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Building Literacy Through Language in Preschool Classrooms David K. Dickinson, EdD. Boston College In this article I briefly describe the historical and intellectual context for my own work and then review some key supporting empirical findings. I also review my efforts to communicate to preschool teachers major insights regarding the nature of research that have resulted from the work of many scholars and to provide professional development experiences that help them more effectively support children’s emergence of literacy in their preschool classrooms. Setting the Historical and Scholarly Context Work on early literacy emerged from different research traditions, and this intermingling of scholarly traditions has resulted in a field of study that is building a complex, multi-faceted portrait of the origins of literacy. Throughout the 20th century there was considerable interest in how children learn to read (Adams, 1990; Chall, 1960), but it was only in the past thirty years that the early roots of literacy began to be investigated in a systematic fashion (Clay, 1975, 1979; Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982; Sulzby & Teale 1991; Teale & Sulbzy, 1986) . Interest in this area has increased dramatically in the United States with the recognition of the long-term correlations between children’s literacy skills early in their school career and subsequent success (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997; Snow et. al., 1991). Interest also has been fueled by the recognition that children’s chances of getting off to a strong start are heavily determined by demographic factors such as income, parental education, race and language background (Dickinson & Snow, 1987; Tarullo & Zill, 2002; Strickland, 2001; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998, 2001). Beginning in the 1960’s and 1970’s child language researchers (e.g., Berko-Gleason, 1958; Brown, 1973) began to describe the systematic nature of language development, highlighting children’s construction of rules. In the 1970’s the role of input began to receive extensive attention (e.g., Snow & Ferguson, 1977). Others, working from disparate scholarly traditions, began to examine the importance of the variability in children’s early language environments that were associated with racial (Labov, 1972); and cultural variability (Heath, 1982; Phillips, 1972 ) as these were revealed in children’s homes and classrooms (e.g., Cazden, John & Hymes, 1972). In the early 1980’s language researchers began to examine the intersection between language and literacy (Dickinson, 1987; Dickinson & Snow, 1987; Hart & Risley, 1995; Snow, 1983). By the mid-1980’s it was becoming apparent that the roots of literacy extend into the early years (Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982 ; Groelman & Oberg, 1984; Teale & Sulzby, 1986). Still, relatively little was known about the details of the intersection between language and literacy or about the home and classroom experiences that support children’s acquisition of the language and early print-related skills. It was in the context of this growing interest in the emergence of literacy that Catherine Snow and I began the Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development (Snow & Dickinson, 1991). Starting in 1987, we began an intensive longitudinal examination of how parents and teachers of children from low-income families support the development of language skills of young children. The Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development We based our study on the assumption that rich language experiences during the preschool years play an important role in ensuring that children are able to read with comprehension when they reach middle school (Tabors, Snow & Dickinson, 2001). There was considerable support for this hypothesis in the earlier longitudinal studies of Snow (Snow, Barnes, Chandler, Goodman, & Hemphill 1991) and others (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997; Wells, 1985; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). We assumed that language skills must play a fundamental role in early literacy and that there are different clusters of language skills (Snow & Dickinson, 1991). One set of abilities are those required to carry on informal conversations with friends and relatives; skills using context-supported conversational language. Often during face-to-face interactions, people use sources of information other than language to communicate and to understand the meanings of others. For example, when people converse, they often use gestures, intonation, and facial expressions. They also frequently refer to shared experiences, experiences that simply may be evoked, and do need not be discussed at length. On the other hand, in technological societies, in order to understand written language, people often must rely heavily on the words and the syntax, as they understand the meaning of another without many of the supports available in face-to-face settings. Language that is less fully supported by contextual supports we refer to as “decontextualized language.” We hypothesized that the frequency of children’s experiences using language in situations that drew required use of decontextualized language skills would strongly predict of children’s early and subsequent literacy development. To test this hypothesis we employed research techniques that allowed us to capture the rich details of home and classroom life. We audiotaped conversations in both settings and interviewed mothers and teachers about their experiences with the children (see Dickinson & Tabors, 2001 for details). We transcribed these tapes and coded them in ways that allowed us to identify the kinds of interactions and experiences that support children’s language and literacy development. Then, when the children in our study were in kindergarten, we began to administer a battery of language and early literacy tasks. These tasks evaluated children’s receptive vocabulary, narrative skill, letter knowledge, early reading and writing, and phonemic awareness. When we related our descriptions of children’s experiences in their homes, we found that three dimensions of children’s home and classroom experiences during the preschool years were related to their literacy success at the end of kindergarten: 1) Varied vocabulary: Parents and teachers provided children exposure to varied vocabulary during conversations. In classrooms the more opportunities children had to speak with their teacher, the more varied vocabulary they heard, because teacher-child talk included a considerably wider range of words than talk among peers. We also found some evidence that children support each other’s vocabulary learning, because the variety of vocabulary used by all children in a classroom as they conversed with teachers teacher helped predict the vocabulary growth of the particular children we were studying. The variability in support for vocabulary seen in homes was particularly important in predicting children’s vocabulary development. 