Towards Scalable Emergent Literacy Interventions: The Role of Context

Towards Scalable Emergent Literacy Interventions: The Role of Context Anita S. McGinty University of Virginia Fourth Annual IES Research Conference Washington, D.C. June 9, 2009

Acknowledgements Pre-doctoral Training Fellow from the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education (Grant R305B040049 to University of Virginia) Grant DC04933, National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Thank you to the participating teachers, families, and children. A special thanks to my dissertation committee Laura Justice (advisor), Sara Rimm-Kaufman, Marcia Invernizzi, and Xitao Fan.

The Problem • -67% of fourth-grade children do not read at proficient level • 33% of fourth-grade children cannot read at even a basic level • (NAEP, 2007)

The Inequality of the Problem Not Eligible for F/R Lunch Eligible for F/R Lunch

Malleable Factors: Emergent Literacy Emergent Literacy Skills Conventional Literacy Skills Oral language Comprehension Word Decoding Spelling Writing Phonological Awareness Print Knowledge

Interventions • - Proliferation of commercially available emergent literacy instructional tools • Few have evidence of efficacy or effectiveness • - “Mixed results” across efficacy studies question robustness of interventions

Developing Effective Interventions IES Funded Projects 9% Observations Design/ Feasibility 53% 23% Efficacy 3% Effectiveness/Scale-Up

Developing Effective Interventions Are there malleable factors that could be the target of intervention? Observations What does intervention look like? Design/ Feasibility How potent was the change under specified, controlled conditions? Efficacy How robust was the change under real-world conditions? Effectiveness/Scale-Up

Scalable Solutions “Scale-up is not a euphemism for the uncritical diffusion of interventions …. To the contrary, scale-up research is doomed to fail if practitioners and policymakers expect it to generate absolute solutions … A context-based approach to scale-up research provides the evidence that educators need to select the interventions that are most likely to work in specific settings.” (McDonald, 2006, p. 21)

Contextualizing What Works Are there malleable factors that could be the target of intervention? Do these factors vary by child or context? Observations Design/ Feasibility What does intervention look like? Is it specifically suited for certain children? How potent was the change under specified, controlled conditions? Do these effects vary by child or context? Efficacy Does it work when used at- scale for the children and in the settings where it is best suited? How robust was the change under real-world conditions? Effectiveness/Scale-Up

A Framework for Contextualization Environment Experience/ Intervention Child Model based on Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006

Predictors of Print Knowledge in Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) Socio-economic status Quality of book reading Frequency of home literacy Language, Attention Difficulties McGinty & Justice, 2009

Key Findings: Print Knowledge Outcomes *p < .05

Attention as a Moderator Attention

Implications • (a) The relation of book reading and literacy outcomes is diminished in children with SLI • (b) Adult behaviors may be important to the learning of children with weak attentional skills • (c) Pieces of experiences may meet some, but not all, of a child’s learning needs

Language and Literacy Curriculum Supplement for Preschoolers Who Are Academically At-Risk Read It Again Language Justice, McGinty, Cabell, Kilday, Knighton, & Huffman, in press

As Children’s Language Ability Decreases, RIA Benefits Decrease Initial Language Ability

Implications • How do we design intervention to be more robust to language variation? • What are the active ingredients of interventions?

Explicit Print Instruction during Shared Reading and Preschoolers’ Print Knowledge Gains General Classroom Quality Explicit Print Instruction Language, Attention McGinty, Justice, Piasta, & Kaderavek, 2009

Explicit Print Instruction “ Here is our title. Let’s read the words- “Giggle Giggle Quack.” Giggle begins with the letter G. This is the letter G… Sam, can you come up and show me the letter G on the page?” Explicit Print Instruction • Utterances related to words, letters, book and print, and print meaning.

Intensity Effects of Explicit Print Instruction What Conditions? Intensity of Explicit Print Instruction For Whom? Breit-Smith, McGinty, Justice, & Fan, 2009

Explicit Print Instruction: For Whom and Under What Conditions ? General Classroom Quality Explicit Print Instruction Language, Attention

Effects of Explicit Print Instruction Note: This model Include the covariates of age, fall print knowledge, and study condition and environmental support for print. Additional covariates considered and found to be non-significant include gender, child attendance, maternal educational attainment, teacher years of experience, program type, teacher educational attainment

Explicit print instruction varies in its association to children’s spring print knowledge as a function of classroom quality Classroom Quality Explicit print instruction (Z-Score)

The association between explicit print instruction and children’s spring print knowledge varies as a function of children’s attentional abilities Explicit print instruction (Z-Score)

Implications • Explicit print instruction was robust to variation in language skill • Explicit print instruction appears to be especially suited for children with weak attention skills • Explicit print instruction appears robust to lower classroom quality

Discussion • Value of asking “what works for whom and under what conditions” • Value of identifying proximal moderators to intervention

Future Directions • Read It Again modifications and evaluation in needs-based rural Appalachian preschool programs • Read It Again replication in early childhood special education settings

Thank-you! • as2g@virginia.edu

Towards Scalable Emergent Literacy Interventions: The Role of Context