Early Achievements - Shaping Early Language and Literacy Skills

Part of paid clinical trials in Baltimore, Maryland.

Sponsor
Hugo W. Moser Research Institute at Kennedy Krieger, Inc.
Study ID
NCT07103044
Status
Recruiting
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Conditions

  • Developmental Language Disorder

Eligibility Criteria

Sex
ALL
Age
45 Months - 65 Months
Healthy Volunteers
Accepted

Interventions

  • Early Achievements - Shaping Early Language and Literacy Skills — BEHAVIORAL
    EA-SHELLS is a professional development program that includes a 6-hour workshop and about 14 in-person coaching sessions using Practice-Based Coaching. Teachers will implement the EA-SHELLS instructional approach in their classrooms during whole-group book sharing activities to target vocabulary, syntax, story grammar, and listening comprehension. Teachers will also lead story retelling activities using pictures cards and 3D props to further target all four skills. Teachers will be provided with commercially available children's books augmented with supplemental text to explicitly define vocabulary and cue teachers' elicitation of children's verbal engagement for targeted vocabulary, syntactically elaborated sentences, and story grammar elements. Instructional strategies include naturalistic developmental behavioral intervention and language facilitating (e.g., focused stimulation) strategies. Teachers will read each provided book about four times over one to two weeks.

Study Details

Language skills are important for long-term reading comprehension success. Yet there are limited instructional approaches available for prekindergarten (pre-K) teachers to use in their inclusive classrooms to boost literacy-related language skills in children with and without language delays or disorders. In the first part of this study, the investigators will develop a teacher training program focused on building pre-K children's language-based literacy skills. Teachers will be trained and will use the strategies that they learn during literacy-related activities in their inclusive pre-K classrooms. Their students' language-related literacy skills will be measured before and after their training. Based on teacher feedback and child assessment information, the training program will be revised. In the final part of the study, a preliminary randomized control trial (RCT) will be done using the revised training approach. The results of the RCT will help the investigators know if the teacher training program helps to improve the effectiveness of teachers' instruction and their students' development of language-related literacy skills. The primary goal of this research study is to determine whether study-trained pre-K teachers in inclusive early childhood education classrooms use more effective teaching strategies than teachers who do not receive the training. A secondary goal of this research study is to determine if this teacher training program strengthens language-related literacy skills for students with and without language disorders or delays. The research team hypothesizes that teachers who participate in the training program will use effective teaching strategies more often than teachers who do not receive the training. Additionally, the investigators predict that teachers who receive the training will feel more confident teaching early language-based literacy skills to their students (with and without language delays/disorders) than teachers who do not receive the training. Researchers also predict that students taught by teachers who receive the training will perform better on language tests when compared to their peers in classrooms where the teacher training program was not used.

Key Dates

Start date
Aug 26, 2021
Status verified
Jul 2025
Primary completion
Sep 30, 2026
Completion
Oct 31, 2026

Study Design

Enrollment
360 participants (estimated)
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
TREATMENT

Arms

  • Experimental: Experimental: Full Training Group
    Teachers assigned to the Full Training group will participate in a collaborative coaching approach, Practice-Based Coaching (Snyder et al., 2015). Coaches will support teachers in targeting meaning-related (language-based) emergent literacy skills during whole and small group interactions with their students. The duration of the coaching period is approximately 14 weeks with about one coaching session per week. Teachers will be coached to implement Early Achievements-Shaping Early Language and Literacy Skills (EA-SHELLS) strategies during book reading and book-related activities. See more details about the instructional approach below in the intervention description.
  • No Intervention: No Intervention: Quick Training Group
    Teachers assigned to the Quick Training group will not receive any training or intervention while data are being collected from both groups. Teachers in this group will conduct their classroom instruction as originally planned while the teachers in the Full Training group receive the EA-SHELLS training. After the completion of data collection, teachers will be invited to participate in a collaborative coaching approach, Practice-Based Coaching (Snyder et al., 2015). Coaches will support teachers in targeting meaning-related emergent literacy skills during whole and small group interactions with their students for 2 coaching sessions. Teachers will be coached to implement EA-SHELLS strategies during book reading and book-related activities. Teacher data will be collected during the quick training period but will be analyzed separately from RCT data used to examine efficacy of EA-SHELLS.

Primary Outcome Measure

Assessment of Story Comprehension (ASC) [ Time Frame: Baseline and post 14-week training period ]

Central Contacts

Locations (1)

FacilityCityStateZIPSite coordinators
Kennedy Krieger InstituteBaltimoreMaryland21211
Rebecca Landa, PhD
[email protected]
443-923-7584
Ebony Holliday, PhD
[email protected]
4439237724
Rebecca Landa, PhD (PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR)

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