Help from the NELP: Using the National Early Literacy Panel findings to enhance literacy development

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Help from the NELP Using the National Early
Literacy Panel findings to enhance literacy
development in all young children

• International Smart Start Conference
• Greensboro, NC
• May 7, 2009
• Hillary Harper, Lucia Mendez, Patsy Pierce
• UNC-Chapel Hill

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Acknowledgements

• Special thanks to
• National Head Start Family Literacy Center
• NC Preschool Demonstration Program
• Richmond County Schools
• Gail L. Summer, Ed.D, Ferrum College
• Karla Carpenter, M.A.,Hickory Public Schools

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Augmentative Communication/ Speaking
Reading
Writing
(Assisted)Listening
Oral and Written Language
Development ( Koppenhaver, Coleman-Pierce, Kalman
Yoder, 1991 adapted from Teale Sulzby, 1989)
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National Early Literacy Panel (NELP)

• Developing Early Literacy (2009)
• Synthesis of all high-quality scientific research
  that identified preschool and kindergarten skills
  that predict later reading

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NELP Findings

• Found These Highly-Significant Predictors of
  Successful Literacy
• Oral Language Vocabulary and Syntax
• Alphabetic Code/Phonological Awareness
• Print Knowledge/Concepts
• National Early Literacy Panel Developing Early
  Literacy (2009)

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Concepts About Print

• An understanding of how print works is crucial to
  reading
• print conveys meaning, not pictures
• print is tracked from left to right and top to
  bottom
• you read words not pictures
• The left page is read before the right
• words are separated by spaces
• What to do?
• Clap for each word
• Cut apart a repeated line and put it back
  together
• Be a word and put the sentence together

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Alphabet Knowledge

• Ability to name letters is an excellent predictor
  of early reading achievement
• consists of two parts
• recognizing letters
• writing letters
• introduce letter knowledge embedded within the
  context of words so children see it meaningfully
• What to do?
• Read alphabet books (put in centers!)
• Provide words to write in the writing center
• Provide letter stamps and picture stamps to match
• Always start with what children know! (Names)
• Provide opportunities for children to write (not
  copy) their names

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Early Alphabet Knowledge through Writing

• Writing looks more writing like

• Disconnected scribble with letter-like forms,
  letters

Bridge, Pierce et al 2009
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Learning about the Alphabet

• The question is not should we teach the alphabet,
  but
• how do we teach the alphabet?

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Teaching Alphabet Knowledge

• NAEYC and IRA recommend young children learn
  about letters and sounds of language as part of
  early literacy experiences in meaningful and
  relevant ways (1998).

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Interesting Writing Centers and Materials
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Names Everywhere!
How could you make name puzzles?
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The Name Game
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Alphabet Toys and Books
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Write Names to Answer Questions
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Writing to Make Center Choices
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Alphabet in Block Center
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Names on Waiting Lists
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Dont forget to display and talk about childrens
writing!
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Letter-Sound Correspondence The Alphabetic
Principle

• Children begin to understand that letters
  function to represent sounds in spoken words
• Make some sound-to-letter matches, using letter
  name knowledge (e.g., writes M and says This
  is Mommy).

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Letter Sound Games in the Manipulatives or
Listening Centers
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Oral Language Development

• To read effectively, children need to be able to
  express and understand ideas fully.
• They need to understand that stories have
• events that occur in sequence
• characters
• beginning, middle, end
• They need to be able to respond to questions and
  ask questions to clarify what is not understood
• What to do?
• Read aloud! Hold meaningful conversations
• Record language experience stories
• Engage in shared book experiences
• Tell stories from wordless picture books
• Encourage children to make connections with the
  text

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Language

• Ability in oral language during early childhood
  explains the most variance in overall reading
  ability by grade 2.
• Oral language skills in preschool are the best
  predictor of first grade decoding skills and
  third grade comprehension skill.

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Phonological AwarenessGetting the p-words
straight

• Phonological awareness refers to the whole
  spectrum from beginning awareness of speech
  sounds and rhythms to rhyme awareness and sound
  similarities and, at the highest level, awareness
  of syllables or phonemes
• Phonemes are the smallest units in speech

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Phonological Awareness

• Becoming attentive to the sound structure of
  language -- becoming phonologically or
  phonemically aware -- is an ear skill, unlike
  phonics, which is the relation between letters
  and sounds in written words
• One of the best ways to teach letter/sound
  relations is to draw attention to initial sounds
  (onsets) and word endings (rimes)
• Phonological processing is the ability to
  identify, remember, separate (segment), blend,
  and manipulate speech sounds within words

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Phonological Awareness Progression

• Listening
• Rhyming
• Words and Sentences
• Awareness of Syllables
• Sound Matching
• Initial and Final Sounds
• Segmentation Blending
• Phonemic Manipulation

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Phonological Awareness Provides the Foundation
for Later Phonics Instruction in K-3

• By listening at ages 2, 3, and 4, children are
  beginning to gain experiences with and build
  organization of written language and its
  characteristic rhythms and structures
• Explicit phonics instruction in K-3 builds on
  these listening skills but means doing whatever
  is necessary to teach children all the
  information and skills they need to learn to
  readbut doing so appropriately--NO WORKSHEETS!

