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Impacts of a Literacy-Focused Preschool Curriculum on the Early Literacy Skills of Language-Minority Children.

ABSTRACT: Spanish-speaking language-minority (LM) children are at an elevated risk of struggling academically and display signs of that risk during early childhood. Therefore, high-quality research is needed to identify instructional techniques that promote the school readiness of Spanish-speaking LM children. The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention that utilized an experimental curriculum and two professional development models for the development of English and Spanish early literacy skills among LM children. We also evaluated whether LM children's proficiency in one language moderated the effect of the intervention on early literacy skills in the other language, as well as whether the intervention was differentially effective for LM and monolingual English-speaking children. Five hundred twenty-six Spanish-speaking LM children and 447 monolingual English-speaking children enrolled in 26 preschool centers in Los Angeles, CA participated in this study. Results indicated that the intervention was effective for improving LM children's code-related but not language-related English early literacy skills. There were no effects of the intervention on children's Spanish early literacy skills. Proficiency in Spanish did not moderate the effect of the intervention for any English early literacy outcomes; however, proficiency in English significantly moderated the effect of the intervention for Spanish oral language skills, such that the effect of the intervention was stronger for children with higher proficiency in English than it was for children with lower proficiency in English. In general, there were not differential effects of the intervention for LM and monolingual children. Taken together, these findings indicate that high-quality, evidence-based instruction can improve the early literacy skills of LM children and that the same instructional techniques are effective for enhancing the early literacy skills of LM and monolingual children.

SUBMITTER: Goodrich JM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5621762 | biostudies-literature | 2017 3rd Quarter

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Impacts of a Literacy-Focused Preschool Curriculum on the Early Literacy Skills of Language-Minority Children.

Goodrich J Marc JM Lonigan Christopher J CJ Farver Jo Ann M JAM

Early childhood research quarterly 20170311

Spanish-speaking language-minority (LM) children are at an elevated risk of struggling academically and display signs of that risk during early childhood. Therefore, high-quality research is needed to identify instructional techniques that promote the school readiness of Spanish-speaking LM children. The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention that utilized an experimental curriculum and two professional development models for the development of English ...[more]

PMID: 28970649

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Project description:Previous research has established a correlation between literacy skills and sign language skills among deaf children raised in signing families, but little research has examined the impact of early signing skills on the rate of growth of emergent literacy in early childhood. A subset of data was extracted from a larger dataset containing national longitudinal data from a three-year investigation of early literacy development of deaf children who were between the ages of three and six at the outset of the study. Selection criteria for inclusion in this limited sample included: 1) being rated as having little or no access to spoken language and 2) being raised in homes in which signs were regularly used as a means of communication (N = 56). Our purpose was twofold: 1) to examine and describe the trajectories of growth in letter and word identification skill for this sample in relation to the participants' initial ages; and 2) to assess the degree to which the presence or deaf parents in the home (DoD) and the receptive American Sign Language (ASL) skills of the participants impacted both the level of emerging print literacy and its rate of growth over the three year period. We hypothesized that both the presence of a deaf parent in the home and the acquisition of ASL skills, a strong native language, would contribute to both the overall letter and word identification skills and to the rates of growth of this skill over time. Results indicated that having a deaf parent did, indeed, impact emergent literacy attainment, but its effect was rendered nonsignificant when ASL skill was taken into consideration. Possession of stronger ASL skills, whether or not the children had deaf parents, contributed significantly to both the levels and rate of growth. The findings contribute to the body of work that emphasizes the importance early language skills (spoken or signed) to later academic success and dispels the myth that deaf children with deaf parents have exclusive access to the acquisition of these skills.

Project description:BackgroundStrong associations between infant vocabulary and school-age language and literacy skills would have important practical and theoretical implications: Preschool assessment of vocabulary skills could be used to identify children at risk of reading and language difficulties, and vocabulary could be viewed as a cognitive foundation for reading. However, evidence to date suggests predictive ability from infant vocabulary to later language and literacy is low. This study provides an investigation into, and interpretation of, the magnitude of such infant to school-age relationships.MethodsThree hundred British infants whose vocabularies were assessed by parent report in the 2nd year of life (between 16 and 24 months) were followed up on average 5 years later (ages ranged from 4 to 9 years), when their vocabulary, phonological and reading skills were measured.ResultsStructural equation modelling of age-regressed scores was used to assess the strength of longitudinal relationships. Infant vocabulary (a latent factor of receptive and expressive vocabulary) was a statistically significant predictor of later vocabulary, phonological awareness, reading accuracy and reading comprehension (accounting for between 4% and 18% of variance). Family risk for language or literacy difficulties explained additional variance in reading (approximately 10%) but not language outcomes.ConclusionsSignificant longitudinal relationships between preliteracy vocabulary knowledge and subsequent reading support the theory that vocabulary is a cognitive foundation of both reading accuracy and reading comprehension. Importantly however, the stability of vocabulary skills from infancy to later childhood is too low to be sufficiently predictive of language outcomes at an individual level - a finding that fits well with the observation that the majority of 'late talkers' resolve their early language difficulties. For reading outcomes, prediction of future difficulties is likely to be improved when considering family history of language/literacy difficulties alongside infant vocabulary levels.

Dataset Information

Impacts of a Literacy-Focused Preschool Curriculum on the Early Literacy Skills of Language-Minority Children.

Publications

Impacts of a Literacy-Focused Preschool Curriculum on the Early Literacy Skills of Language-Minority Children.

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