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| **Supporting Cognitive Development in Early Childhood**           |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| Today I will describe how researchers and educational training    |   |
| staff from the Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for |   |
| Learning and Education (CIRCLE), University of Texas-Houston      |   |
| Health Science Center, have been involved in the implementation   |   |
| and evaluation of a model of professional development for Head    |   |
| Start teachers. CIRCLE\'s research and training efforts have been |   |
| supported with over 15 years of federal, state, and private       |   |
| funding on issues related to understanding the factors that are   |   |
| most important for supporting young children\'s cognitive and     |   |
| social development.                                               |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| [The problem.]{.underline} There is consistent documentation of a |   |
| lack of school readiness for children with social, economic and   |   |
| physical risk factors. In a recent publication, 50% of            |   |
| kindergartners in the United States are from families with one or |   |
| more risk factors for school failure. More than 33% of these      |   |
| children with only one risk factor will have reading scores in    |   |
| the bottom 25th percentile. Lack of school readiness for children |   |
| from disadvantaged backgrounds due to social, physical, or        |   |
| economic factors is related to inadequate language and literacy   |   |
| experiences in early childhood. Therefore, a major question is    |   |
| whether greater attention to language and early literacy in early |   |
| childhood programs can better prepare children for school         |   |
| success.                                                          |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| [What educational research tells us.]{.underline} Research tells  |   |
| us that if language, literacy, and other cognitive factors are    |   |
| attended to through quality programming in early childhood        |   |
| settings, children\'s school readiness is optimized. Research     |   |
| describes three key components of quality programs for reading    |   |
| and academic success. These include a strong foundation in: 1)    |   |
| language development, 2) early literacy (i.e., phonological       |   |
| awareness, letter knowledge, written expression, book and print   |   |
| awareness, motivation to read, and 3) early math (e.g., number    |   |
| and operations).                                                  |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| [What developmental research tells us.]{.underline} Research also |   |
| tells us how young children learn most effectively through        |   |
| interactions with others. Based on developmental theories that    |   |
| emphasize the role of learning in social contexts, we know that   |   |
| caregivers and teachers are a critical source of stimulation for  |   |
| young children. The way in which more competent others are able   |   |
| to support young children\'s learning has been described as       |   |
| \"scaffolding\" and includes a broad range of interactive styles  |   |
| that are consistently reported to enhance children\'s ability to  |   |
| learn because they provide support for the young child\'s less    |   |
| mature attention, cognitive, and language skills. Scaffolding     |   |
| occurs in everyday situations when caregivers or teachers notice  |   |
| a child\'s interest in a toy or book and help him/her hold the    |   |
| object and talk about how it works and what it is called.         |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| In our own research there are six key essentials for optimal      |   |
| support of young children's cognitive development. We have found  |   |
| that these include 1) providing rich language environments        |   |
| through labeling, explanations about children\'s interests, and   |   |
| frequent book reading on different topics, 2) responding to       |   |
| children\'s requests and signals promptly and sensitively, 3)     |   |
| maintaining and expanding on children\'s interests in specific    |   |
| learning activities, 4) avoiding negative and highly restrictive  |   |
| behaviors, 5) providing opportunities for choice by the           |   |
| toddler/preschool periods when children are more capable of       |   |
| beginning to direct their own learning, and 6) monitoring         |   |
| children's behavior. When this interactive style is apparent, 1)  |   |
| children are willing to signal their needs and interests, 2)      |   |
| caregivers and teachers respond to these in a sensitive and       |   |
| prompt manner, and 3) children receive a supportive consequence   |   |
| and more effective learning occurs.                               |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| In our research, after identifying the key interactive behaviors  |   |
| that are important for early learning, we addressed whether early |   |
| childhood was a critical period for children to experience these  |   |
| supportive and stimulative interactive styles. We were            |   |
| specifically interested in whether the period from infancy        |   |
| through entry into kindergarten played a unique role in           |   |
| children\'s development of cognitive and social skills because    |   |
| this was a time when children were more receptive to supportive   |   |
| learning environments. This question was motivated by research    |   |
| demonstrating that the young brain is highly susceptible to       |   |