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Phonological Awareness

• The bottom line is that enhancing phonological
  awareness IS NOT PHONICS instruction.
• Phonological awareness comes before phonics and
  it supports phonics instruction and learning

Phonics
Phonological Awareness
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Sample Materials to Enhance Phonological Awareness
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Im thinking of something that begins with the
sound
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Letter-Sound Games that go with childrens books
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Pointers for Children to Use to Find Beginning
Sounds
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Enhancing Phonological Awareness

• Studies have shown that just 20 minutes three
  times a week over four months has a dramatic
  difference in childrens awareness
• Phonological awareness activities can happen
  throughout the day
• During transition activities, routines, and play
• Play rhyming games to call attention to rhyme
• One two three, come along to me What two words
  rhyme?
• Offer fun chances for segmentation of morphemes
  and syllables
• Can you say only a little bit of butterfly?
  What would butterfly be without the butter?

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What do we know about PA instruction for young
children?

• 52 PA training studies analyzed
• PA training leads to improved PA skills
• PA training moderately upon reading achievement
• Young children with disabilities benefit less
  from explicit PA training than do their peers
  without disabilities.
• Most effective when lasting 5-18 hours (not more
  or less)
• PA combined with letter-sound instruction has
  more powerful long term effects on reading
  achievement than does PA alone.

Ehri, L., et al. (2001). Phonemic awareness
instruction helps children learn to read
Evidence from the National Reading Panels
meta-analysis. Reading Research Quarterly, 36,
250-287.
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Comprehensive Language Approach

• A variety of oral language skills are critical
  from the beginning and continue to play vital
  roles throughout reading development.
• Contrasted with the Phonological Sensitivity
  Approach general language ability, particularly
  vocabulary, drives the development of PA which is
  then the critical factor in learning to read.

Dickinson, D. K. et al. (2003). The comprehensive
language approach to early literacy The
interrelationships among vocabulary, phonological
sensitivity, and print knowledge among
preschool-aged children. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 95(3), 465-481.
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Intertextual Connections During Read Aloud

• Def. The connections all readers make between a
  text currently being read and other texts they
  know.
• Young children make spontaneous intertextual
  connections.
• They appear to make these connections to
• understand the story (interpret,predict, and
  control)
• make generalizations
• enter the book, play and perform and
• create new stories and megastories.

Sipe, L. (2000). Those two gingerbread boys
could be brothers How children use intertextual
connections during storybook readalouds. Children
Literature in Education, 31(2), 73-90.
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Promoting Intertextual Connections with Young
Children

• Let children talk during reading the story to
  assist them in making connections at the
  appropriate times.
• Keep children in close proximity within reach of
  the book.
• Pursue spontaneous intertextual connections when
  they are offered.
• Provide props for low interest children.

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Parents Literacy

• The quantity of book reading is related to
  vocabulary and listening comprehension
  development.
• These skills related to reading achievement in
  grade 3.
• Attention to teaching children to read and write
  words is related to reading skills at the end of
  grade 1.
• Word reading at the end of grade 1 predicts
  reading comprehension at the end of grade 3.

Sénéchal, M. LeFevre, J. (2002). Parental
involvement in the development of childrens
reading skill A five-year longitudinal study.
Child Development, 73 (2), 445-460.
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Variables related to later reading success

• letter naming vocabulary (Whitehurst
  Lonigan, 2001)
• syntactic and semantic knowledge (Scarborough,
  2001)
• narrative skills (Vernon-Feagans et al., 2001)

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Language Interrelationships

• The size of a childs vocabulary may bolster
  phonological awareness development.
• Overall language development at age 3 is as
  strongly correlated with reading development at
  age 7 as it is with metalinguistic and print
  knowledge at age 3.
• Preschool oral language skills are highly
  correlated with decoding and comprehension skills
  in 4th and 7th grade.
• Narrative production, receptive vocabulary and
  emergent literacy skills are highly interrelated
  in kindergarten.

