1. Early Childhood Literacy Timothy Shanahan University of Illinois at Chicago

2. Some Reasons for Concern Early literacy development predicts/affects later school achievement (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997; Duncan, Dowsett, Claessens, Magnuson, et al., 2007; Juel, 1988; Snow, Tabors, & Dickinson, 2001; Smart, Prior, Sansor, & Oberkind, 2005) Second-grade reading achievement is a major predictor of family income at age of 42 (Ritchie & Bates, 2013) Substantial language differences evident by the age of 2 for poverty children (Fernald, 2013)

3. 16 mos.24 mos.36 mos. Child’s Cumulative Vocabulary (Words) Professional Families Working Class Families Welfare Families Child’s Age (Months) 200 600 1200 Disparities in Early Vocabulary Experience Source: Hart & Risley (2003) 30 million word gap

4. Some Reasons for Concerns (cont.) Approximately 1/3 of American 4 th graders read “below basic”, and this is true of more than 50% of African American and Latino 4 th graders (NAEP, 2013) Literacy plays important role in civic participation, health care/wellness, economic success, social success

5. Potential Solution How can we address these literacy needs? One idea is to teach literacy earlier If kids were more advanced academically when they entered school, we’d have more reading success

6. Controversial Suggestion Americans have been conflicted about the idea of early reading instruction for over 100 years It has long been claimed that early reading instruction doesn’t work and that it is even harmful to children

7. Early Opposition G. Stanley Hall, pioneer psychologist, proposes a stage model of development and a rigid concept of “readiness” Arnold Gessell argues that young students can’t learn to read and attempts to teach them will cause mental problems

8. Reading Readiness Reading Readiness refers to the prerequisite levels of maturation that are needed to allow reading development to take place Intrinsic maturation: development takes place in a fixed sequence and cannot be altered in any way Extrinsic maturation: the idea that readiness can be influenced by environmental enhancement

9. Some Early Examples Morphett & Washburne (1931) found that students weren’t ready to read until they reached a mental age of 6.5 Led school districts to delay teaching reading until second semester grade 1 (when most kids would have reached that time) However, many programs started “teaching readiness” (visual discrimination, auditory perception, language learning, ability to learn concepts)

12. Controversy Continues Readiness replaced by the idea of “developmentally appropriate practice” (DAP) The idea is to promote optimal learning children by teaching them at their developmental levels No research-based operationalization (ranges from reasonable ideas about how long children can sit to very specific claims)

15. National Early Literacy Panel National Early Literacy Panel (2003-2008) reviewed research on the teaching of reading in preschool and kindergarten Largest meta-analysis of research data on the teaching of reading during these years (examined more than 7000 potential studies, about 400-500 were included in the final review) Set out to determine which skills needed to be taught early on and what confers literacy learning advantages to young children

16. Decoding PredictorAverage rN of studiesN of children Decoding nonwords.728763 Spelling.6071,184 Invented spelling.5810778 Reading NOS.5731,739 Decoding NOS.535877 Decoding words.52214,121 Reading comprehension.525700 ABC knowledge.50527,570 Readiness.5051,988 Writing/writing name.49101,650 Arithmetic.45143,929 IQ.45132,015 Phonological awareness.40698,443

17. Decoding (cont). PredictorAverage rN of studiesN of children RAN letters/digits.40122,081 Concepts about print.34122,604 Oral language.33639,358 RAN objects/colors.32163,100 Phonological NOS.313174 Performance IQ.30152.792 Print awareness.296683 Environmental print.2861,042 Phonological STM.26334,863 Visual motor.25141,316 Visual memory.2281,708 Visual perception.22162,551

18. Comprehension PredictorAverage rN of studiesN of children Readiness.593348 Concepts about print.543535 ABC knowledge.48172,038 Print awareness.484347 Phonological awareness.44202,461 RAN letters/digits.433333 RAN objects/colors.4261,146 Decoding nonwords.413282 Decoding words.4061,091 Phonological STM.39131,911 Arithmetic.3581,197 Performance IQ.345253

