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Kathleen Hopkins Heidi Sabers Lutheran Family Health Centers. Purnima Valdez Emily Forrest Alan Mendelsohn NYU School of Medicine –Bellevue Hospital Center. Research in Progress: The Impact of Reach Out and Read on Early Literacy and School Performance. Introduction.
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Kathleen Hopkins Heidi Sabers Lutheran Family Health Centers Purnima Valdez Emily Forrest Alan Mendelsohn NYU School of Medicine –Bellevue Hospital Center Research in Progress:The Impact of Reach Out and Read on Early Literacy and School Performance
Introduction • ROR has a large impact on preschool children: • Parent-child reading aloud • Language development • School age children • Difficult to study • Many factors contribute to literacy outcomes • Difficult to quantify exposure
An Opportunity in Brooklyn • At two elementary schools in Sunset Park, about ½ of the children received their health care at Lutheran Family Health Centers • Lutheran Family Health Centers have a longstanding model ROR program
Help from the New York City Department of Education! • All children attending NYC public schools receive early literacy assessments in grades K-3: • ECLAS-2: Early Childhood Language Assessment System • EL-SOL: El Sistema de Obervacion de la Lecto-Escritura • Skills tested: phonemic awareness, vocabulary, listening and writing
Even more help… • Lutheran Family Health Centers run the School Based Health Centers at these 2 schools • The health records of each child, maintained at these Centers contain information about where the child received preschool pediatric care
An Idea • Link the literacy records with the clinic records • Use the school health information to determine whether the child attended a clinic with ROR • Determine relationship between ROR exposure (clinic attended) and early literacy (ECLAS / EL-SOL) • Sounds easy…
But the Methodology is Very Complicated • Can we really measure exposure to ROR? • For those who attended Lutheran, we can assess well child care visits from the medical record • More difficult for others • What about the other factors that influence early literacy? • The educational records have information about SES (free lunch status), ethnicity, language spoken, Special Education placement • The health records have information about health issues (prematurity, anemia, hearing, other medical problems)
And nothing is ever simple at the DOE… • We began in 2004 • We met with school representatives • We tried to get approval to collect data without consent, since it would be anonymous • The DOE told us that we had to get consent – turning a simple study into a logistical impossibility • Districts became regions, calls went unanswered, we all grew older…
Just when all seemed lost… • Efforts of Purnima Valdez led to DOE approval of the study (although we still did not know how we would get consent) • Efforts of Heidi Sabers and Kathleen Hopkins (and an amazing principal) led to access to one of the schools
Access to a School • A principal at one of the schools decided that this project was of value and helped us overcome barriers: • He let us set up tables on open school day (and 2 other days) to obtain consent from families • He helped us to mail letters to families to let them know about the project
What we have done so far • After open school sessions, letters sent and other days at attending the school: • 185 (of approx 250) mothers provided consent • 2/3 Latina • 1/4 East Asian • 1/10 Other
Next steps • Collect information from educational records (literacy, sociodemographics) • Collect information from school health record (clinic attended, health issues) • Analyze the data!