Early Literacy in Preschool Development

¶ … Language and Literacy Development of Head Start Children: A Study Using the Family and Child Experiences Survey Database." The report opens with a description of the Head Start program, established in 1965, and sums up their goal: to provide a comprehensive development program for low socioeconomic status (SES) children and their families. In 1995 it was decided to evaluate the Head Start program's quality and effectiveness.

To that end, the study defined a conceptual model that defined school readiness in terms of five developmental domains: Physical well-being and motor development Social and emotional development Approaches to learning Language usage and emerging literacy Cognition and general knowledge The Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) was then developed to provide information about Head Start children and their families, and to gather data about the program.

The study included four cohorts for collection periods 1997, 2000, 2003, and 2006, with each cohort consisting of a nationally representative sample of 3- and 4-year-old Head Start children and their families. Information was collected on the children, the children's parents and family, along with the Head Start programs that the children attended. Findings from the longitudinal study produced a series of reports over the study period. FACES 1997 and 2000 results showed that preschoolers who entered Head Start were below national averages in language and literacy.

Despite making gains during Head Start, children left Head Start with abilities below those of the average U.S. preschooler. The 2006 report includes data on Head Start children with disabilities. Findings on these children showed that they had lower language and literacy scores than children without disabilities. Additional data analysis was conducted to investigate factors that would account for achievement gaps for low SES children.

Factors that affect children's outcomes include: Maternal education Presence of a speech-language impairment Children's gender Home literacy environment Preschoolers' oral language Preschoolers' knowledge Study results were complied and presented in a series of tables that highlighted the study's findings. The study found several key factors were indeed predictive of Head Start children's reading abilities in kindergarten. The study showed that children of mothers with higher educational levels had higher vocabulary and letter-word identification abilities in Head Start than did children of mothers with lower educational levels.

Consistent with earlier research, this study showed males were nearly three times as likely as females to have a speech-language impairment. Males also scored lower than females in letter-word identification abilities at the end of Head Start. Younger children, who entered at an earlier age and therefore spent more time in Head Start, scored higher than older children in letter-word identification abilities. The study also revealed that children's ethnicity affected their home literacy environment and their outcomes, as well as vocabulary and early reading scores.

Researchers interpret this finding to possibly result from the test being culturally and linguistically biased. Children's ethnicity also affected their reading scores at the end of kindergarten. Analysis of the effect of the home literacy environment revealed some inconsistencies. The home literacy environment affected children's vocabulary abilities, but not their early letter-word identification abilities. In kindergarten, the home literacy environment had a negative impact on children's reading outcomes. Another unexpected finding was that the presence of speech-language impairment did not impact children's vocabulary or early letter-word identification abilities.

On the other hand, children's vocabulary and letter-word knowledge did predict their early reading abilities in kindergarten, which finding was consistent with other studies. The report also discussed some of the study limitations. The study was limited to testing receptive vocabulary, no other areas of language were tested. Also, questions that parents were asked related to home literacy were limited to four items. Finally, the existence of speech-language impairment was based on parent report.

In spite of these limitations, researchers believe that the strength of the FACES database allowed them unprecedented opportunities to investigate aspects of children's development. How the Study Helps I found the study to be helpful in.