Impact of an Early Reading First program on the language and literacy achievement of children from diverse language backgrounds,⋆⋆

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2013.03.006Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We evaluate the effectiveness of a preschool program on language and literacy achievement.

  • The program had significant effects on most outcomes for ELL students.

  • On oral comprehension, preschool did not have a significant impact for ELL students.

  • For the native English speakers, the effects of preschool were not as pronounced or consistent.

  • There were significant effects for native English speakers on literacy and print-related tasks.

Abstract

This study used an age-cutoff regression discontinuity design to examine the impact of a well-resourced Early Reading First prekindergarten program designed to foster the language and literacy development of 4-year-old children from low-income homes. A special challenge for the application of the language-rich curriculum and professional development package implemented in this study was the presence of a large proportion of ELL children in essentially English-speaking classrooms. We, therefore, sought to determine whether the program was effective for improving English language and literacy outcomes for English-language learners as well as native English speakers. There were large and significant differences between treatment and control groups on literacy outcomes for all students. On the literacy tasks, ELL students in the treatment groups performed nearly as well or better than non-ELL students at the beginning of kindergarten, and reached national norms on standardized tests. There were also significant program impacts on some language outcomes for all students. ELL students who received the intervention significantly outperformed ELL students in the control groups on English receptive and expressive vocabulary. On the more complex oral comprehension skills, preschool did not have a significant impact for ELL students. Intervention effects on receptive vocabulary and oral comprehension for native speakers were found only for the third cohort and were not found for expressive vocabulary. These results provide evidence that, given material supports, coaching, professional development, and the use of a language and literacy-focused curriculum, prekindergarten classrooms can enable low-SES children from diverse language backgrounds to enter kindergarten with literacy skills at or near national norms and can significantly impact some language skills. While non-native speakers of English continued to score lower on language measures than their native-speaking peers, results show that 1 year of preschool can put all children on a positive trajectory for long-term success in school.

Section snippets

Early language and literacy skills

Longitudinal studies consistently find strong predictive relationships between early skills in language, literacy, and mathematics and later performance in school (Duncan et al., 2007, LaParo and Pianta, 2000, National Early, 2008). Clusters of literacy- and language-related variables appear to be among the strongest predictors of later school performance. Kurdek and Sinclair (2000), for instance, found that verbal readiness at kindergarten entry was the strongest predictor of first through

Can preschools enhance language and literacy development?

Largely as a result of the research on the importance of early academic competencies, prekindergarten programs and prekindergarten attendance have increased rapidly in the past 20 years; there are now state-funded programs in more than three-fourths of the states (Barnett, Hustedt, Friedman, Boyd, & Ainsworth, 2007). With income requirements in over 70% of these state-funded programs, many more disadvantaged children have access to preschool than ever before. At the same time, government

Efforts to improve preschool quality

Our program was guided by several recent programmatic and professional development efforts that have been made to enhance the impact of preschool on both literacy and language development. Among the variety of enhancements for improving preschool, coaching appears to be important to all successful endeavors and has been used in interventions that improved classroom quality and teaching (Dickinson and Caswell, 2007, Girolametto et al., 2003, Hsieh et al., 2009, Jackson et al., 2006, Justice et

Can preschools enhance language and literacy development for English-language learners?

For English-language learners, preschool attendance shows positive effects and may be particularly important for preparing these children to get the full benefits of kindergarten. For example, Gormley’s (2008) work on the effects of preschool for Hispanic children found significant effects for preschool on English letter knowledge and phonological awareness, with larger effects for children at highest risk (i.e., those whose parents were born in Mexico and those who spoke Spanish at home). Work

The current study

The concept behind Early Reading First funding was that existing preschool programs could improve school readiness for low-SES preschoolers via enhanced professional development and the use of evidence-based curricula. Given that few Early Reading First programs were evaluated with rigorous designs, however, our knowledge of the effectiveness of the package of curriculum, professional development, and coaching is limited, especially for English-language learners. One objective of the present

Regression discontinuity designs

The age-based eligibility requirement for Early Reading First prekindergarten programs makes the programs suitable for evaluation using a regression discontinuity design, the approach we adopted. Regression discontinuity designs revolve around a selection variable that determines each participant’s assignment to a treatment or control condition depending on whether that individual’s score is above or below a designated cutting point on the selection variable (Imbens and Lemieux, 2008, Shadish

Research design

The evaluation of the Enhanced Language and Literacy Success (ELLS) project was designed as an independent evaluation of the program and was directed by the first author. All aspects of the evaluation design, data collection on students, classroom observations, and data analysis were conducted independently by the evaluation team. The program itself and the professional development were coordinated and delivered by the second and third authors, who served as co-directors of the ELLS project.

Integrity of the design

Before turning to a discussion of our results, we briefly mention two important issues with regard to the quality of the regression discontinuity design: the integrity of the selection variable and the continuity of the relationship between the selection variable and the outcome (cf. Schochet et al., 2010). We examined the integrity of the selection variable both institutionally and statistically. The institutional integrity of the variable was evident because the birthday cutoff was strictly

Discussion

Returning to our first research question on the effects of a monolingual English-language Early Reading First program on the English literacy achievement of ELL and non-ELL preschoolers, we found that the ELLS program significantly impacted literacy outcomes for both native English speakers and English-language learners. Regarding our second research question on the effects of the Early Reading First program on the English-language achievement of ELL and non-ELL preschoolers, the program was

Possible mechanisms

It is noteworthy that both ELL children and native English speakers achieved significant benefits from prekindergarten in literacy and on some of the language outcomes. This finding provides further evidence that a sustained effort that includes coaching, professional development, and use of a strong curriculum delivered in public schools by certified teachers can have educationally meaningful effects on learning. However, because the counterfactual in the design was no preschool (as opposed to

Concluding thoughts

Our results provide strong evidence that a sustained effort to improve the quality of preschool classrooms that are taught by certified teachers working in public schools can yield major benefits, especially for children learning English. The strong effects on literacy skills may be the result of the combination of efforts to target these skills through games, group demonstrations of writing, and individualized support for writing during small groups and centers time. The effects on vocabulary

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    The Enhanced Language and Literacy Success Project was funded by grant S359B080078 from the U.S. Department of Education.

    ⋆⋆

    Dickinson is a co-author of the curriculum employed in this study; therefore, consistent with Vanderbilt University policies, this paper was reviewed by an external monitor to guard against bias before it was submitted. We thank Linda Espinosa, Jeanne Fain, and Carin Neitzel for their contributions to the project and are grateful to the teachers with whom we collaborated and the literacy coaches who supported them.

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