2) Extended discourse: Children benefited if they participated in conversations that use extended discourse. For example, children did better if they had more opportunities to hear and produce explanations, personal narratives, and engaged in more pretending. A prime activity that gives rise to such talk in homes and classrooms is book reading. Meal time is also a setting found in homes and classrooms when adults and children may engage in valuable extended discourse. Also, in classrooms free play teachers supported children’s language when they engaged children in conversations that stayed on a single topic. Discussions that teachers held with groups of children about the books that they were reading aloud also were valuable, especially when they led the children into analytical conversations that required children to think about the story or discuss the meanings of words (Dickinson & Smith, 1994). The variability in children’s classroom experiences related to extended discourse were particularly powerful in predicting a child’s language and literacy at the end of kindergarten. 3) Intellectually supportive environments. A third important factor in homes and classrooms that was important to children’s early development were environments that provided cognitive and linguistic stimulation. In children’s homes, the most important contributor to language and literacy development was frequent book reading. In classrooms support for writing and a curriculum that changed and had a focus on introducing new information were important. After children left kindergarten, we continued to assess their reading and language abilities throughout the elementary grades and into middle school and found very strong correlations between children’s skills in kindergarten and our end-of-seventh grade assessments. For example, seventh grade reading comprehension was strongly related to kindergarten receptive vocabulary (r = .71 ; p < .001). These data underscore the strong continuity between early and later literacy skills and highlight the need to identify experiences in the preschool years that contribute to the acquisition of the language and literacy skills. Results such as these highlight the importance of ensuring that children’s experiences during the preschool years provide a strong basis for their later literacy learning. The Importance of High Quality Preschool Experiences Considerable research conducted in the United States has demonstrated that higher quality programs result in better outcomes for children (e.g., (Barnett, 1995, 2001; Campbell & Ramey, 1994, 1995; NICHD, 2002; Peisner-Feinberg & Burchinal, 1997). Unfortunately, our research indicates that there are significant deficiencies in the quality of support provided in many classrooms. We have observed preschools that serve low-income children in the northeastern part of the United States and coded their support for language and literacy in three different ways. We have described classrooms by using the Early Language and Literacy Classroom Observation Toolkit (Smith, Dickinson, Sangeorge, & Anastasopoulos, 2002). This toolkit includes an anchored rating scale that evaluates classrooms along 14 dimensions that are clustered into two groups: 1) items that describe aspects of classrooms most related to supporting language and literacy development (e.g., book reading, support for writing, quality of content area curriculum), and 2) items that describe aspects of classrooms related to management and emotional climate (e.g., climate, management, materials). Our analysis of data from 125 classrooms revealed that scores for items describing support for language and literacy were consistently weaker than scores for more standard early childhood practices (e.g., materials, classroom organization, management, climate). When we considered the language, literacy and curriculum items, we found that only 13% of the classrooms were rated as “strong.” On the other hand, the items relating to materials, management and climate reflected much more strength, with 41% of the classrooms receiving strong ratings. We believe this disparity reflects the long-standing ambivalence among early childhood educators in the United States about the appropriateness of supporting literacy and content-area learning. In contrast, it has long been recognized that young children need well-ordered and nurturing environments. When we were in classrooms we also observed book reading and again found reason for concern. In 100 classrooms where we spent 169 days of collecting data, there were 66 occasions when no book reading was observed during our two to three hour observations. We also observed adults reading to individuals or small groups in only about a third of the classrooms (Dickinson, McCabe, & Anastasopoulos, 2003). Thus, in some classrooms children rarely had opportunities to hear books at all and in many classrooms they did not get to hear and discuss books in small groups, a setting that is more conducive to thoughtful conversation about books. We also have examined details of conversations that take place between teachers and children using a tool called The Teacher-Child Verbal Interaction Profile (Dickinson, Howard & Haine, 1998). We observed classrooms during meal times and free play and coded between 8 and 16 30 second intervals of teacher-child conversations for whether the teacher was verbally engaged, the content of the conversation (e.g., control, past or future event, talk about literacy or math, general world knowledge), whether or not the interaction stayed on one topic, and whether or not the teacher dominated the conversation. Analyses of these conversations revealed the following patterns, all of which point to areas in need of improvement: ˇ Active verbal engagement: During 93% of intervals, teachers were verbally engaged for some portion of the 30 second interval, but during meal times 42% of these interactions included teacher talk for less than 5 seconds of the interval. Given that meal times