Quality indicators for effective early intervention in literacy and numeracy

Recent research suggests that multi‐strand and interlinked interventions meet the requirements of early primary school intervention programmes more fully than single programmes. A set of quality indicators, which education authorities and schools can utilize to review and evaluate processes and outcomes of such interventions, is derived from the outcome of an evaluation of the implementation of an early intervention programme (EIP) in literacy and numeracy, involving 274 pupils, in three North Ayrshire primary schools. The implications for primary prevention of difficulties in literacy and numeracy are discussed.     

Examining the literacy component of science literacy: 25 years of language arts and science research

This review, written to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the International Journal of Science Education, revealed a period of changes in the theoretical views of the language arts, the perceived roles of language in science education, and the research approaches used to investigate oral and written language in science, science teaching, and learning. The early years were dominated by behavioralist and logico-mathematical interpretations of human learning and by reductionist research approaches, while the later years reflected an applied cognitive science and constructivist interpretations of learning and a wider array of research approaches that recognizes the holistic nature of teaching and learning. The early years focus on coding oral language into categories reflecting source of speech, functional purpose, level of question and response, reading research focused on the readability of textbooks using formulae and the reader's decoding skills, and writing research was not well documented since the advocates for writing in service of learning were grass roots practitioners and many science teachers were using writing as an evaluation technique. The advent of applied cognitive science and the constructivist perspectives ushered in interactive-constructive models of discourse, reading and writing that more clearly revealed the role of language in science and in science teaching and learning. A review of recent research revealed that the quantity and quality of oral interactions were low and unfocused in science classrooms; reading has expanded to consider comprehension strategies, metacognition, sources other than textbooks, and the design of inquiry environments for classrooms; and writing-to-learn science has focused on sequential writing tasks requiring transformation of ideas to enhance science learning. Several promising trends and future research directions flow from the synthesis of this 25-year period of examining the literacy component of science literacy - among them are critical listening and reading of various sources, multi-media presentations and representations, effective debate and argument, quality explanation and the role of information and communication technologies/environments.     

Developing and extending the literacy of bilingual pupils through the secondary years

Jean Bleach (a secondary English teacher) and Sylvia Riley (a specialist ESL teacher with in-school experience) together make up the ILEA project team, Second Language Learners in the Mainstream Project (10–14). The Project has an action-research orientation exploring and promoting conditions necessary for bilingual learners to develop English in the whole school context.     

Professionals' perceptions of the role of literacy in early intervention services

The purpose of the current study was to examine therapists' perceptions about literacy in early intervention services. Little effort has been devoted to the incorporation of literacy into therapy services for very young children with special needs. In an attempt to understand how therapy providers view the role of literacy in their services, 168 providers were surveyed. Responses were compared and in general, speech therapists and developmental therapists reported similar rates of use of books and rhymes and similar attitudes about the role of literacy in services. In contrast, occupational and physical therapists were often similar in their responses, yet, in most analyses, their responses were significantly different than the speech and developmental therapists'. This trend mirrors the existing literature that more attention has been devoted to encouraging the incorporation of literacy into speech services than other therapy services. Implications for these different practices and attitudes across disciplines are discussed. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

One Hundred Children: baseline assessment of literacy in the early years of education

One Hundred Children is an Australian study of literacy learning in the early years of education. The larger study (Hill, Comber, Louden, Reid and Rivalland, 1998) includes detailed case studies of children’s literacy learning in their homes, pre-schools, day-care centres and schools. This paper reports on the assessment framework developed during the study and provides a brief overview of children’s performance on items in that framework. The study demonstrates that most children made rapid and substantial progress in literacy learning and identifies the literacy domains in which children learned most during their first year at school. A number of advantages of the use of baseline measures for assessing young children’s progress in literacy are also highlighted.     

Developing academic literacy through a decentralised model of English language provision

ABSTRACT

Students entering English-medium universities frequently struggle to cope with the language demands of their degree programmes, despite having met the English language entry conditions stipulated by their receiving institutions. This can have significant repercussions for the teaching-learning process, for the student experience and for universities’ reputations. Most universities, therefore, have in place some form of in-sessional English language support to develop students’ language proficiency. Such provision tends to be centralised and to offer English for general academic purposes rather than language development that responds in a more nuanced way to the particular literacy needs of students’ disciplines. In this article we report on an alternative, decentralised model of language support, implemented in a School of Nursing and Midwifery, and which seeks to develop students’ competency in the language skills required for their Nursing studies and professional practice. Results to date have been encouraging and provide further evidence that such tailored provision offers a potentially fruitful language development strategy.     

Diversity among Spanish-speaking English language learners: profiles of early literacy skills in kindergarten

This study explored heterogeneity in literacy development among 2,300 Hispanic children receiving English as a Second Language (ESL) services at the start of kindergarten. Two research questions guided this work: (1) Do Spanish-speaking English language learners receiving ESL services in the fall of kindergarten demonstrate homogeneous early literacy skills, or are there distinct patterns of achievement across measures of phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, and orthography? and (2) if there are distinct profiles, to what extent do they predict literacy achievement at the end of kindergarten and the beginning of first grade? Using cluster analysis, the authors identified four distinct literacy profiles derived from fall kindergarten measures of phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, and phonetic spelling. These profiles were found to be associated with literacy outcomes in spring of kindergarten and fall of first grade. The two profiles that were associated with greater success on later measures of concept of word in text, letter sound knowledge, word reading, and spelling were the two that included stronger performance on orthographic skills (i.e., alphabet knowledge and phonetic spelling). These findings demonstrated that there is heterogeneity among Hispanic ESL students at kindergarten entry and suggested that literacy instruction must be differentiated from the very beginning in order to meet students’ individual needs. The findings also suggested that orthographic skills should be assessed and taught early on. While phonological awareness may be a necessary precursor to reading, phonological awareness in the absence of orthographic skills may not be sufficient.     

