Professional Development is Key to High Quality Early Child Care: Lessons from research on The Four

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Professional Development is Key to High Quality
Early Child Care Lessons from research on The
Four Diamond Model

• Sharon L. Ramey, Ph.D. and
• Craig T. Ramey, Ph.D.
• Directors, Georgetown University Center on Health
  and Education
• Nemours 2006 Conference on Child Health Promotion

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Purpose of Session

• To provide data about both the urgency and the
  importance of improving child care quality
• To review an evidence-based model -- the Four
  Diamond Model of the essential features of high
  quality child care
• To present new research findings that show how to
  improve the quality of child care and early
  education programs

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Why the quality of care matters so much for young
children

• Poor and mediocre quality of care and education
  reduces childrens opportunities to learn and
  develop at healthy rates
• Less than one-third of the child care available
  nationwide is judged to be high quality much is
  poor quality and parents often do not know this
• High quality care and education can promote
  childrens school readiness, reduce cumulative
  effects of stress, and contribute to general
  well-being and positive brain development in
  vulnerable young children

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Is there a consensus about what high quality
child care looks like?

• Despite large differences in child care
  standards, major professional groups agree about
  the centrality of 4 features to achieve
  acceptable levels of quality care
• Health and safety practices
• Language and learning activities
• Responsive caregiving (adult-child interactions)
• Open, frequent communication with childs family
  (and other providers, as needed)

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The Four Diamond Model (Ramey Ramey, 2005)

• Places the 4 highly important features of child
  care in the center of a larger picture of child
  care and early education these are universal
• Shows that what children need in child care
  setting is exactly the same as what they need in
  their family homes as well
• Indicates that the context (such as staffing
  ratios, community supports, physical environment)
  can enhance the quality of care, but should not
  be considered synonymous with (or guarantees of)
  high quality care

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Most current training models are removed from
everyday work

• Learning is more didactic and involves abstract
  (rather than practical) ideas, principles, and
  guidelines
• Direct observation of multiple instances of how
  to act and solve problems does not occur
• Learner receives little or no individualized
  feedback about skills and performance in real
  world
• Expectations often are low for real progress
• Job does not depend upon improvement in skills
  demonstrated or applying what is learned during
  training and almost no direct monitoring or
  evaluation of teacher or caregiver skills

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The Right from Birth Model

• Results from multiple studies
• How intensive, individualized, on-site,
• evidence-based and TV-supported assistance can
  improve the quality of
• infant/toddler and early childhood care and
  education in low resource
• centers, family homes, and schools

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• Mississippi Public Broadcasting, Mississippi
  State University, and the Rameys developed a set
  of integrated materials for training parents and
  child care providers
• Grounded in scientific findings about
• what matters in young childrens lives
• Used to train more than 5000 caregivers in
  workshop format that included TV series RFB and
  activities to demonstrate major points
• Positive findings about large gains in caregiver
  knowledge about young children and important
  activities to promote development

Ramey Ramey 2005
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• Based on book Right from Birth
• (Ramey Ramey) that summarizes
• scientific findings about how to
• promote child development
• Uses nationally-aired public broadcasting
• T.V. series (12 parts) titled Right from Birth
• Incorporates additional health and safety
• information in training manual (Grace)
• Focuses on daily provision of The Seven
  Essentials for every child

Ramey Ramey 2005
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The Daily Seven Essentials (Right from Birth)

• Encourage exploration
• Mentor in the basics
• Celebrate new skills
• Rehearse and extend new skills
• Protect from harsh and inappropriate treatment
• Provide language-rich interactions
• Guide and limit behavior

Ramey Ramey 2005
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How to Translate The Seven Essentials into
Daily Activities

• Incorporate The Seven Essentials in natural
  caregiving routines, arrival/leaving, everyday
  learning opportunities
• Strive to offer The Seven Essentials multiple
  times throughout the day for each child
• Adapt the activities to be increasing
  challenging and interesting to both child and
  adult
• Use The Seven Essentials to develop shared goals
  with families and promote lots of early learning
  in fun, natural ways

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3 Alternative Training Modes Compared using RFB

• One-day workshop with take-away set of materials
  and self-instruction supports
• Six days of interactive workshops with materials
• An innovative, highly intensive form of coaching,
  known as the RITE Coaching Model with materials

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The rationale for highly intensive coaching to
improve quality

• To have new behaviors become a habit (i.e.,
  natural or second nature) requires literally
  hundreds of practice sessions. This re-trains
  the brain.
• Caring for young children requires stamina and
  energy. Once acquired, caregivers are more
  likely to maintain this essential level of
  engagement.
• When children receive stimulating and responsive
  care, they are easier to care for, more fun to be
  with, and more capable (mature). High quality
  care prevents many behavior problems that consume
  time.
• Most traditional training is way too slow and
  adds-on only a few things at a time. This means
  caregivers never really get to see results with
  their own eyes.

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The history of coaching

• Historically, almost all professions involved an
  extended period of a closely supervised,
  side-by-side apprenticeship
• Coaching provides multiple opportunities for an
  expert to observe the apprentices daily behavior
  and to help prevent and solve problems as well as
  do a first-rate job
• Feedback with apprenticeships is immediate,
  direct, personalized, and consequential

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When to use intensive coaching

• When evidence is clear that large improvement is
  needed to prevent neglect and to prepare children
  for success in school
• For entry level individuals who plan to stay with
  this as a career (also need admin. support)
• For those who are natural leaders in their
  community and will want to spread what they
  have learned to parents and other caregivers
• For programs seeking to provide very high quality
  care and education and open to self-monitoring
  (coaching can be a two-way learning process as
  well)

