Dr. Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan is a Bilingual Speech Language Pathologist and a Certified Academic Language Therapist. She is the Director of Valley Speech Language and Learning Center in Brownsville, Texas. She works with Texas Institute for Measurement Evaluation and Statistics at the University of Houston and is the author of Esperanza (HOPE), a Spanish language program designed to assist students who struggle with learning to read. Her research interests include the development of early reading assessments for Spanish-speaking students and the development of reading interventions for bilingual students. She was the co-principal investigator of a study funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Institute for Education Science that examined the oracy and literacy development in English and Spanish of Spanish-speaking children. She serves as the Vice President for the International Dyslexia Association and has authored curricular programs, book chapters, and journal articles related to oracy and literacy development for English language learners.