have been found to settings during which the quality of conversations can benefit children, this degree of teacher inattention is a matter of concern (Cote, 2001; Snow ^). ˇ Balance of participation. We examined the extent to which children were active verbal participants as opposed to passively listening to teachers and found that children were active participants less than half the time. Given that children benefit most when teachers encourage them to extend their comments, this is a worrisome pattern (Dickinson, 2001; Dickinson & McCabe, 2001). ˇ Extended topic. We coded conversations for whether or not they stayed on and deepened a single topic and found this type of interaction in less than 20% of the intervals coded. Given prior research finding that conversations that “develop a topic” have found that children benefit from such interactions with adults (McCabe & Peterson, 1991) this, too, is a finding of concern. ˇ Content of conversations. We coded the content of teacher-child conversations and found that about a third of the conversations were about the past or future or that expanded children’s knowledge of the world. Given that conversations rich with content are most conducive to supporting development of literacy-related language skills, this, too is a finding for concern (Dickinson, 2001). Summary. We cannot know whether the findings from classrooms in the United States will be replicated in Latin American countries. However, we do suspect that the kinds of factors that we believe give rise to such relatively impoverished language environments are likely to be found in many settings in which the staff are poorly paid and are working with children from low-income or rural families. We believe that many teachers are not aware of the importance of engaging in sustained conversations (Dickinson, 1991, 1994). Without this knowledge, their conversations are driven by other powerful factors such as fatigue, personal conversational preferences (e.g., a desire to eat quietly), or concerns with socialization (e.g., teaching manners) and behavior management concerns. In addition, content learning often is not a high priority; therefore children and teachers frequently are not talking about topics that will expand children’s knowledge of the world. Thus, although we now know that preschool classrooms have the potential to provide important stimulus to the language and early literacy development of children from low-income homes, careful examination of patterns of teacher-child conversations indicate that considerable numbers of low-income children are not receiving optimal support for language growth in preschool. But these conditions can be changed. Improving Preschool Classrooms Through Professional Development In an effort to help preschool teachers better support children’s early literacy development, I worked with colleagues at the Center for Children and Families at EDC to develop an intervention called the Literacy Environment Enrichment Program (LEEP). This is given as an academic course that is taken by teams of teachers and supervisors. It introduces teachers to basic theory about language and literacy development and ties this knowledge to classroom practice. Teachers link theory to practice in their own classrooms and supervisors are helped to adopt effective methods to coach teachers. We have now taught LEEP to groups of teachers throughout the northeastern part of the United States. We observed LEEP (n=40) and comparison group classrooms (n=62) before and after the course. We also assessed the children in these classrooms (LEEP n=231; Comparison group n = 328). Analyses were done by using multiple regression analyses that controlled for the score a classroom received in the fall prior to the intervention and for information about the teacher (e.g., teacher education, years of experience, racial background). We found strong evidence that LEEP made a difference in classroom practices. Using the same analytic approach, we examined our data for evidence of an impact of teacher’s participation in LEEP on children’s learning. We found evidence that children whose teachers had been in LEEP had better scores on assessments of vocabulary, phonological awareness and early literacy. Recently we also designed a course that was taught using interactive video conferencing and a website and again found strong effects on classroom practices and even stronger effects on children’s language and early literacy skills. The results of our professional development efforts demonstrate that teachers who work in classrooms that serve low-income children can make sizable changes and these changes can translate into improvements in children’s early literacy skills. We suspect that even larger effects can be seen if strong curricula are in place. To this end, I currently am helping to develop such a curriculum as are other researchers around the United States. In the coming decade we will learn much about the effectiveness of these preschool curricula. Conclusion Research has clearly shown the importance of early success in school for long-term literacy success. Programs that care for young children must make special efforts to ensure the children receive maximal support for language throughout the day. Here are some practical steps I suggest: ˇ engage children in sustained and high quality professional development that links understanding to classroom practices, ˇ build shared understanding with teaching colleagues and supervisors regarding expectations related to providing children support for language and literacy, ˇ read to children every day at least once and preferable more often and strive to ensure that every child is read to in a small group settings several times a week, ˇ when adults read to children they should discuss selected aspects of the text in ways that encourage analysis and talk about the meanings of words, ˇ programs such strive to have enough adults during meal times so that each table group has one adult; instruct that adult in the importance of actively striving to engage children in conversations ˇ programs such strive to create a culture of classroom conversation that includes the following o teachers talk about non-present topics, provide children information, and encourage questioning and speculation o teachers stay on and deepen topics over multiple turns (“strive for 5”!) o teachers use varied vocabulary and draw children’s attention to words o teachers encourage children to listen to each other engage
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