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Our current ERF project How were using the NELP
CROWD in the CAR
Drawing by Corinne Gandy Watson, 2008
Hourglass Model, Pierce, 2005
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OWL Unit 1 At a Glance
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OWL Unit 1 Implementation Checklist
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ERF Child Participants

• Year 1
• 111 students (M 54.9 mo., sd 5.7 mo.) ERF
  Intervention classrooms (n 55) and Comparison
  classrooms (n 56)
• 30.9 of students had an identified disability
• 74.5 of students received free lunch, 3.6
  received reduced-price lunch
• Year 2
• 108 students (aged 3 to 4 years) ERF
  Intervention classrooms (n55) and Comparison
  classrooms (n53)

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Results of our current ERF project (Year 1)
The Early Reading First program, The Time is Now
in PreK, is made possible by a grant from the
U.S. Department of Education  (S359B070109)
awarded to the Richmond County Schools with
professional development, support, and evaluation
provided by the Center for Literacy and
Disability Studies, Department of Allied Health
Sciences, School of Medicine, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. 
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Note In our model, LARS should decrease or
slightly increase (smaller groups)
Adult/Classroom Measure
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Adult and Child Measure
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Adult Measure
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Child Outcome Measures
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Child Outcome Measure
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Preschool Literacy and Second Language Learners
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Demographic trends

• 1/5 children will speak another language in
  addition to, English by 2010
• 79 of the bilingual children in the public
  schools speak Spanish
• Hispanics are one of the largest and fastest
  growing minority group in the U.S.
• 45.5 million 15.1 total U.S. population (July
  2007)
• The Hispanic population in North Carolina grew
  by 55 from 2000 to 2006
• Source US Census Bureau 2007

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Causes for concern

• Over-representation of DLL in special education
• Due to misidentification?
• Grave shortage of qualified bilingual personnel
• Limited parental input during decision making
  process due to linguistic/cultural barriers
  (Ramirez 2003)

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Consequences

• DLL may be incorrectly placed in special
  education programs
• Their communication/educational needs may not be
  adequately addressed
• Most efficient language of instruction/educational
  options may not be utilized
• May place them at risk for communication,
  cognitive and literacy delays

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To serve this population

• Understand how to best serve linguistically and
  culturally diverse populations
• Modify and redesign our service delivery model
• Increase our clinical, linguistic and cultural
  skills to serve culturally diverse populations

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Cultural Competency

• In spite of the existence of common cultural
  parameters, differences exist
• Between individuals from different cultures
• Among individuals from the same culture.
• These differences result in every individual
  being distinct in some way.
• The notion that only individuals from a different
  race or ethnicity are culturally diverse is false
• In fact, every child, and professional is
  culturally diverse in one way or another. Why is
  yogurt good for you? Because it has live
  cultures, MMI Board, ASHA 2006

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What is Bilingualism?

• There appears to be no consensus on the
  definition of bilingualism
• Someone who has near-native proficiency in two
  languages?
• Someone who understands and speaks a bit of
  another language?
• Someone who can order beer in another language?

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Bilingualism

• Not all bilinguals are created equal
• Bilinguals are not a homogeneous linguistic group
• Marked individual differences exist in the way
  that different bilingual populations acquire
  language.

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Bilingualism

• The process is a dynamic, not static it involves
  change
• Differences exist between bilinguals related
  to
• Intention (Why)
• Time (When)
• Level of proficiency (How much)

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Intentionality

• Circumstantial bilinguals
• Life demands that they acquire another language
• Most bilingual schoolchildren in the US
• Elective bilinguals
• Actively choose to learn another language.
• Foreign language class

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Time

• Refers to when the two languages were acquired
• Simultaneous bilinguals acquire two languages
  from birth usually before age 3
• Sequential bilinguals learn a second language
  (usually at school) after having acquired the
  first one (at home) after age 3.
• Most ESL, limited English proficiency students
  in the U.S.

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Theories of bilingual language acquisition

• Undifferentiated
• Child has one lexical and syntactic system which
  includes words from both languages
• Child uses items of both languages
  indiscriminately in all contexts of
  communication.

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Lack of Early Language Differentiation

• Resulted in the belief that simultaneous
  bilinguals experience
• Confusion between languages
• Mixing Words from one language into the other
  when they communicate.
• Code switching switching from one language into
  the other because they could not keep their
  languages straight

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Separate Entity Theory

• Contrary to unitary language hypothesis,
• Simultaneous bilinguals acquire language-
  specific properties early in their development.
• Evidence of early language differentiation in the
  same areas that were the basis of language
  confusion
• Word mixing
• Code Switching
• Translation Equivalents

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Word Mixing

• Is a proficiency issue because of differences in
  exposure between languages
• The borrowing of words, usually from the
  dominant language into the no-dominant is not an
  example of confusion but instead reveals
  cognitive competence (knowledge that the concept
  goes thereusing the word you know to fill the
  gap (Genesee, 2006)

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Bilingual Proficiency
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Educational concernsare bilinguals delayed in
language ?