| different types of stimulation as it is in the active process of  |   |
| developing networks of associations from learning experiences.    |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| We evaluated the question of a critical period for 360 families   |   |
| and their young children by observing mother and child            |   |
| interactions in home visits when children were 6, 12, and 24      |   |
| months of age, and again when they were 3, 4, 6, and 8 years of   |   |
| age. They were observed interacting in everyday activities such   |   |
| as having lunch together, bathing and dressing, as well as in toy |   |
| play and book reading activities. To address the role of these    |   |
| key stimulation behaviors across this time period, we constructed |   |
| average ratings of mothers\' behaviors for the infancy period (6, |   |
| 12, 24 months of age) and the preschool period (3, 4 years of     |   |
| age). We also collected measures of mothers\' behaviors at 6 and  |   |
| 8 years of age. We were interested in whether mothers\' differed  |   |
| in their ability to show responsive stimulation behaviors across  |   |
| infancy and early childhood. Through cluster analysis we found    |   |
| four evenly distributed groups of mothers: 1) one that was        |   |
| consistently and highly responsive throughout early childhood, 2) |   |
| two of whom were responsive in either infancy or preschool period |   |
| but not both, and 3) one that was consistently low in their       |   |
| responsiveness across this age period.                            |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| Examination of how these four patterns of parenting predicted     |   |
| children\'s cognitive/language abilities as well as their social  |   |
| skills showed that the children whose mothers were consistently   |   |
| the highest in responsiveness had the fastest rates of cognitive/ |   |
| language development. This group of children had cognitive skills |   |
| at average levels by kindergarten. The inconsistent and low       |   |
| responsiveness groups showed slower rates of development with     |   |
| children being considerably behind in their cognitive skills by 5 |   |
| years of age. When we considered this question through 8 years of |   |
| age and took into consideration mothers\' 6 and 8 year parenting, |   |
| we continued to find that the quality of parenting in early       |   |
| childhood was the strongest predictor and that parenting at these |   |
| two later ages did not predict additional variance in the         |   |
| children\'s outcomes. Thus, this demonstrates support for a       |   |
| unique role of quality stimulation in early childhood for         |   |
| cognitive/language development. Although there is not time to     |   |
| illustrate how these patterns predict social development, similar |   |
| results were found. This research led us to develop parent        |   |
| programs that were tested in random assignment studies for their  |   |
| effectiveness in facilitating parents\' interactive behaviors. We |   |
| are finding that parents from all socioeconomic levels usually    |   |
| want to learn more about how to enhance their children\'s         |   |
| development. Our research is demonstrating that with information  |   |
| about effective parenting practices and a facilitator helping     |   |
| them practice specific responsive strategies, caregivers show     |   |
| dramatic increases in their use of these strategies. This, in     |   |
| turn, resulted in their young children showing large gains in     |   |
| cognitive and social skills.                                      |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| [An innovative professional development model.]{.underline} With  |   |
| the guidance of the early literacy research and our own research  |   |
| on the importance of quality interactions, the next step for      |   |
| CIRCLE was to develop and help implement a model of professional  |   |
| development for early childhood teachers. In this model, teachers |   |
| were seen as a critical source of stimulation for young           |   |
| children\'s cognitive, language, and social/emotional             |   |
| development. The goals of the model included assisting teachers   |   |
| in including classroom experiences that placed a strong focus on  |   |
| teaching a broad range of early literacy skills, including a      |   |
| strong foundation of language. In developing this program we      |   |
| identified, through interviews with teachers and program          |   |
| coordinators, a number of obstacles for achieving this goal.      |   |
| These included a tradition in professional development practices  |   |
| for using large, one dose training formats with no in-classroom   |   |
| support, the lack of focus on a specific set of skills, didactic  |   |
| formats without opportunities to practice, and limited attempts   |   |
| for \"buy in\" from all levels of agency staff. Most importantly, |   |
| professional development rarely included strong evaluation        |   |
| components. In order to address these obstacles, the state        |   |
| legislators allocated funding for a 2-year grant program and have |   |
| since approved this as a yearly budget item for the next          |   |
| biennium. The development of state prekindergarten guidelines     |   |
| also assisted with this goal. Before scaling this program to      |   |
| serve large numbers of teachers it was piloted in both a small    |   |
| and moderate program and results showed strong increases in       |   |
| children's language and literacy skills across the year.          |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| The project scope then increased to include 20 Head Start         |   |
