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Summary
of Studies Conducted by Dr. Virginia A. Walter, UCLA
Head Start Centers in Baltimore and
Los Angeles
That Received Professional Development from
Children's Literacy Initiative
Baltimore Head Start
Dr. Virginia A. Walter of the Graduate School of Education
and Information Studies at University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA), evaluated the short-term outcomes of the training
received at Children's Literacy Initiative's Institute (a
three-day intensive training course) by two Baltimore Head
Start Centers from January through March, 1996.
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The
kitchen corner at this Baltimore Head Start incorporates
reading by posting receipes.
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One
center was a traditional site-based Head Start Center with
multiple classrooms in one location. The other site had, in
addition to its regular classroom-based activities, a home
visit program. The purpose of the study was to determine the
extent to which teachers who had participated in Children's
Literacy Initiative's (CLI) training were able to implement
in their classrooms and home visits what they had learned.
The report found that teachers who had attended the CLI Institute,
as well as those who were subsequently trained by the Institute
attendees, had accomplished the following:
•
Books had been effectively integrated into the curriculum
•
Teachers had created stimulating literacy environments in
their classrooms
•
Teachers had involved both parents and community leaders in
literacy activities
•
Center administrators had become enthusiastic supporters of
the literacy
efforts of their classroom
teachers (Dr. Virginia
A. Walter, 1996)
In summary, Dr. Walter found that Children's Literacy Initiative's
training was "effective in enhancing the ability of early
childhood educators working with the most disadvantaged children
to focus on literacy because it provided the teachers with
a rationale, necessary skills, and tools and materials needed
to implement an emergent literacy program in their classrooms."
(Dr. Virginia A.
Walter, 1996)
Los Angeles Head Start
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The
Housekeeping Center at a Los Angeles daycare, incorporates
both food-related books, as well as many examples of
environmental print.
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In
a similar study, Dr. Walter evaluated the effectiveness of
Children' Literacy Initiative's Institute as well as the short-term
impact of that training in a Los Angeles Head Start during
1995.
The evaluator attended a CLI Institute in Los Angeles and
then visited six Head Start sites four weeks later. She interviewed
administrators and teachers about changes in their literacy
practices after the Institute and plans for classroom literacy
activities.
Dr. Walter found the Institute to be "...a model of quality
training. The content is appropriate, the teaching methods
are effective. By combining inspirational and informational
content with hands-on experience, the trainers are able to
cover an extraordinary amount of material about the importance
of books and literacy experiences in the lives of young children.
They teach practical techniques for promoting and sharing
books and literacy with young children that can be implemented
by any classroom teacher." (Dr.
Virginia A. Walter, 1999)
Four weeks after the Institute, Dr. Walter reported that centers
had accomplished the following:
•
Formal training was provided to staff who were unable to attend
the
Institute by two of the three
agencies
•
Coordinators from the agency office were providing support
to classroom
teachers as they implemented
new practices suggested by the Institute
•
All centers had enlarged and refurbished their Library or
Reading areas
•
Quality books were well-integrated with other activity centers
besides the
Library areas in the classrooms
•
Most centers had established classroom Writing Centers
•
Teachers were reading aloud to children more often
•
Children and parents responded enthusiastically to new book
collections
(Dr. Virginia A.
Walter, 1999)
Walter,
Dr. Virginia A. Children's Literacy Initiative: Baltimore
Head Start Training
Evaluator's Report. University
of California, Los Angeles: Graduate School of Education
and Information Studies, July 1996.
p. 2.
Ibid. p. 6.
Walter, Dr. Virginia A. Children's Literacy Initiative:
Baltimore Head Start Training
Evaluator's Report. University
of California, Los Angeles: Graduate School of Education
and Information Studies, April 25,
1999. p. I.
Ibid.
p. 5-7.
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CLI's
Effect on Pre-Kindergarten Classrooms in Baltimore
Summary
of a Report by Ludo C. P. Scheffer, Ph.D., S2Dynamics
Children's Literacy Initiative's (CLI) professional development
program, combined with children's books and materials, has
made a measurable difference in helping raise achievement
on assessments of reading readiness in Baltimore children
perceived to be "at-risk."
A 1998 evaluation of teaching practices and environments in
Heads Start centers found that their students' median score
on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) was 90, or in
the low-middle range (the national norm is 100) (Nicholas
Zill, et al, 1998). The PPVT is a nationally-normed
vocabulary test with high reliability: it is consistent and
results do not vary from one tester to another. The assessment
has been compared to the IQ test because it is rare to find
significant increases in scores in a short period of time.
During the same year, a study measured the effect of CLI's
work with Baltimore pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classrooms.
These low-income students across 61 classrooms averaged
101.89 on the PPVT. A control group of pre-kindergarten
classrooms, located in the same neighborhood, scored 91.89
on the PPVT (Ludo
C.P. Scheffer, 1999).
In 1999, a similar study of CLI's work was conducted in 120
pre-kindergarten classrooms in 99 Baltimore schools. Based
on the 82 classrooms that submitted data:
•
student averages on the PPVT rose from 87.54 to 97.87.
