The Interventions

Three language/literacy interventions were selected for the study by the SRC after a systematic and comprehensive review of potential curricula had been conducted. To be considered for the study, a curriculum had to meet the following criteria:

• Provides support for children’s language and early literacy;

• Provides support for all four of the elements of language and early literacy that research has shown to be predictive of later reading success: oral language; phonological processing; print knowledge; and print motivation;

• Is appropriate for and has been used with children whose first language is not English and with low-income populations;

• Is supportive of children’s home culture and language;

• Is appropriate for both three-and four-year-olds (since the SRC was interested in introducing a curriculum in three-year-old, as well as four-year-old classrooms);

• Has some preliminary evidence of effectiveness; and

• Can be implemented by child care staff.

SRC staff met with developers whose curricula met all or most of the criteria and selected three. The three curricula selected differed in instructional approach, materials provided, intensity and cost, but all three focused on the development of early literacy skills and knowledge. All three also included take-home components (books and materials to be used by families with children at home). The three were:

• Ready, Set, Leap! (RSL; LeapFrog SchoolHouse), a curriculum that uses interactive electronic technology and thematically-grouped children’s trade books. It is a comprehensive program with activities throughout the day, and targets oral language development, phonological and print knowledge.

• Building Early Language and Literacy (B.E.L.L.; not published), an add-on pre-kindergarten literacy component designed to promote children’s general language proficiency, phonological awareness, shared reading skills, and print awareness. It entails two daily 15- to 20-minute lessons.

• Breakthrough to Literacy (BTL; Wright Group/McGraw-Hill), an integrated language and literacy curriculum for preschool children built around a series of weekly books with a focus on reading aloud and answering questions about the book. Computer software provides individualized literacy activities for children, also organized around the weekly book, that focus on phonological and print knowledge. It is a comprehensive program with activities throughout the day.

Research Questions and Study Design

Efforts to enhance child care providers’ skills are an important part of most states’ agendas for improving the quality of children’s experience in child care. This experimental test of three focused curricula was intended to answer important questions about whether it is possible to train child care staff, many of whom have limited education beyond high school, to deliver such curricula with fidelity, what level of support is needed to accomplish this, and what impact the interventions had on children’s language development and emergent literacy. For the experiment, staff who teach four-year-old children in centers that were randomly assigned to one of the three language/literacy interventions received initial and refresher training in the curriculum they were assigned. To support them as they worked to use the curriculum in their classrooms, specially-trained mentors visited them every two weeks over an 18-month period to observe them and provide appropriate feedback and support.

The hypotheses that underlie the experiment are that: given this level of training and support, teacher knowledge and attitudes will change, these changes will be reflected in their behavior and interactions with children and in the classroom environment that they create; and these changes in behavior and interactions with children, and changes in the classroom environment will result in positive impacts on children’s language and emergent literacy skills. We assumed that, over time, most teachers would be able to implement the curricula with fidelity, though the time needed would probably differ for individual teachers and for the three curricula. Successful implementation of the curricula would bring about positive change in the type and amount of teacher language and literacy interactions with children, change the classroom environment and increase the amount and type of children’s activities and interactions related to literacy. If staff changed their behavior and the learning environment as the curricula require, children’s language and literacy skills would improve as a direct consequence.

The study’s major research questions flowed from these hypotheses and examined three areas of impact: impacts on teacher behavior and the classroom environment (intermediate outcomes); and impacts on children’s language development and early literacy skills. In addition, the study examined the differential effectiveness of the three curricula on all three sets of outcomes, and for teachers and children whose first language was not English. The major questions addressed by the study were:

• Does training in and ongoing support for preschool language/literacy curricula have positive impacts on the type and amount of staff language and literacy interactions with children?

• Does training in and ongoing support for preschool language/literacy curricula have positive impacts on those aspects of the classroom environment that foster early literacy?

• Does training in and ongoing support for preschool language/literacy curricula have positive impacts on children’s language development and emergent literacy skills?

• Do the interventions have differential effects on teacher and child outcomes?

• Do the interventions have differential effects on teachers whose primary language is not English?

• Do the interventions have differential effects on children whose home language is not English?

• Does the focus on intentional teaching of language and literacy change the pattern of activities in the classroom? and

• To what extent does the teacher’s educational background influence the impact of the interventions?

To answer these questions, 164 child care centers,5 randomly selected from a group of 200 that expressed interest and were eligible to participate,6 were randomly assigned to one of three selected curricula or to a control group. Thirty-six centers were assigned to each curriculum group7 and 55 to the control group. An unbalanced design was chosen because of budget constraints that limited both the number of curricula that could be tested and the number of centers that could be included in the treatment groups. One four-year-old classroom was selected in each center8. All children in the classroom were eligible to participate, whether or not they were receiving a subsidy.

In the treatment centers, classroom staff (the teacher and an aide, where one was present) were trained to implement the curriculum to which they were assigned. The initial training was supplemented by two refresher trainings and supported by ongoing mentoring visits. When teachers left a center, developers trained their replacements. To address the concerns of coalition staff and curriculum developers about the lack of basic literacy materials and other resources in the classrooms, the SRC provided every classroom in the study, including classrooms in the control group, with a package of literacy materials that included books, paper, pencils, crayons and markers, audio-cassette players and tapes. In addition, as an incentive to participate in the study, control centers received a package of materials for their infant-toddler classrooms or a set of outdoor play materials. In an effort to reduce staff turnover during the study, the coalition offered a stipend of $500 to teachers who remained at the same center, to be paid in July of each study year.

The experiment was conducted over a two-year period. Centers were recruited and randomly assigned between August and October 2003. Baseline observations were conducted before training in the interventions took place, from October to late November.9 Initial training in the curricula took place in November and early December; refresher trainings were conducted in Spring 2004 and late August 2004. Mentors were hired and trained in late Fall 2003 and began visiting classrooms in December. Classrooms were observed in late Spring 2004 and again in late Spring 2005. Outcomes for four-year-olds were measured in late Spring 2005, after between two and ten months of potential exposure to the interventions10. Child assessments were conducted for all children in the study classrooms whose parents gave permission for them to be assessed and who had been in the classroom for at least two months.