden provides technical leadership to the design and implementation of education programs in countries across sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. She has guided the development of teacher guides and student learning materials, teacher and coach training manuals, coaching protocols and tools, and monitoring and evaluation tools, including student and teacher assessments.

She is especially keen to support the creation and proliferation of diverse children's literature in multiple languages and has facilitated writers’ workshops. She is skilled in administering and analyzing results from the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) and Teacher Language and Literacy Assessment (TTLA). Her research interests have focused on language of instruction (LOI) policy and implementation, reading materials inventories and gap analyses, text leveling in less-analyzed languages, and effective coaching models in low- and middle-income countries.

Ms. Harden joined RTI in 2014. Previously, she directed small primary education projects in the Central African Republic and Nigeria. She has also taught linguistics and English as a second language at universities in the United States and Nigeria, as well as at a secondary school in Cameroon as a Peace Corps Volunteer. She is fluent in English, French, Fulfulde, and Sango.