19. Comprehension (cont). PredictorAverage rN of studiesN of children Oral language.33304,015 Writing/writing name.334565 Visual perception.2691,438 Visual motor.2291,333 Concept knowledge.203873 Visual memory.175875

20. Strong to Moderate Predictors:  Alphabet Knowledge  Concepts About Print  Phonological Awareness  Oral Language  Writing Name/Writing  RAN (Rapid Automatic Naming/Lexical Access)

21. What parts of oral language are examined matters a lot. Vocabulary is a weak predictor of later decoding and comprehension. More complex aspects of oral language, like grammar and definitional vocabulary, are very strong predictors of decoding and comprehension. Does oral language definition matter?

22. Oral Language Predictors

23. Do the types of PA differ? Early forms of phonological awareness are strong predictors of later reading skills. Measures of rhyme are not the best indicators of how well children are acquiring phonological awareness. Development moves from larger units to smaller units of sound.

24. NELP Instructional Studies Examined studies that focused on cracking the alphabetic code (67 studies), reading/sharing books with children (16 studies, parent/home programs (20 studies), school-based interventions (16 studies), and language interventions (20 studies) Review the most pertinent to the issues raised today

25. Code-Focused Interventions Moderate to large effects on early literacy skills and conventional literacy skills Most the studies examined some form of phonological awareness training There was no point along the learning continuum that code-focused learning wasn’t important

26. Code-Focused Interventions All of this work was done individually or in small group PA training included analysis or synthesis of words, syllables, onset-rimes, phonemes (with feedback)—important to combine with letter learning Age/developmental level made no difference in the benefits of this kind of teaching, but what was taught varied (larger to smaller units)

27. Reading to Children Moderate effects on oral language skills and print knowledge Oral language effects were evident across demographic groups, types of interventions, and student risk factors Almost no studies looked at the impact of reading to children on reading or on other emergent literacy skills

28. Reading to Children Biggest impacts were derived from dialogic reading as opposed to just reading Biggest payoff on the simplest measures of oral language Given the lack of evidence on other literacy outcomes, it would be imprudent to make reading to children a program in and of itself

29. Language Intervention Programs Interventions designed to improve young children’s oral language skills were effective, with moderate to large effects on a variety of outcomes Interventions often focused children’s attention on particular aspects of language or got them to interact with language in particular ways

30. Language Intervention Programs New vocabulary or question types may be introduced to children in a natural context (daily routines, play); or this may take place within a learning setting (teacher asking children to compare pictures) Play-based interventions (e.g., toys, children in control of activity) were as effective as learning-based ones

31. Language Intervention Programs Most interventions were evaluated with vocabulary measures (19), but there were positive effects for cognitive ability, phonemic awareness, print knowledge Effects were biggest for children with language problems, but effective with everyone Programs were most effective with younger children (3 and younger)

32. Head Start Impact Study (2010) Head Start increased the amount of literacy instruction provided to 3- and 4-year-old children Clear gains were made in increasing performance on early literacy skills (including ABC knowledge) Simultaneously, these children improved in their social-emotional functioning Some Additional Studies

33. Some Additional Studies (cont.) Neuman and Roskos (1992): extensive study of early instruction in Philadelphia A major focus of the study was to create opportunities for preschoolers to engage in literacy play (e.g., restaurant, library, post office) Clear improvements in literacy learning that took place in this play environment

34. Some Additional Studies (cont.) Head Start Impact Study (2010): Found no lasting benefit from early Head Start literacy improvement Durkin (1974-75): followed early readers from preschool through Grade 2; found their advantages decreased each year

35. Conclusions It is beneficial to teach early literacy That instruction should focus on phonological awareness, letter names and sounds, oral language, and book sharing Not only doesn’t literacy instruction harm students, but it has positive cognitive and social-emotional outcomes Successful early literacy instruction can be play-based Not enough to give students a good start—you have to build on that start if it is going to have long term benefits

36. Early Childhood Literacy Timothy Shanahan University of Illinois at Chicago www.shanahanonliteracy.com