A generational arc: early literacy practices among Pakistani and Indian heritage language families

This paper focuses on the attitudes towards reading in the home, handed down through the generations and experienced by the young children in four families of Pakistani and Indian origin. The children’s families originally arrived in the UK in the 1960s, and this paper unpicks the stories and attitudinal changes in relation to both English and the heritage language, throughout the generations. Adopting a sociocultural perspective through intergenerational family interviews, roles within the family in terms of literacy support, the families’ use of libraries, experiences, and understanding of the education system, and the impact the heritage language has on family support for reading in English, are explored. Through the dual linguistic lens of both English and the heritage language (Gujarati and Urdu), the study traces a generational arc which explores areas of concern and needs for support, seeking to inform both policy and practice in early childhood education.     

Teachers fostering the co-development of science literacy and language literacy with English language learners

Thirty-five elementary teachers participated in a yearlong professional development (PD) program that was designed to foster a culture of on-going teacher learning to promote the co-development of science and language literacy for English language learners (ELL). An explanatory design methodology was used to determine the degree to which science and language literacy co-developed. The research question guiding this study was: In what ways did the yearlong PD science program support teachers at 10 elementary schools to become more knowledgeable about fostering science literacy and its role in co-developing language literacy (e.g. reading, writing, listening, and speaking) for ELL? The measurable and significant gains on the quantitative mandated state science and reading tests and the analysis of qualitative teaching episodes led to the conclusion that demonstrated the synergy between science learning and language learning – as one increased, so did the other.     

Functional literacy and the language question

This paper examines the issue of language and gender within the context of a national literacy programme. Focusing on the pilot phase of an adult literacy programme in southern Ghana, the paper questions the extent to which a ‘mother-tongue’ language policy is likely to ‘empower’ women where languages of wider communication are more ubiquitous in the textual sphere and generally are seen to have a higher status. Anthropological approaches to literacy, which examine the plethora of literacies and how they are perceived within a particular cultural context, it is argued, can help illuminate the hierarchies of literacies and languages and anticipate the consequences of a particular language policy.     

Implementation fidelity of MyTeachingPartner literacy and language activities: Association with preschoolers’ language and literacy growth

There is surprisingly little empirical research examining issues of fidelity of implementation within the early childhood education literature. In the MyTeachingPartner project, 154 teachers were provided with materials to implement a supplemental classroom curriculum addressing six aspects of literacy and language development. The present study examines the degree of variability in three aspects of implementation fidelity – dosage, adherence, and quality of delivery – and whether these components of fidelity were associated with children's growth in language and literacy skills across the preschool year. Findings indicate that teachers reported using the curriculum fairly often (dosage) and that they were observed to generally follow curricular lesson plans (adherence). In contrast, the quality of delivery, defined as the use of evidence-based teacher–child interactions for teaching literacy and language, was much lower. Children in classrooms in which activities were observed to last for longer (dosage) and in which teachers exhibited higher quality of delivery of literacy lessons made significantly greater gains in early literacy skills across the preschool year. Also, teachers’ use of higher quality language interactions was associated with gains for children who did not speak English at home. Results have implications for teacher professional development and the supports provided to ensure that curricula are delivered most effectively.     

The impacts of an early mathematics curriculum on oral language and literacy

Competence in early mathematics is crucial for later school success. Although research indicates that early mathematics curricula improve children's mathematics skill, such curricula's impacts on oral language and early literacy skills are not known. This project is the first to investigate the effects of an intensive pre-kindergarten mathematics curriculum, Building Blocks, on the oral language and letter recognition of children participating in a large-scale cluster randomized trial project. Results showed no evidence that children who were taught mathematics using the curriculum performed differently than control children who received the typical district mathematics instruction on measures of letter recognition, and on two of the oral language (story retell) subtests, sentence length and inferential reasoning (emotive content). However, children in the Building Blocks group outperformed children in the control group on four oral language subtests: ability to recall key words, use of complex utterances, willingness to reproduce narratives independently, and inferential reasoning (practical content).     

Interactive whole language e-story for early literacy development in ethnic minority children

This study investigated the effects of using an interactive e-story for early literacy instruction on word recognition, story comprehension and story application. The study was conducted in two classrooms in the southern border provinces of Thailand with ethnic minority children at the kindergarten level. The samples consisted of 60 children who used the Pattani Malay language as a mother tongue, and who had little experience with Thai, the language of instruction in the kindergarten classrooms. The experimental classroom had 30 children who learned with the interactive e- story. The control classroom had 30 children who learned with the paper version of the e-story. Both groups were taught using a whole language approach for 45 min per day over 8 weeks. This research used a pretest-posttest design on word recognition and story application, and only a posttest design on story comprehension. The results showed the positive effects of using an interactive e- story and present an alternative method to foster the early literacy learning of ethnic minority children. These results showed the children’s improvement after using interactive e-story and a significant difference in word recognition and story application. The comparison of the early literacy improvement between two groups revealed a significant difference in word recognition and story comprehension but no significant difference in story application. Implications for future study and education are discussed.