JCPSLP July 2014_Vol16_no2

One of the few Australian-based emergent literacy interventions that specifically targeted the PA and oral language abilities of socially disadvantaged preschoolers was reported by Dodd and colleagues (McIntosh et al., 2007; O’Connor, Arnott, McIntosh, & Dodd, 2009). The intervention program lasted for 10 weeks, and included oral language and PA activities based on the vocabulary frequently found in children’s books. The program content was integrated into the daily teaching plan and was implemented by the classroom teacher. Results showed improved PA and oral language abilities in the short term, compared to a no-intervention control class. These results were promising and seemed to support the implementation of whole-class intervention (over no intervention). However, the gains in initial PA and language skills as observed by McIntosh et al. (2007) did not lead to improved reading ability two years later (O’Connor et al., 2009), suggesting further research into the effectiveness of classroom- based emergent literacy intervention is needed. No effect sizes were reported, so it is not clear if small-group instruction would have yielded better gains (Hattie, 2009). As summarised in a meta-analysis, previous research evidence supports small-group instruction over whole class instruction when teaching PA in children considered at-risk of reading difficulties (see National Reading Panel, 2000). The school The school that participated in the current project is comprised of students from many culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, with 54% of students identifying as Pacific Islander. A total of 17% of students are reported to have a language background other than English; 10% of students identify as Indigenous. AEDI (2012) results show that 17.8% of students in the region are considered developmentally vulnerable across two or more areas. This figure is higher than the national average of 10.8%. Furthermore, when the school’s students are divided into quarters reflecting the distribution of socioeducational advantage across the school’s population, 44% of the students fall within the ‘bottom quarter’, and only 2% of the students are classified as ‘top quarter’ (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2012; ACARA). The school’s year 3 NAPLAN (National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) results of the last five years show consistently poor overall performance compared to the national average on measures of reading, writing, and spelling (ACARA, 2012). The school received both National Partnership funding and regional government funding during 2012 and 2013 and appointed a full-time speech-language pathologist (SLP) to initiate language-literacy related projects and to provide professional development to teachers, teacher aides, parents, and students regarding early language and literacy development. The current study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a classroom-based small-group intervention program aimed at raising the emergent literacy skills of students during their first year of schooling. This pilot project aimed to answer the following research question: Does additional intensive classroom-based small-group emergent literacy intervention improve the emergent literacy skills of students during their first year at school, compared to their peers who receive the regular classroom literacy curriculum? Methods This project used a quasi-experimental design, that is a non-equivalent pretest-posttest control group design. Permission for the project was obtained from the Human

Ethics Committee, Griffith University and from the principal of the school. Participants The data from 63 prep students (94% of the original cohort) were available for analysis at the end of the school year (33 boys, 30 girls). These students were aged between 4;7 and 5;6 at the start of the school year (2012). At the enrolment interview, 51 of these prep students were assessed using the BRIGANCE ® Screens – Revised Australian Edition (Glascoe, 2005). Not all prep students were available for testing at the time of the interview. The BRIGANCE screen helps identify potential learning delays in language, motor, self-help, social-emotional, and cognitive skills and takes approximately 10–15 minutes per child. As per the school’s policy at the time, students with the highest total scores were placed in Prep Class 1 (PC1); the remaining students were allocated to Prep Class 2 (PC2) or Prep Class 3 (PC3). As shown in Table 1, there was a significant main group effect for the BRIGANCE, F(2,48 = 38.824, p < .001), with students in PC1 outperforming the students in other prep classes (p < .001). There were no differences in performance on the BRIGANCE between PC2 and PC3 (p = .508). As illustrated in Table 1, approximately 30% of students in PC1 were from culturally or linguistically diverse backgrounds (CALD); this percentage was much higher for PC2 and PC3. Finally, there was a higher proportion of girls in PC1 compared to PC2 and PC3. With principal approval, parents were provided with an overview of the project and given the opportunity to opt out if they did not wish for their child’s assessment results to be included in the data analysis. None of the parents opted out of the study.

Table 1. Participant details and peformance at the start of the school year

Measures

Prep Class 1 Prep Class 2 Prep Class 3

N

20

22

21

Age in months (SD)

59 (3.8)

59 (3.5)

59 (3.7)

Boys /Girls

7/13

13/9

13/8

%CALD

30%

50%

52%

BRIGANCE*# 57.1 (25.2)

15.6 (11.3)

6.6 (13.3)

range

1–89

1–39

1–55

Note: CALD = culturally and linguistically diverse background; * BRIGANCE: percentile scores are reported. # There were significant group differences between PC1 and PC2 and PC3. No significant differences between PC2 and PC3. Not all students were available for testing: PC1: 19; PC2: 16; PC3: 16. Measures Table 2 outlines the assessment and intervention schedule. As shown in Table 2, at the start of the school year (term 1, week 2), as part of routine school procedures, all participating students were assessed on the following tasks by the first author, a certified practising speech-language pathologist: • The Renfrew Language Scales – Action Picture Test (Renfrew, 2010). This test uses 10 picture prompts to elicit expressive language (sentences) and yields an information score and a grammar score.

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JCPSLP Volume 16, Number 2 2014

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