A better start to literacy learning: findings from a teacher-implemented intervention in children’s first year at school

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dc.citation.volume32
dc.contributor.authorGillon G
dc.contributor.authorMcNeill B
dc.contributor.authorScott A
dc.contributor.authorDenston A
dc.contributor.authorWilson L
dc.contributor.authorCarson K
dc.contributor.authorMacfarlane AH
dc.date.available2019-01-08
dc.date.issued2019-01-08
dc.descriptionCAUL read and publish agreement
dc.description.abstractThis study investigated the feasibility of a teacher implemented intervention to accelerate phonological awareness, letter, and vocabulary knowledge in 141 children (mean age 5 years, 4 months) who entered school with lower levels of oral language ability. The children attended schools in low socioeconomic communities where additional stress was still evident 6 years after the devastating earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2011. The teachers implemented the intervention at the class or large group level for 20 h (four 30-min sessions per week for 10 weeks). A stepped wedge research design was used to evaluate intervention effects. Children with lower oral language ability made significantly more progress in both their phonological awareness and targeted vocabulary knowledge when the teachers implemented the intervention compared to progress made when teachers implemented their usual literacy curriculum. Importantly, the intervention accelerated children’s ability to use improved phonological awareness skills when decoding novel words (treatment effect size d = 0.88). Boys responded to the intervention as well as girls and the skills of children who identified as Māori or Pacific Islands (45.5% of the cohort) improved in similar ways to children who identified as New Zealand European. The findings have important implications for designing successful teacher-implemented interventions, within a multi-tier approach, to support children who enter school with known challenges for their literacy learning.
dc.description.confidentialfalse
dc.format.extent1989 - 2012
dc.identifier.citationReading and Writing, 2019, 32 pp. 1989 - 2012
dc.identifier.doi10.1007/s11145-018-9933-7
dc.identifier.elements-id457832
dc.identifier.harvestedMassey_Dark
dc.identifier.issn0922-4777
dc.publisherSpringer Nature B.V
dc.relation.isPartOfReading and Writing
dc.rights(c) The author/s (CC BY 4.0)
dc.subjectphonological awareness
dc.subjectA Better Start Literacy Approach
dc.subjectintervention
dc.subjectchildren
dc.subjectliteracy development
dc.subject.anzsrc13 Education
dc.subject.anzsrc17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
dc.subject.anzsrc20 Language, Communication and Culture
dc.titleA better start to literacy learning: findings from a teacher-implemented intervention in children’s first year at school
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.notesNot known
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University/College of Humanities and Social Sciences
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University/College of Humanities and Social Sciences/Institute of Education
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