Letter from Director of State Initiatives

Dr. John Gasko

The collaborative work taking place throughout the state in our many community-based projects has confirmed for us how important early literacy and social-emotional development is for the lives of at-risk, vulnerable children that we serve. In this edition of the Texas School Ready Beat we will take an inside look at the newly released “NELP” evaluation report. This “national” evaluation validates the ongoing “local” early childhood work we conduct in communities throughout Texas by showing that the skills we teach these young children helps to get them ready for school.

The Developing Early Literacy Report of the National Early Literacy Panel was released in January 2009 based on a six-year effort to capture the research on the development of early literacy skills for children ages five to zero.  The panel was appointed in 2002 and was established to summarize scientific evidence on early literacy development. The NELP panel examined a variety of assessments of pre-reading skills and identified six domains of early literacy that serve as valid predictors of later reading success, including but not limited to alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, and phonological memory. 

This report is important for educators, parents, policymakers, and all who support children’s literacy and language development. The report also provides information on instructional methods that mentors and teachers can use to enhance child development in literacy.

To see the report in its entirety, click here.

The NELP panel is comprised of the following experts in early childhood education, including Dr. Susan Landry:

Anne Cunningham, University of California, Berkeley
Kathy Escamilla, University of Colorado at Boulder
Janet Fischel, State University of New York at Stoney Brook
Susan H. Landry, University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston
Christopher J. Lonigan, Florida State University
Victoria Molfese, University of Louisville
Chris Schatschneider, Florida State University
Timothy Shanahan, NELP chair, University of Illinois at Chicago
Dorothy Strickland, Rutgers University

Q & A with Dorothy Strickland in response to the NELP Report

Member of the National Early Literacy Panel
Professor of Reading and Samuel DeWitt Proctor Professor of Education at Rutgers University

Q: As a member of the National Early Literacy Panel, how do you think the NELP report will improve the practice of early childhood development?

A: This report has the potential for improving practice by providing a synthesis of critical information about early literacy to policy makers and practitioners. It is unique in that it is the result of several years of inquiry and analysis of rigorous research investigations that would be difficult to replicate without significant resources.  The care and thoughtfulness in which it is applied will, of course, be the key to its impact on the field.

Q: How do you think this report will be beneficial to educators who are focused on childhood development?

A: The NELP report can provide a basis for long-term professional development in which participants discuss the findings in terms of what they believe and how they deliver services to children. The question of how these findings fit in with the need to provide child-centered, developmentally appropriate practice will, no doubt, be of concern to many.  My hope is that our readers will approach the report with an open mind, pondering those findings that both confirm what they “know to be true” and those that appear to contradict the truth as they know it.  In either case, the report offers an excellent opportunity for reflection, discussion, and action.

Q: How do you think the NELP report examines the relationship between a child and parent in developing early literacy skills?

A: The fact that parenting interventions have a positive effect on children’s linguistic and cognitive development should come as no surprise to early childhood educators.  This is a very powerful finding, because it is language and thought that provide the basis for children to apply what they learn in new situations. Helping children learn how to learn may be the most important contribution that parents and teachers make to their lives.

NELP Report to Practice

Sonya Coffey, Project Manager State Initiatives

What does the NELP report mean to me, the prekindergarten teacher?
The findings of the NELP report clearly shows that teachers need to provide intentionally planned daily small group instruction to better prepare young children for later literacy success. The report stressed the need for teachers to provide early language development opportunities for children.

Interactive shared-reading interventions were reviewed for the NELP report and found to be effective toward building oral language and print knowledge. Complex language, not just vocabulary, was found to be a better predictor of later literacy. One form of interactive shared-reading is dialogic reading. In this strategy, teachers or parents asks children specific questions about the story or the pictures in a book. The teacher or parent then provides feedback to the children by modeling, expanding and repeating the answers given. Think PEER (Prompt Evaluate Expand Repeat) when using dialogic reading techniques.

