Research on the
Preschool Literacy Project is available in the March 2009 edition
of The Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education.
Article title: The Effect of Curriculum, Coaching and Professional
Development on Pre-Kindergarten Children’s Literacy Achievement
Abstract: Disadvantaged children—those
in poverty, minorities, or whose first language is not English—often
come to kindergarten several years behind their more advantaged peers,
especially in the areas of literacy and oral language development.
A logical place to begin making a difference in children’s literate
lives is in the years before kindergarten. This study empirically
assessed one community’s efforts to close this gap for its youngest
children. Over a three-year period, a grassroots venture consisting
of business, university and public school personnel provided teachers
in 22 California state preschool classrooms with a literacy-rich curriculum,
weekly support from a literacy coach and professional development
on early literacy acquisition and instruction. Baseline scores collected
the year prior to the implementation of this project were compared
to end-of-year scores for two experimental condition cohort groups
(Year 1 and Year 2 of the project). These data reveal that children
exposed to the literacy curriculum and coaching model significantly
outperformed the children in the baseline condition for most of the
literacy outcome subtest measures. Teacher ratings on child development
literacy measures also showed a majority of the experimental condition
students had improved significantly by the end of the year. Furthermore,
significant differences were also found when 103 children from Year
1 of the project were followed through kindergarten and compared to
665 control children on end-of-year literacy assessments. Implications
for early childhood teacher preparation based on these results are
discussed.
A summary of
the research can be found here. Summary
Document
For more information
on the Preschool Literacy Project please see the project
proposal. In addition, see the research
questions developed for the project.
PLP Charts
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Figure
1. Percentage of PLP children at 70% correct criterion on
Early Growth Indicators (EGI)
measures for baseline year, year 1, and year 2.
*Scoring inconsistent during Year 1, not used in analysis. **70% Criterion
determined by adding
20% to the mean. ***Data not collected during baseline year.
Figure
2. Pre- and posttest percentages of children in year 2 in
the top two categories (Building and
Integrating) of the DRDP-R literacy measures.
Figure
3. Percent of PLP and control children meeting criteria on
kindergarten Emerging Literacy
Skills (ELS) subtests.
Quarterly
Reports
PLP
Final Report
2007
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2006
April - June
2006 Jan -
March
2006
July - Sept
2006
Oct-Dec
2005
April - June
2005 July-
Sept
2005 Oct - Dec
