Engel de Abreu, P, Fricke, S orcid.org/0000-0003-2706-121X and Wealer, C (2020) Effects of an early literacy intervention for linguistically diverse children: a quasi-experimental study. Frontiers in Psychology, 11. 569854. ISSN 1664-1078
Abstract
Phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge underpin children’s early literacy acquisition. Promoting these foundational skills in kindergarten should therefore lead to a better response to formal literacy instruction once started. The present study evaluated a 12-week early literacy intervention for linguistically diverse children who are learning to read in German. The study was set in Luxembourg where kindergarten education is in Luxembourgish and children learn to read in German in Grade 1 of primary school. One hundred and eighty-nine children (mean age = 5;8 years) were assigned to an early literacy intervention in Luxembourgish or to a business as usual control group. Trained teachers delivered the intervention to entire classes, four times a week, during the last year of kindergarten. The early literacy program included direct instruction in phonological awareness and letter-knowledge, while promoting print and book awareness and literacy engagement. Children were assessed pre-intervention, immediately post-intervention and at a 9 months delayed follow-up using measures in Luxembourgish and in German. At the end of the intervention, children in the intervention group performed significantly better than the control group on phonological awareness and letter-knowledge measures in Luxembourgish and the gains in phonological awareness were maintained at 9 months follow-up. The effects generalized to measures of phonological awareness, word-level reading comprehension and spelling in German (effect sizes d > 0.25), but not to German single word/pseudoword reading, at delayed follow-up. Intervention programs designed to support foundational literacy skills can be successfully implemented by regular teachers in a play-based kindergarten context. The findings suggest that early literacy intervention before school entry can produce educationally meaningful effects in linguistically diverse learners.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 Engel de Abreu, Fricke and Wealer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
Keywords: | intervention; kindergarten; literacy; foundational skills; phonological awareness; letter-knowledge; linguistically diverse |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 11 Sep 2020 13:01 |
Last Modified: | 29 Sep 2020 08:49 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Frontiers Media |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.569854 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:165142 |