Implications of the National Early Literacy Panel for Early Braille Literacy PART ONE

1. Implications of the National Early Literacy Panelfor Early Braille LiteracyPART ONE National Center for Family Literacy American Printing House for the Blind Visually Impaired Preschool Services

2. Preliminary Findings of theNational Early Literacy Panel Update: the final report of the National Early Literacy Panel was released January 8, 2009 and can be accessed at http://www.famlit.org/site/c.gtJWJdMQIsE/b.2133427/k.2623/National_Early_Literacy_Panel.htm Bonnie Lash Freeman Director – Training/Special Projects National Center for Family Literacy

3. Purpose of the Family Partnership in Reading ProjectInstructional strategies will be identified based on the scientific research that will enable staff in family literacy programs and early childhood programs to:

4. Purpose of the Family Partnership in Reading Project Help young children develop the foundational skills they need to become good readers Equip parents to support their children’s literacy development Improve reading instruction for parents in family literacy programs

5. National Early Literacy Panel Members • Dr. Anne Cunningham, University of California at Berkeley • Dr. Kathy Escamilla, University of Colorado at Boulder • Dr. Janet Fischel, State University of New York at Stony Brook • Dr. Susan H. Landry, University of Texas—Houston

6. National Early Literacy Panel Members • Dr. Christopher J. Lonigan, Florida State University • Dr. Victoria Molfese, University of Louisville • Dr. Chris Schatschneider, Florida State University • Dr. Timothy Shanahan (Chair), University of Illinois at Chicago • Dr. Dorothy Strickland, Rutgers University

7. Purpose of the NELP • To: • Synthesize the research on early literacy development including parent and home program effects • Deliver a final report of their findings

8. Emergent Literacy Emergent literacy involves the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that are developmental precursors to conventional forms of reading and writing (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998).

9. Emergent Literacy Emergent literacy skills are the basic building blocks for learning to read and write.

10. How to define emergent literacy Two conditions need to be satisfied for something to be considered an emergent literacy skill: • Must come before conventional literacy skills. • Must be related to (i.e., predictive of) conventional literacy skills.

11. What is a Research Synthesis? A research synthesis, also referred to as a research integration, research review, literature review, and a meta-analysis is a method of inquiry used to derive generalizations from the collective findings of a body of existing studies.

12. Benefits of a Research Synthesis • The aggregation of research allows for an accounting and weighing of research evidence in support of a research question.

13. Limits to a Research Synthesis • Limited most by the availability and quality of research on a particular question. • Generalizations made from a research synthesis must stay within the bounds of the research.

14. Four Synthesis Questions

15. What are young children’s (ages birth through five years) skills and abilities that predict later reading, writing and spelling outcomes? 2. What programs and interventions contribute to or inhibit gains in children’s skills and abilities and are linked to later outcomes in reading, writing and spelling?

16. 3. What environments and settings contribute to or inhibit gains in children’s skills and abilities and are linked to later outcomes in reading, writing and spelling? 4. What child characteristics contribute to or inhibit gains in children’s skills and abilities and are linked to later outcomes in reading, writing and spelling?

17. What skills constitute the domain of conventional literacy skills? Receptively • Decoding (accuracy and fluency) • Reading Comprehension

18. What skills constitute the domain of conventional literacy skills? Although decoding is not all there is to skilled reading, it is a critical component. • You can decode what you cannot comprehend, but… • you cannot comprehend what you cannot decode.

19. What skills constitute the domain of conventional literacy skills? Expressively • Spelling • Composition

20. Strong Predictors: • Alphabet Knowledge • Concepts About Print • Phonological Awareness • Invented Spelling • Oral Language • Writing Name/Writing • RAN (Rapid Automatic Naming)

21. Unique predictors from the multivariate studies: • Alphabet Knowledge • Phonological Awareness • Rapid Automatic Naming • Writing/Writing Name • Phonological STM

22. Summary of the #1 Primary Analyses

24. Oral Language Subcategories Predicting Decoding & Comprehension

26. Oral Language Defined • In pairs, define the oral language terms. • Chart your definitions. • In small groups, discuss one strategy that you can use with children that matches the term you defined. • Add to your chart

27. Components of Oral Language • What aspect of oral language is being 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. • Implications for early childhood programs.

28. Components of Phonological Awareness • Early forms of phonological awareness are strong predictors of later reading skills. • Measures of rhyme are not the best indicator of how well children are acquiring this key pre-reading skill.

29. Answering Question 2(Effects of Interventions)Process & Results

30. Category 1: Helping Children Make Sense of Print--Cracking the Alphabetic Code and Teaching Letters and Words (PA, Letter Knowledge, Spelling, Phonics, Print Awareness, Visual Perceptual/Perceptual Motor)

31. Category 2: Reading to and Sharing Books with Young Children • Category 3: Parent and Home Programs for Improving Young Children’s Literacy

32. Category 4: Preschool and Kindergarten Programs • Category 5: Language Enhancement Studies

33. Example: Storybooks and Print Awareness • Laura M. Justice and Helen K. Ezell • 30 Head Start children, native English speakers • Pretest-posttest control-group research design • 8 week book-reading intervention – small group reading sessions • Experimental – print focus • Control – picture focus

34. Cont. Example: print focus prompts • Print Conventions – Where is the front of this book? Show me the way I need to read. • Concept of word – Where is the first word on this page? • Alphabet knowledge – Does anyone see any letters in their name on this page?

35. Cont. • Results indicated that for three of the subtests • Print Recognition • Words in Print • Alphabet Knowledge • and in terms of the Phonological Awareness composite

36. Cont. the children who participated in print focused reading sessions demonstrated significantly greater gains from pretest to post test compared to the children in the picture focused reading groups.

37. Summary: Overall Intervention Findings • Evidence for significant effects of some (but not all) early childhood interventions in the promotion of literacy and literacy-related skills.

38. Summary:Overall Intervention Findings • Efforts to teach code-related skills are highly successful. • Phonological Awareness Skills • Alphabet Knowledge • Concepts About Print • Shared-book reading helps promote oral language skills.

39. Summary:Overall Intervention Findings • Evidence of a sizable impact of parent and home programs for the promotion of oral language skills. • Relatively weak evidence for the effectiveness of undifferentiated preschool programs on reading achievement. • Oral language interventions work.

40. Implications for Early Childhood Education

41. Provides evidence for building children’s language and literacy skills in the preschool period. • Identifies early skills that give children the strongest foundation for learning to read.

42. Provides guidelines for professional development (e.g., read-aloud practices, PA activities). • Supports the importance of assessment of early literacy skills.

43. Informs decisions about developing or selecting the most appropriate curricula (e.g., content, intensity, sequence). • Helps to guide the development of goals and selection of content for parent programs. • Provides strong direction about future research.

44. Implications of the National Early Literacy Panelfor Early Braille LiteracyPART TWO Suzette Wright APH Emergent Literacy Project Leader Pauletta Feldman VIPS Special Projects Coordinator

45. Preliminary findings of the National Early Literacy Panel (NELP ) point to early skills that predict favorable literacy outcomes for young, typically sighted print readers.

46. NELP confirms the critical importance of the years before school and the contributions of: • parents and the home environment • teachers of preschoolers and preschool programs

47. NELP • Correlative information regarding early predictive skills and later • decoding • comprehension • spelling

48. NELP • Guide for future research • address observed gaps in existing research • secondary and more detailed analyses of NELP data

49. What does NELP indicate about: • skills needed by a preschooler who will read braille? • the settings and circumstances in which those skills may be learned and developed?

50. Can NELP findings guide us as we work to ensure a foundation for literacy for children who will read braille?