Language skills are important for long-term reading comprehension success. Yet there are limited instructional approaches available for prekindergarten (pre-K) teachers to use in their inclusive classrooms to boost literacy-related language skills in children with and without language delays or disorders.
In the first part of this study, the investigators will develop a teacher training program focused on building pre-K children's language-based literacy skills. Teachers will be trained and will use the strategies that they learn during literacy-related activities in their inclusive pre-K classrooms. Their students' language-related literacy skills will be measured before and after their training. Based on teacher feedback and child assessment information, the training program will be revised. In the final part of the study, a preliminary randomized control trial (RCT) will be done using the revised training approach. The results of the RCT will help the investigators know if the teacher training program helps to improve the effectiveness of teachers' instruction and their students' development of language-related literacy skills.
The primary goal of this research study is to determine whether study-trained pre-K teachers in inclusive early childhood education classrooms use more effective teaching strategies than teachers who do not receive the training. A secondary goal of this research study is to determine if this teacher training program strengthens language-related literacy skills for students with and without language disorders or delays. The research team hypothesizes that teachers who participate in the training program will use effective teaching strategies more often than teachers who do not receive the training. Additionally, the investigators predict that teachers who receive the training will feel more confident teaching early language-based literacy skills to their students (with and without language delays/disorders) than teachers who do not receive the training. Researchers also predict that students taught by teachers who receive the training will perform better on language tests when compared to their peers in classrooms where the teacher training program was not used.
Having students in the identified age range
Having at least one child in their classroom who receives language-focused related services, has an existing diagnosis of language delay or disorder, or meets study criteria for DLD on the research measures
Planning to teach for the duration of the training period.
use phrases containing a noun and a verb in most spontaneous utterances (per teacher report)
having a visual or hearing impairment after correction (per parent report)
having a motor impairment that renders them unable to reach and grasp objects or sit independently
score more than1.5 standard deviation below the mean on the Mullen Scales of Early Learning Visual Reception subscale
This criterion will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis at the PI's discretion as children's performance may be affected by any of a number of factors and a single response variation may result in a child missing the cut-off while clearly succeeding cognitively in the classroom.
Parallel
Early Achievements - Shaping Early Language and Literacy Skills
BehavioralEA-SHELLS is a professional development program that includes a 6-hour workshop and about 14 in-person coaching sessions using Practice-Based Coaching. Teachers will implement the EA-SHELLS instructional approach in their classrooms during whole-group book sharing activities to target vocabulary, syntax, story grammar, and listening comprehension. Teachers will also lead story retelling activities using pictures cards and 3D props to further target all four skills. Teachers will be provided with commercially available children's books augmented with supplemental text to explicitly define vocabulary and cue teachers' elicitation of children's verbal engagement for targeted vocabulary, syntactically elaborated sentences, and story grammar elements. Instructional strategies include naturalistic developmental behavioral intervention and language facilitating (e.g., focused stimulation) strategies. Teachers will read each provided book about four times over one to two weeks.
Assessment of Story Comprehension (ASC)
This measure serves as an indicator of narrative comprehension at pre- and post-treatment time points. Students will be administered two parallel versions of this assessment at both testing points. The combined raw score will be used for comparison. This measure was used in iterative development phases and will be used in the RCT
Narrative Language Measure - Listening (NLM)
This measure serves as an indicator of narrative comprehension at pre- and post-treatment time points. Students will be administered two parallel versions of this assessment at both testing points. The combined raw score will be used for comparison. This measure was used in iterative development phases and will be used in the RC
Vocabulary Assessment
This researcher created measure assesses vocabulary learning throughout the study. Students will participate in testing at pre- and post-treatment time points. Additionally, students will participate in monthly intra-intervention testing. Raw scores will be used for data analyses. This measure was used in iterative development phases. It was revised across phases. The most updated version will be used in the RCT.
The Narrative Assessment Protocol-Second Edition (NAP-2)
This measure was used in early iterative phases to measure syntax and narrative production, without transcription. Two stories were used (equated on length and difficulty) each at pre-, mid-point and post-treatment (constant across children and phases), with one story given at all three times to control for confounding effects of different stories administered per the authors' recommendation.
Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals - Preschool, 3rd Edition (CELF-P3)
This measure serves as an indicator of overall language ability at pre- and post-treatment time points. Additionally, this test helps differentiate between TD and DLD students. Students will be administered the following subtests: Sentence Comprehension, Word Structure, Expressive Vocabulary, and Basic Concepts. This measure was used in iterative development phases and will be used in the RCT.
Teacher Book and Book-Related Activity Fidelity
Video recordings are collected and coded (masked to group and timepoint) to evaluate teachers' implementation fidelity of book and book-related activities in their classrooms. Videos will be collected pre- and post-treatment as well as approximately 1-3 times during the training period (intra-intervention). These measures were used in iterative development phases and will be used in the RCT.
Teacher Satisfaction and Feasibility Survey
This survey provides insights about EA-SHELLS features that inspire willingness to use and those that present implementation barriers and/or facilitators (related to feasibility). A subset of items addresses perceptions of the feasibility and satisfaction of EA-SHELLS, as will open-ended questions about how to improve each component of EA-SHELLS to engage and enrich learning for their students. Data collected from iterative development phases was used to inform revisions to maximize practicality of adopting the intervention. This measure will continue to be used in the RCT to measure satisfaction with, and perceptions of, the feasibility of EA-SHELLS.
The Barriers Checklist
This survey was adapted from Bartholomew et al. (2007) and consists of 10 items pertaining to resources (e.g., insufficient time, resource, training) and procedural barriers (e.g., complexity, compatibility) that threaten usability and feasibility. This measure was used in iterative development phases to inform revisions to the intervention. We will continue to use this measure in the RCT to provide information regarding teacher perceived barriers to implementation of EA-SHELLS.
Click on the lead sponsor to view all of their trials.
Hugo W. Moser Research Institute at Kennedy Krieger, Inc.
Lead sponsor
Institute of Education Sciences
Collaborator