| programs with 500 target teachers who participated in the         |   |
| professional development model, and 210 comparison teachers who   |   |
| received the \"typical\" training and support. Approximately      |   |
| 8,000 children were in target teacher classrooms. Fifty-five      |   |
| percent of the programs are in free standing Head Start agencies  |   |
| while 45% are programs within public school districts. The        |   |
| programs are located throughout Texas with 60% located in urban   |   |
| areas and 40% in rural settings. Target and comparison teachers   |   |
| were similar in that they represent a broad range of ethnicities  |   |
| (approximately 35% Hispanic, 30% African American, 25% Caucasian, |   |
| 2% other) and level of teacher training (5% high school diploma,  |   |
| 40% child development associate certification, 15% 2-year college |   |
| associate degree, 35% bachelor degree, and 5% master\'s degree).  |   |
| The language of instruction for the majority of the classrooms    |   |
| (80%) was English. Children in target and control classrooms also |   |
| represented diverse ethnicities; 60% Hispanic, 20% African        |   |
| American, 18% Caucasian, and 2% other. This second year of a 2    |   |
| year project, an additional 300 teachers have received training   |   |
| in the program.                                                   |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| We began the training program with a 3-day workshop to inform and |   |
| problem-solve with program administrators, coordinators, and      |   |
| mentor teachers. As a key component of our model is ongoing,      |   |
| weekly in-classroom coaching for targeted teachers, this workshop |   |
| focused on the training of side by side coaching skills and       |   |
| effective ways to give feedback to teachers regarding how to      |   |
| implement change in specific teaching skills. To assist mentors   |   |
| and classroom teachers in identifying targeted areas for change,  |   |
| we developed a teacher observation checklist that was used to     |   |
| guide mentoring and provided information for the evaluation of    |   |
| our model.                                                        |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| Teachers were trained in 4-day, small group, interactive          |   |
| workshops on specific ways to teach early literacy skills         |   |
| including language. They received in-depth information on         |   |
| separate literacy and language domains, including practice in     |   |
| developing and integrating literacy activities such as story      |   |
| extenders, literacy in all centers, \"make it/take it\"           |   |
| activities, phonological awareness games, and practice in         |   |
| conducting effective read alouds. Teachers also spent time        |   |
| developing lesson plans with literacy objectives and role playing |   |
| activities related to these lesson plans. The content of these    |   |
| workshops included 2-hour sessions on the following: 1) the six   |   |
| key essential responsive teaching practices, 2) language          |   |
| enrichment (i.e., \"scaffolding\" throughout the day, encouraging |   |
| children to use their language), 3) doing effective read alouds,  |   |
| 4) print & book awareness, 5) motivation to read, 6) phonological |   |
| awareness, 7) letter knowledge & early word recognition, and 8)   |   |
| written expression. Some examples of activities the teachers were |   |
| involved with included working in small groups with selected      |   |
| books and picture cards to develop open-ended questions that      |   |
| would encourage more complex language usage from the children.    |   |
| They also learned and role played a broad range of phonological   |   |
| activities including rhyming games, alliteration, and sound       |   |
| blending activities. The training also assists teachers in        |   |
| learning the importance of building new cognitive concepts for    |   |
| children by integrating these learning goals across a variety of  |   |
| exciting and engaging activities. As children experience repeated |   |
| experiences with a new concept (i.e., new vocabulary words) in a  |   |
| variety of planful learning activities they learn more            |   |
| effectively.                                                      |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| Once the initial training workshops were completed prior to the   |   |
| start of the school year, all targeted teachers received, weekly, |   |
| 1-hour in-class coaching with follow-up \"grows & glows\"         |   |
| meetings concerning their progress. Classroom mentors and program |   |
| coordinators attended monthly full day training meetings across   |   |
| September through May conducted by CIRCLE training staff. At      |   |
| these monthly training programs, mentors received in-depth        |   |
| training on how to coach early literacy areas and problem solving |   |
| regarding how to implement change with all types of teachers.     |   |
| Reliability checks were conducted on the teacher observation      |   |
| checklist through the use of coaching videos of classroom         |   |
| situations. Additionally, site visits were conducted by CIRCLE    |   |
| staff twice per year. Let\'s watch a brief video showing how this |   |
| training looked and how teachers who received this training       |   |
| carried out these activities in their prekindergarten classrooms. |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| Our model evaluation included pre and post testing for a random   |   |
| sample of 3500 children in target and comparison classrooms. The  |   |