• Studies show that even very young children reach
  milestones similarly to monolinguals
• Sound Production (Oller, Eilers, Urbano,
  Cobo-Lewis (1997)
• Vocabulary acquisition milestones (Pearson,1993)

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Concern breadth and depth of DLLs vocabulary

• August, et al. 2005
• Large gaps in vocabulary between DLL's and EO
  exist.
• DLLs know fewer English vocabulary words than
  monolingual English speakers,
• DLL scored lower in breath ( of different words)
  and depth (knowledge of multiple meanings of the
  same word, e.g., bug) than EO peers.

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Profile of many of our DLL

• Low Family SES
• Low family level of education
• 44 of Mexican Central American immigrants have
  no H.S
• Limited development of the first language
• Minority language status in society (diminished
  self-esteem)
• Low maternal education

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Vocabulary and literacy

• Vocabulary is recognized as a strong predictor of
  academic success in both monolinguals (Lonigan
  Shanahan, 2009) and DLL (Carlo, 2008)
• Literacy-based instruction has been successful in
  promoting vocabulary gains in monolingual
  children (Sénéchal, 2006) DLL (Collins, 2005)

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The Many Strands that are Woven into Skilled
Reading (Scarborough, 2001)
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Impact of Vocabulary in 2nd language literacy

• Facilitates the acquisition of new meaning
• Comprehension of text
• Promotes overall learning
• Drives the development of grammar to aid
  comprehension
• Phonological Awareness,.

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Language of instruction?

• L1, L2 or both?
• Is L1 going to interfere and prevent the learning
  of L2?
• Does input in two languages places unwarranted
  demands on the language learning systems of
  children with delays?

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Benefits of L1 in literacy development

• Supporting a childs native language and early
  literacy skills in a childs native language
  better supports later academic outcomes in L2
  (August Shanahan,2006).
• DLL can use prior knowledge from L1 to understand
  information in L2 if L1 is supported in
  instruction (Ulanoff, 1999)
• Over 1/2 of the worlds population is bilingual
• (de Houwer, 1995)

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Contribution of L1 to literacy in DLL

• L1 may facilitate/scaffold the learning of
  vocabulary in L2
• Concept is known in L1 only need to attach an
  English translation/label
• May be faster than teaching a new concept
• Previous knowledge may help infer meaning of new
  word in L2, store of knowledge (Proctor et al.
  2006)

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Approaches to vocabulary development

• Richness of language exposure both at school and
  at home
• Explicit teaching
• Multimodality approach to vocabulary and literacy
• Family support/participation
• Include culturally relevant thematic units/books
  (Castro et. al 2008)

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Language exposure vocabulary development

• Aukrust, Vibeke, Grover (2007)
• Investigate relationships between
• Lexical input of teacher talk exposure in
  preschool, and
• Children's second language vocabulary
  acquisition.

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What is important in teachers talk?

• Number of words used,
• Diversity of words,
• Discourse complexity
• Overall A rich language environment in
  preschool may set off a learning process that
  over time may result in larger vocabularies and
  greater literacy gains in DLL

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Holistic curriculum approach

• Include different aspects related to
• Rich contextual cues via childrens literature
• Transparent word/phrase definitions
• questions and prompts
• examples of how words are used in other contexts
  (depth of vocabulary)
• encouragement for children to pronounce words
• notice the spelling of target words
• repetition and reinforcement (Silverman, 1997)

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Family as a resource

• The family can be instrumental in maintaining the
  childs first language development at home.
• Support literacy development in the first
  language that could extend into L2
• Especially if bilingual school books are sent
  home
• Send a variety of literacy-based activities that
  do not rely only on reading
• Photos, make-n-take book activities,
  manipulatives, etc.

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Critical Elements of vocabulary instruction
during 2nd language literacy activities

• A bilingual approach Could use L1 to complete
  sequence, then L2
• Before Reading
• Talk about the theme (preview)
• Explicit word preview of target words (3-5 words)
  
• While Reading
• Use text structure (repetitive) and prediction
• WH questions, facial expressions
• Introduce target words within the book
• After Reading
• Target word review
• Ask questions with target words

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Conclusions

• What impacts vocabulary development?
• Breath and depth of vocabulary knowledge key to
  decreasing vocabulary gap
• Quality of language exposure
• Number of words
• Diversity of words
• Rich and varied context
• L1 can facilitate literacy in DLL

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• MUCHAS GRACIAS!
• QUESTIONS???