JCPSLP July 2014_Vol16_no2

Table 4. Performance on the Sutherland Phonological Awareness Test – Revised (SPAT-R) by prep class

Measures

Prep Class 1 Regular curriculum

Prep Class 2 Regular curriculum

Prep Class 3 Additional intervention

Classification#

Initial*

Final

Initial

Final

Initial

Final

Concern

0

20 (91%)

10 (45%)

20 (95%)

8 (38%)

Average

17 (85%)

2 (9%)

11 (50%)

1 (5%)

13 (62%)

No score

3 (15%)

1 (5%)

0

Note: # Classification is based on the mid-year (initial) and end-of-year (final) norms as per the manual: Concern = < 25th percentile; * No initial data are available

data were obtained, nor was teacher and teacher aide engagement in the program measured. Previous research has shown the importance of implementation fidelity and teacher engagement on students’ emergent academic skills following intervention (de Haan et al., 2013). Conclusions and future directions The results from this preliminary study underline the importance of emergent literacy intervention programs that are effective in enhancing disadvantaged prep students’ emergent literacy skills in order to prepare these students for successful literacy acquisition and development. Based on the findings from this pilot project, a district-wide emergent literacy intervention project will commence in 2013. Building on the strengths of this project, and controlling for some of the limitations of this preliminary project, the following factors will be taken into consideration: • Home literacy environment . As part of the school admission interview all parents will be asked to complete a home literacy questionnaire to better understand the students’ literacy experiences prior to starting school (Boudreau, 2005). • English-language proficiency. Careful appraisal of the students’ English language abilities will be conducted upon school entry, to allow for more careful evaluation of the influence of English-language skills on progress in emergent literacy. • Story retelling and comprehension ability . To more effectively evaluate progress in oral narrative ability and to obtain a measure of English language proficiency, story retelling and comprehension will be used as pre- and post-measures. • Duration of the intervention . The intervention will be held over 24 weeks, using 12 different books (selection based on story grammar, vocabulary, general attractiveness, and affordability). This will support the integration of the intervention into the classroom curriculum, and provide the students with exposure to quality language instruction over a longer period of time (Justice et al., 2008). • Implementation fidelity . Teachers and teacher aides will be provided with more frequent feedback regarding the implementation of the intervention programs. Sessions will be randomly recorded to evaluate whether teachers and teacher aides adhere to the intervention programs (de Haan et al., 2013). • A more formal evaluation of the teachers’ and teacher aides’ perceptions around the value of the intervention program will be conducted.

PC3 at the end of the school year on measures of story retelling or comprehension. These results therefore show no advantage for more intensive small-group intervention over regular whole-class instruction for letter knowledge or oral language. These results are in line with those from McIntosh et al. (2007) who found no intervention effects on preschool age students’ oral language skills immediately following a 10-week block of classroom-based intervention. Although the students from PC2 and PC3 made significant progress in emergent literacy related skills during their first year at school, this progress was not sufficient to catch up to the level of their more advanced peers in PC1. Not only did the majority of the students in those classes continue to score below average on measures of vocabulary and phonological awareness, at the end of their first year at school students in PC2 and PC3 also performed significantly lower on measures of story comprehension, story retelling, vocabulary, and grammar. There may be several explanations for the students’ failure to catch up. First, a high proportion of the students were from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. These children may struggle to access the English-medium Australian curriculum, which does not specifically cater for children from non-English backgrounds and states that “participation in many aspects of Australian life depends on effective communication in Standard Australian English” and that “proficiency in English is invaluable globally” (ACARA, 2012, p. 3). Second, the school’s policy to place the higher ability students in a separate classroom (PC1) may not benefit the most disadvantaged students. In fact, recent research suggests a mixed abilities classroom may be more effective in promoting emergent literacy development in disadvantaged students (de Haan et al., 2013). Third, longer-term follow-up is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. McIntosh et al. (2007) found significant intervention effects on preschool age students’ oral language skills three months after a 10-week block of classroom-based intervention; there was no effect immediately following intervention, indicating the students needed time to consolidate their newly learned skills. There are several limitations to this project. The SPAT-R was not administered to the students in PC1 due to time constraints, making it difficult to determine the amount of progress these children made in terms 3 and 4. In addition, we do not have detailed information about the students’ English language proficiency upon school entry, nor did we collect information regarding the students’ home literacy environment. Finally, although the group session plans were scripted, and the speech-language pathologist observed several groups in action, no formal treatment fidelity

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JCPSLP Volume 16, Number 2 2014

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