| teacher behavior checklist included the following areas: use of   |   |
| literacy related activities, environment and portfolios of        |   |
| literacy skills, responsive teaching practices, team teaching,    |   |
| effective book reading, and oral language use. This was collected |   |
| on a monthly basis and used to measure teacher change in target   |   |
| and comparison classrooms. The following tests were administered  |   |
| to the children in early fall and late spring: Peabody Picture    |   |
| Vocabulary Test, Expressive Vocabulary Test, Preschool Language   |   |
| Scale, Developing Skills Checklist subtests for print concepts,   |   |
| letter knowledge, and phonological awareness.                     |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| When we looked at results from our large program, we found target |   |
| teachers made significantly greater gains than comparison         |   |
| teachers in all areas with average gains of about .75 on a five   |   |
| point scale on oral language, literacy activities, team teaching, |   |
| and best practice subscales. Conducting effective book reads      |   |
| showed the most dramatic change of about 1.5 points.              |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| A comparison of the first year pre test results for the large     |   |
| program of target and comparison children\'s skills revealed      |   |
| similar levels in language and literacy domains. Across both      |   |
| groups of children, early literacy skills, on average were in the |   |
| 20% range. Children\'s one-word language skills were, overall, in |   |
| the low average range and in the high 70\'s for more complex      |   |
| language understanding and use. Thus, the pre test results        |   |
| clearly demonstrated the need for quality programs to better      |   |
| assure school readiness.                                          |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| Midpoint in this demonstration project we find that approximately |   |
| 65% of the programs are showing positive gains in the language    |   |
| and/or literacy areas. Seven programs showed the strongest gains  |   |
| with both language and literacy areas improving to a greater      |   |
| extent in the target vs. control children. Six additional         |   |
| programs showed moderate gains for target vs. control children in |   |
| language and literacy areas. A strength of this project is the    |   |
| opportunity to work with the teachers in the programs for 2 full  |   |
| years. At the end of this first year, we are able to learn more   |   |
| about why some programs are showing stronger gains than others.   |   |
| This will be used to help guide our training and support for the  |   |
| programs that are having more difficulty in demonstrating strong  |   |
| gains in children\'s cognitive skills.                            |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| We plan to carefully examine a large number of factors that may   |   |
| moderate or mediate changes in our programs. However at this      |   |
| point, there are a number of factors that do not appear to        |   |
| strongly explain variability in outcomes across the 20 programs.  |   |
| Whether programs are in public school systems or not, urban vs.   |   |
| rural setting, large vs. small programs, and the child\'s home    |   |
| language do not appear strongly related to programs\' outcomes.   |   |
| Factors that seem to be potentially important include the rigor   |   |
| with which the program was implemented, including assuring that   |   |
| mentors had adequate time to work with teachers on a weekly basis |   |
| and had the expertise to carry out this complex set of skills.    |   |
| The use of a specific language and literacy curriculum also       |   |
| predicted better success. This program has now been incorporated  |   |
| in Head Start programs in Maryland, Ohio, and California and will |   |
| be in used in a trainer of trainers model with over 2,500 Head    |   |
| Start literacy trainers this summer across the United States.     |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| Implementation of this program has helped us understand that side |   |
| by side coaching is a critically important component for          |   |
| professional development. Also, while teachers need to be         |   |
| encouraged to be creative, training needs to be step by step and  |   |
| include many \"how to\'s\". While it involves additional time     |   |
| investment, it is critical to work with all levels of program     |   |
| staff to achieve \"buy in\" and facilitate change. Our results    |   |
| demonstrate that with a systematic approach, teachers can be      |   |
| supported to teach young children cognitive skills and that this  |   |
| can occur for large numbers of programs that vary greatly in      |   |
| teacher and child characteristics. Most importantly, children\'s  |   |
| cognitive development can be supported in ways that are           |   |
| responsive to a broad range of other abilities including          |   |
| reasoning skills, social competence, and emotional health.        |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| [\^\^ top \^\^](http://www.ed.gov/PressReleases/07-2001/#top)     |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| ![](media/image1.png){width="1.03125in"                           |   |
| height="0.3854166666666667in"}                                    |   |
|                                                                   |   |
| Last Updated, August 1, 2001                                      |   |
| ([pjk](mailto:webmaster@inet.ed.gov))                             |   |
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