Effect of early literacy intervention on kindergarten achievement

This study identified differential effects on kindergarten achievement according to treatment type, community status, and school type. From a sample of 40, schools were grouped into rural village (drawing students form only one small community), rural collector (drawing students form a number of small communities), and urban. From each of these groupings, four schools were randomly selected. From each group of four, schools were assigned randomly to one of the treatment groups (Little Books used in the home only, Little Books used in the home and school, Little Books used in the school only, and control). Eighteen classes of kindergarten children form 12 schools participated in the study. Complete pretest and posttest data were obtained for 309 children. Quantitative analyses showed the children entering kindergarten in this study to be at risk of school failure. On average, urban kindergartners scored higher on all measures, and village and collector students scored about the same. Differences in posttest means were not related clearly to treatment. However, the Metropolitan Reading Readiness Pretest x Treatment interaction, which showed that the lowest achieving students profited most from the Little Books when they were used at home only and the highest achieving students when they used in school only, helps to support the hypothesis that the home has a crucial role to play in literacy development. Phillips, Norris, Mason, & Kerr EFFECT OF EARLY LITERACY INTERVENTION ON KINDERGARTEN ACHIEVEMENT A substantial number of concepts about language are acquired prior to entering school (Clay, 1975). These concepts may seem trivial (what is right-side-up for a book, what on the page is print, that print carries meaning, etc.), but they are fundamental to learning to read and write (Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982). The mere presence of print in the home, however, is not sufficient for children to acquire these concepts; they must also take part in interactive family experiences with print and print-related matters (Durkin, 1982). One of the most important of these interactions is book reading. However, there tends to be a low incidence of book reading in low-income families (Heath, 1983; Teale, 1986). In contrast, middle-class children start school already familiar with letters and words and able to glean useful information from looking at books and listening to stories. Because most school-based programs are geared toward middle-class children, a mismatch between the literacy acquired at home and the literacy required to participate in school is virtually assured for low-income children. With the aim of lessening the risk of school failure for such children, we extended the preschool home intervention study of McCormick and Mason (1986) into a full-kindergarten-year Little Books program aimed at encouraging parent-child and teacher-child book reading. The Little Books (McCormick & Mason, 1990) are designed to capitalize upon what children know. Little Books (a) are thematic and contain familiar topics to increase the child's expectation that text should make sense; (b) are written using everyday high-frequency content words to facilitate links between spoken and written language; (c) have a strong fit between illustrations and text to make clear that both text and picture frame the meaning; (d) are written using phrases and simple sentences to promote comprehension at the minimal discourse level; (e) feature a story that ends with a culminating idea to create a sense of intrigue or amusement and provide text closure; and (f) have a guidedparticipation model (Rogoff, 1986) underlying the presentation and practice of the books in order to foster children's confidence. The objectives of the present study were t'o determine whether a beneficial effect on children's literacy development accrues from the use of the Little Books with kindergarten children, and whether there are differential effects according to treatment type, community status, and school type.