Early Literacy Intervention “Dosage” and Its Relation to ... - NCRECE

Early Literacy Intervention “Dosage”
and Its Relation to Child Outcomes
Laura M. Justice Anita McGinty
Ohio State University University of Virginia
Nov 16, 2010

Acknowledgements
• Shayne Piasta, Lori Skibbe, Ryan Bowles, Joan
Kaderavek, Xitao Fan, Helen Ezell, Chris Lankford,
Khara Pence, Tricia Zucker, Sonia Cabell, Amy Sofka,
Aileen Hunt, Allison Breit Smith
• Institute of Education Sciences (Grants R305G050005
and R324A080037); National Institutes of Health (NIDCD
Grant DC04933 and NICHD Grant HD43204); American
Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation

1
Framework and Premises
Preschoolers‟ literacy
skills are consistently
and significantly
related to later
reading achievement
Storch & Whitehurst, 2002

2
Framework and Premises
Some children exhibit
lags in the development
of early literacy skills,
particularly print
knowledge
Justice, Bowles, & Skibbe, 2006

Print Knowledge
• Children‟s implicit and explicit knowledge of “the system
of marks that make up a printed language”
(Badian, 2000, p. 37)
– Print-concept knowledge
– Alphabet knowledge
– Emergent writing

3
Framework and Premises
Early lags in print
knowledge contribute to
long-term risks in reading
achievement
(about -1 SD at grade 5)
Skibbe, Grimm, Stanton-Chapman, Justice, Pence, & Bowles, 2008

4
Framework and Premises
This cascade of
effects can be
dampened through
classroom-based
early literacy
programs
Piasta, Justice, Kaderavek et al., in review
Reading in Grade 1
Woodcock-Johnson III

Designing and Implementing Classroom-
Based Literacy Programs
Professional
Development
Schedule
Targets
Materials
Techniques

Professional
Development
Print-Referencing Intervention
Schedule
Dose
Frequency
Duration
Targets
Print Organization,
Print Meaning,
Letters, Word
Materials
Print-salient books
Techniques
Verbal & verbal
references
Scaffolds (high & low)

100
95
90
85
80
75
70
65
60
55
50
Scaffolding Children’s Interactions with Print
very hungry caterpillar
spot bakes a cake
Justice, Skibbe, Canning, &
Lankford, 2005

End of Preschool Impacts
(Justice, Kaderavek, Fan, Sofka, & Hunt, 2009)
High-Intensity Print Referencing vs. High-Intensity Reading
1.15
0.95
0.75
0.55
0.35
0.15
-0.05
Print
Concepts
Alphabet
Knowledge
Name Writing
Effect Size

Program of Research
13

Frequency of Print References
55
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
Fidelity of Teacher Implementation (Piasta et al., 2010)
0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30
Week

Intervention Schedule
Episode:
Locus of
Learning
Dose:
Number of
episodes per
session
Duration:
Total number of
weeks/months
Frequency:
(intensity)
Number of
sessions per
week
Cumulative
Intervention
Intensity:
Dose x frequency x
duration

Comparison of Schedules
Study Dose Frequency Duration Cumulative
Intervention
Intensity
Head Start
Study
High-intensity
Pre-K teachers
Low-intensity
Pre-K teachers
9 references 3 per week 8 weeks 216 episodes
31 references 4 per week 30 weeks 3,720 episodes
36 references 2 per week 30 weeks 2,160 episodes

Human Learning and Scheduling
• Distributed (spaced)
vs. massed practice
• Longer gaps improve
long-term learning
• Should be exploited in
designing interventions
• Interleaving vs.
blocked practice
• Interleaving improves
learning of multiple
skills
-OMLMWOMWLMO vs
-OOOMMMLLLWWW

Study 1:
Intervention Dose and Children’s Literacy Gains
• 59 preK teachers
• 379 children
• 30-week implementation of book
reading
• Trained and untrained teachers
• Dose-response analysis
– variation in active ingredient:
relation to child outcomes
• Variables of interest
– Outcome: PK composite
– Dose: average across six
sessions (weeks 4, 8, 12, 16,
20, 24)
– Child language and attention
– Classroom quality (CLASS
composite over 2 points)

Study 1:
Intervention Dose and Children’s Literacy Gains
in Classroom Contexts
Print Dosage

Study 1:
Intervention Dose and Children’s Literacy Gains:
Attention as Moderator
Print Dosage

Study 2:
Dose by Frequency Interactions
• 55 preK teachers
• 367 children
• 30-week implementation of book
reading by trained teachers
– High Intensity (120 sessions)
– Low Intensity (60 sessions
• Dose variable
– HI: M = 31, SD = 26
– LI: M = 36, SD = 25
• Variables of interest
– Outcome: PK composite
– Dose: average across 10
sessions
– Intensity: by assignment
– Covariates: age, attendance
initial skills, CLASS,

Structural Model

Dose and Frequency Interaction
• In predicting children‟s spring literacy skills:
– in high-dose conditions, low- vs high-intensity
implementation shows no difference
• Other studies show increasing density does
not increase learning (Proctor-Williams & Fey, 2007)
– in low-dose conditions, being in high-intensity
implementation favorable (session dose matters
for children in low-intensity implementation)
• Higher intensity better if few episodes/session

PD for Teachers
• What is the „locus of learning‟ in a curriculum or practice?
• What are current dosage assumptions and patterns?
• Is this the ideal dosage pattern considering:
– How the day is organized?
– How children learn?
– The goals for long-term achievement?

Summary
“There is science in what we do, yes,
but also habit, intuition, and
sometimes plain old guessing…
The gap between what we know
and what we aim for persists.
And this gap complicates everything
we do.”
-Atul Gawande,
Complications (2002)
THANK
YOU!!!