|Archive article #0004
Early Literacy for Inner-City Children:
|The following study is a four-year, longitudinal examination of the effectiveness of a preschool emergent literacy intervention in a skid row child-care facility in downtown Los Angeles. The primary purpose of the project has been to provide multiple opportunities for Spanish-speaking four-year-old children to engage in a variety of reading and writing activities within the center, at home and in the surrounding community. The project is now in its third year of operation, and the results of our study have been very encouraging. Not only are preschool children beginning their kindergarten year on or above grade level in understanding concepts about print, but both preschool teachers and parents have established regular habits of shared book reading and numerous ways for children to write and display their work.
Selected Background Literature
In a recent review of studies documenting Latino students poor achievement in schools relative to other populations, however, Losey (1995) has been critical of investigations claiming a "cultural mismatch" between home and school since many do not, in her words, "collect or analyze data from real-life interactions in actual settings" (p. 288). Taking a Vygotskian perspective, Losey stresses that unless studies examine closely the language interactions taking place at home and in school as well as in the broader social context, conclusions about the success or failure of Mexican-American children will be incomplete and narrow. On the positive side, Losey s (1995) review singles out research on classroom environments which provide "collaborative learning, lesson plans designed around student interests, a sense of belonging to the classroom community, flexibility in language usage, and a challenging curriculum" (p. 312) as offering examples of classroom interactions in which improved learning outcomes are most likely to occur.
In designing the the present preschool intervention, we have considered Loseys suggestions for creating positive classroom environments for English language learners and built upon the work of other researchers (e.g., Delgato-Gaitan, 1990, 1996; Goldenberg, 1989; Goldenberg, Reese, & Gallimore, 1992; Moll, 1994) who have studied various aspects of learning and parent support within Latino populations in high-poverty areas. This intervention is based upon the premise that positive learning outcomes with immigrant Latino/a students are most likely to occur when there is an interaction between (a) challenging, meaningful learning tasks; (b) adults who respect childrens intellectual ability and their cultural capital; and (c) language activities in which all participants have frequent opportunities to share their ideas and opinions in both their native languages and English. Therefore, some of our guiding research questions are:
What is the influence of exposure to emergent literacy activities in an inner-city, community, child-care setting upon preschool childrens Spanish and English literacy learning abilities?
What kinds of English language and literacy support can be provided by parents, extended family members, and child-care center employees in a primarily Spanish-speaking community?
What are the "funds of knowledge" in these communities from which children can draw, and how can this shared communal knowledge be incorporated into a structured preschool emergent literacy program?
The Emergent Literacy Intervention and Procedures
Design, Data Collection, and Analysis
Finally, documentation of growth in concepts about literacy is being measured in at least four ways. First, weekly classroom observations of the children have been described in detailed field notes. Second, pre- and posttesting of all cohorts has been carried out with a Spanish Concepts About Print test (Escamilla, Andrade, Basurto, Ruiz, & Clay, 1996). Third, we are currently using versions of the Piagetian clinical interviews employed by Ferreiro and Teberosky (1982) as measures to capture childrens developmental growth in acquiring written language concepts. Finally, archival records and test scores from the childrens elementary experiences are being collected.
Selected Findings Over the First Two Years
Questionnaires distributed to the families and field notes of conversations with parents at the loan program further underscore both the parents positive perceptions about the loan program and the ways their childrens behavior toward books has changed. For example, in a conversation about her son with one member of the research team, one mother recently said, "Well, now that he is with your program, he has learned a lot . . . before he didnt even know what to do with a book, he wasnt interested, but now he enjoys taking books home." In addition, over 150 parents have attended the projects three book loan receptions and literacy workshops on various aspects of book-handling and home reading and writing activities. Their appreciation and support of the program has been a constant encouragement to the USC research team. In the words of another mother, "Es muy importante que hayan programas como este, porque nos enseña a nosotros como padres a tener ideas de como comportarnos con nuestros hijos y poder ayudarlos a ellos. Gracias por todo. La comida estuvo muy rica." (It is very important to have programs such as this one because it shows us as parents ideas of how we can interact with our children and how we can help them. Thanks for everything. The food was delicious.)
Concepts About Print
During their preschool year, this group of 55 children showed a statistically significant average gain of 4.5 points (from 4.28.7) on the Spanish Concepts About Print test. This gain reflected increasing knowledge about the directionality of print, awareness that printed words are read instead of pictures, and ability to identify capital and lower-case letters as well as some marks of punctuation. Also, 30% of these children could demonstrate early knowledge of word awareness by being able to track printed words in a sentence while it was being read aloud to them and by isolating written words using space as a boundary. Even more notable is that, at the beginning of their kindergarten year, these children have outscored children from other preschool programs on tests of English in upper- and lower-case letter identification and in vowel and consonant recognition.
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This research was conducted as part of CIERA, the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement, and supported under the Educational Research and Development Centers Program, PR/Award Number R305R70004, as administered by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. However, the contents of the described report do not necessarily represent the positions or policies of the National Institute on Student Achievement, Curriculum, and Assessment or the National Institute on Early Childhood development, or the U.S. Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government.