•
student averages on the Concepts About Print assessment of
print
conventions rose from 2.6
to 10.7 (out of a possible 16 points, each
based on a specific Concept
About Print as identified by Marie M. Clay)
•
students' knowledge of the alphabet scored an average of 37.39
(i.e., identifying 37.39 letters
out of the 54 letters -- upper and
lower case and two forms of
"a" and "g"), up from 8.053 at the
beginning of the study
The 1999 study also found that poverty rates did NOT affect
students' scores. Of the 28 school that averaged over 100
on the PPVT, 16 had poverty rates over 75 percent. The same
held true for the Concepts About Print assessment, in which
19 or the 26 schools that averaged over 12 point had over
75 percent poverty rates. On the alphabet identification assessment,
16 out of the 25 schools that scored over 42 points had poverty
rates over 75 percent as well (Ludo
C.P. Scheffer, 1999).
Zill,
Nicholas, et al. Head Start Program Performance Measure:
Second Progress Report,
June 1998. Research, Demonstration,
and Evaluation Branch and the Head Start Bureau. p. 15
Scheffer, Ludo C. P., Teacher Training and Quality Children's
Literature: Classroom Impact.
Final Report of a Year-Long
Methods and Strategies Intervention by Children's Literacy
Initiative in the Baltimore
City Public School System. June 1999. Unpublished report.
p. 11
Ibid.
Appendix A.
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Print-rich
Kindergarten Classrooms
Dramatically Enhance Learning
By Anne McGill-Franzen, Ph.D., and
Richard Allington, Ph.D.
The
Children's Literacy initiative has effectively demonstrated
that the literacy development of urban kindergarten children
can be effectively accelerated by enhancing the quality of
classroom literacy environments. The CLI Philadelphia Kindergarten
Project provided kindergarten teachers in two city schools
with about 500 children's books and 30 hours of training on
reorganizing the school day so that reading to and with children
and writing occurred daily - something often missing in too
many kindergartens. In two other city schools teachers received
the books but no training. Two other city schools served as
control sites and received neither the books nor the training.
The CLI kindergarten intervention produced statistically significant
achievement effects - children enrolled in the CLI Training
schools outperformed the children enrolled in both the books
only and control schools on every measure. Children's vocabulary
achievement was measured on the nationally standardized Peabody
picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT). Other literacy achievement
measures drawn from the Observations Survey of Early Literacy
Achievement (OSELA) - usually used in first grade assessment.
The OSELA includes five separate subtests including assessments
of children's concepts about print (directionality, print
awareness, book features, and so on), letter names, word reading,
writing from dictations, and hearing sounds in words (phonemic
awareness).
To view
data samples of writing dictation assessment.
To view data samples of writing
vocabulary assessment.
The end of year achievement for each set of schools is displayed
below. Note that all OSELA norms are for American first grade
students, the group that assessment was primarily designed
for. Thus, a 6th stanine score, for instance, achieved by
the training classroom children on the CAP, represents a performance
comparable to that of an average first grader or slightly
better (stanine ranks of 4, 5, and 6 are considered within
the normal achievement band).
There were large achievement differences at the end of the
school year (and achievement did not differ between schools
when the children were pretested in September/October). The
CLI training intervention consistently and cost-effectively
produced superior literacy learning (across every achievement
measure). In fact, on every assessment the kindergartners
from the Training schools approached or achieved scores comparable
to normally achieving beginning American first graders!
Early literacy development is critical to later school success.
Unfortunately, kindergarten has been largely omitted from
discussions of accelerating the literacy development of city
school children. When kindergarten programs are restructured
so that children experience rich demonstrations of literacy
and opportunities to engage in literacy activity, their achievement
soars. Every kindergartner in the city deserves such demonstrations
and opportunities.
Two Schools, Same Neighborhood, Very
Different Outcomes.
Another way to examine the effect of the CLI intervention
is to compare the outcomes of children enrolled in kindergarten
classrooms in schools just eight blocks apart. In both schools
better than 2 of 3 children are from low-income families.
Neither school has achievement that ranks among the 75 higher
achieving elementary schools in the city. School A was assigned
Training status and School B was assigned Books Only status.
Compare the average end of year achievement of kindergartners
in each school.
At School A, average kindergarten performance is near, at,
or above the normal range of achievement for first graders
(though these children are just completing kindergarten).
At School B, average achievement on every measure except letter
name knowledge ranks at the very lowest level possible (and
average letter name knowledge achievement is in the next to
lowest ranking compared to a very near top ranking in School
A). Remember that not only are these schools located in the
same neighborhood but also that kindergartners' achievement
in the two schools did not differ in the fall! Remember also
that the classrooms at School B were supplied with the same
children's books as the classrooms at school B. But the teachers
at School B were not offered the Training that the teachers
at School A participated in.
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A
Philadelphia kindergartner builds sentences
in a pocket chart.
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These
comparisons illustrate two findings of this study. First,
providing a literacy-rich kindergarten experience is an effective
early literacy intervention - children's achievement can be
dramatically enhanced when kindergarten are designed to provide
consistently rich language and literacy activities. Second,
the problem is not simply a materials problem. Supplying classrooms
with a large number of children's books had virtually no effect
on language and literacy achievement at School B (and no effect
in the larger study). In other words, the problem in kindergarten
is one of both access to books and teacher expertise.
The kindergarten teachers who received the books and training
in how to effectively use the books in rich literacy demonstrations
and re-organizing their classroom schedules to provide rich
daily literacy activities, were the teachers whose children
showed dramatic improvements in every area tested. The CLI
intervention results indicate that investments to enhance
the quality of Philadelphia kindergarten literacy programs
will produce enormous dividends.
For more on this subject,
see McGill-Franzen, A., Allington, R. L., Yokoi, L., Brooks,
G. (1999). "Putting
books in the room seems necessary but not sufficient."
Journal of Educational Research, 93, 67-94.
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