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How this model can be used

• As a self-learning program to improve child care
  quality via study and implementation of materials
  (level 1)
• As the basis for a series of interactive
  workshops with built-in assessments of learning
  (level 2)
• As a guide for a highly intensive form of
  side-by-side coaching, known as the Rameys
  Immersion Training for Excellence (RITE) (level 3)

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Training Model Right from Birth (RFB)Condition
II. 6-Workshops Enrichment materials
Family Home Providers
5.43
5.29
4.29
FDCRS
2.57
1.57
Center Providers
ITERS
3.86
3.78
3.68
3.46
3.32
3.40
3.22
3.06
2.87
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Family Home Providers
4.84
4.75
4.31
4.13
FDCRS
3.93
3.66
3.28
2.14
Center Providers
5.03
4.54
ITERS
3.95
3.67
3.58
3.31
3.09
2.94
2.56
Ramey Ramey 2005
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RITE 20-days CoachingFamily Providers
Language and Reasoning
6.3
6.0
6.0
5.7
5.5
4.8
4.2
Score
2.35
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5.8
5.6
4.6
4.0
3.9
Score
3.6
3.2
1.9
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Score
101 201
301
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4.6
4.4
Score
3.6
3.4
3.0
2.9
2.8
2.8
1.8
101 201
301
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6.5
6.0
6.0
5.3
4.8
4.5
4.3
4.3
Score
2.3
101 201
301
Ramey Ramey 2005
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What Changed the most?
What and Who Changed The Most?

• Changes in quality of child care were greatest in
  the areas
• most closely related to
• The 7 Essentials
• Benefits also observed as a function of
  enrichment materials provided
• Family child care providers benefits some from
  workshop formats (1 and 6 days) but not center
  providers

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Second study replicated the same findings

• Compared 3 days of workshop and 20-days of RITE
  coaching
• Randomized controlled trial
• Long-term maintenance and benefits for children
  now being studied
• Representative findings shown in next set of
  slides

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Family Day Care Rating Scale Total Scores pre-
and post-workshops
Condition I. 3 Workshops Enrichment Materials
Score
Mean Scores Pre 3.73, Post 1 4.21, Post 2
4.41
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Family Day Care Rating Scale Total Scores pre-
and post-RITE
Condition II. RITE 20 days Coaching Enrichment
Materials
Score
Mean Scores Pre 2.89, Post 1 4.41, Post 2
4.22
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RITE 20-days CoachingFamily Providers
RITE 20-days CoachingFamily Home Providers
FDCRS Subscale Learning Activities
Score
Mean Scores Pre 2.36, Post 1 4.44, Post 2
3.87
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RITE 20-days CoachingFamily Providers
RITE 20-days CoachingFamily Home Providers
FDCRS Subscale Space and Furnishings
Score
Mean Scores Pre 2.99, Post 1 4.74, Post 2
4.58
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RITE 20-days CoachingFamily Providers
RITE 20-days Coachingfor Family Home Providers
FDCRS Subscale Language and Reasoning
Score
Mean Scores Pre 3.55, Post 1 5.03, Post 2
5.20
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RITE 20-days CoachingFamily Providers
RITE 20-days CoachingCenter Providers
ITERS-R Subscale Activities
Score
Mean Scores Pre 2.52, Post 1 4.33, Post 2
4.98
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RITE 20-days CoachingFamily Providers
RITE 20-days CoachingCenter Providers
ITERS-R Subscale Listening and Talking
Score
Mean Scores Pre 3.89, Post 1 5.44, Post 2
5.67
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RITE 20-days CoachingFamily Providers
RITE 20-days CoachingCenter Providers
ITERS-R Subscale Program Structure
Score
Mean Scores Pre 4.11, Post 1 5.22, Post 2
5.78
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Will this model ever be feasible?

• First response of most people is Wow, of course
  you can get changes with that much time. But the
  real world will never do it that way!
• Our calculations show many current professional
  development models now involve large time and
  money investments in meetings, travel, missed
  sessions, group training sessions, and materials
  also, training efforts are distributed over 1 to
  2 years with high dropout and limited evidence of
  results (effectiveness)

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Words of experience

• From an experienced RITE coach who had years of
  prior experience providing weekly consultation
  and other types of training for child caregivers
  and teachers
• At first, I did not like the 20 days of coaching
  at all. Then I saw the changes that happened,
  even with teachers I had worked with for 18 to 24
  months. It takes daily practice to really get
  habits to change and learn new ways to do
  things.

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Institute of Education Sciences Study of
Curriculum Coaching

• 2 years first year was ½ year of coaching
  second year had full year of in-class coaching
• Curriculum was Building Language for Literacy
  (Neuman Snow, Scholastic)
• Weekly versus monthly coaching compared
• All received intensive 3-day summer institute and
  monthly teacher exchange support groups led by
  reading specialists

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Significant changes in childrens reading scores

• All groups showed gains in TERA traditional
  classrooms and both coaching BLL conditions
• Significantly higher gains occurred for those in
  classrooms where teachers received weekly
  full-day coaching
• Classroom changes primarily in time enacting
  curriculum, literacy environment, and fidelity to
  curriculum model
• Benefits observed even 1 year later for chidlren

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Academic Outcomes for the TERA
?
?
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Classroom Findings for the ELLCO Public Pre-K
and Head Start
?
?
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Next steps

• Importance of acknowledging limited or no
  benefits form some traditional forms of training
  and support
• Need to share findings and adapt to individual
  programs and settings
• Value of setting very clear and specific goals
  that are well-matched to the outcome measures
• Promote general consensus about how much young
  children love to learn!

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Conclusions

• Improved child care and classroom quality can
  occur with different formats of training to
  promote child learning
• Greater changes occur with more intensive
  programs
• Careful analysis of systemic level changes should
  consider when and for whom targeted intensive
  training might be the most costeffective strategy

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