• Prompt the child
• How do you do it?
• You and the children looking at a picture in a book ask a child a question or invite the child to talk about something on the page.
• You can prompt the child to name an object on the page or talk about something in the story.
• How does it help?
• Focuses the children’s attention to specific points in the book
• Engages the children in the story
• Helps the children understand the story plot
• Builds vocabulary and language development
• Evaluate what the child says
• How do you do it?
• Think about what the child says. Is the answer correct? What information can you add?
• How does it help?
• This way of questioning children provides information to help you understand if the child needs additional support.
• Expand on what the child says
• How do you do it?
• Add a few words to the child’s response.
• In some cases, gently provide the correct response.
• How does it help?
• Encourages the child to say just a little more than he or she would naturally
• Builds vocabulary
• Repeat the prompt
• How do you do it?
• Ask the child to repeat the expanded or corrected response.
• How does it help?
• Encourages the child to use language

Another area that the NELP report highly recommends is the implementation of focused, small group instruction. When teachers are able to devote 5 to 7 minutes with groups of 3 to 5 children on intentionally planned activities, children will attend more closely thus increasing their understanding.

Ask yourself, “What activities will help my children gain a better understanding of language development?” Now, that’s a huge question to think about for a class of 22 children. By forming small groups, this daunting question is workable in the classroom. Using information gathered from progress monitoring, the teacher groups children and plans an activity to focus on an area identified in the web report. Using a variety of effective teaching strategies, teachers can implement small group activities daily with children.

• Rich teacher talk
  Conversations between the teacher and child/ren throughout the day will help children learn new vocabulary, descriptive language, grammatical oral sentence structure, and about thematic topics. These opportunities occur in large, small and individual settings.

• Read Alouds
  Read to the children a minimum of 3 books a day. Expose the children to a variety of literature including stories, poems, and informational books. Ask questions before, during and after you read the book. Don’t be afraid to reread books. Children love hearing the stories over and over again. This provides opportunities for children to see books modeled by the teacher.

• Letter Knowledge Activities
  Provide materials that help children learn to identify the letters of the alphabet, including: ABC books, name cards, magnetic letters, alphabet blocks, etc.

• Phonological Awareness activities
  Provide opportunities that will encourage children to become awareness of the sounds of language. Activities include playing games and listening to stories, poems, and songs that involve rhyming, alliteration, onset-rime, sentence segmenting, and syllabication.

• Emergent Reading
  Provide books and other print rich items for easy access for children throughout centers and the classroom. Encourage children to read to each other and to the teacher. Label items around the room include the children’s names whenever possible.

• Emergent Writing
  Provide writing materials throughout the classroom. Keep the writing center well stocked with pens, pencils, markers, paper and other materials that will encourage the children to write. Make this a fun center – one that the children will want to spend time and create books, lists, menus, signs, etc.

• Shared reading
  Read Big Books and point to the text when reading. Help children understanding you are reading the words. Talk about how the pictures help you understand the meaning of the words.  Use concepts of print during this time to help children learn left-to-right, top- to –bottom sequence.

The NELP report’s findings are an additional resource that will help support all the work that teachers in the TEEM project do in classrooms throughout the state.  This document will help drive our efforts for further research and policies to help young children develop the skills needed for future literacy success.

Other resources to use for activities are listed in the CIRCLE manual, the state adopted curriculum and also can be found at Classroom Themes on the Children's Learning Institute website.

For free teacher and parent resources please visit:
Free Teacher Resources
Tips for Parents

Activities for the Transportation Theme Unit

Building classroom activities and materials around a thematic topic is a wonderful way to get children excited about learning and to connect the different areas of your curriculum in a meaningful, integrated way.

This month we are featuring activities that may give you additional ideas for the theme Transportation.

Communications Questions?

If you have any questions regarding media or communication please contact Lindsay Oreschnigg, Communication Specialist – Children’s Learning Institute at: Lindsay.Oreschnigg@uth.tmc.edu.

February 2009

Calendar of Events

• February 26 – Facility Report Goes Live

• March 13 – PKES TIER 2 application due TEA Document Control Center 5:00pm CST

• March 16   TIER 1 Announced

• March 25  TIER 3 Announced

• March – TSR! Facility Report goes LIVE!