Hwang and Kisida looked to develop a causal model using quasi-experimental methods to assess the effectiveness of subject-area specialization for teachers in elementary school. The authors compared the effectiveness of a teacher in a year when the teacher had a specialization role to a year when the teacher did not have a specialization role. This limited the study to those teachers who were both specialists (teach 1 or 2 subjects out of 4 major subjects) and generalists (teach 3 or 4 subjects) within the timeframe of the study (12% of all math teachers and 36.7% of all reading teachers fit this description). However, given the relatively large sample from the Indiana Department of Education, containing 15,895 math teachers and 17,102 reading teachers, the authors were able to use this model to estimate effects related to teacher specialization. The findings were shown below.

• A teacher’s effectiveness was lower when teaching math as a specialist than when teaching as a generalist (ES = -0.04). The situation was worse during the teacher’s first year of specialization (ES = -0.05).
• The decrease in teacher effectiveness was particularly noticeable when teaching students from historically underserved populations. In math, Black students and Hispanic students both experienced larger negative effects in comparison to White students.
• Students in the lowest quartile of achievement also experienced a larger negative effect than students in the highest quartile of achievement.

The authors suggested that student-teacher relationships are more difficult to maintain in a specialist format, which may help to explain the differences in student outcomes. The authors then concluded that teacher specialization does not benefit students when compared to generalization, and appears to be particularly detrimental for certain groups of students.

Source: Hwang, N., & Kisida, B. (2022). Spread Too Thin: The Effect of Specialization on Teaching Effectiveness. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 016237372210843. https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737221084312… Read the rest

Universal screening for identifying students at risk for future reading problems is important, but inaccurate and costly approaches are not worth investing in. Paly and colleagues recently conducted a retrospective research project to analyze four approaches to reading risk screening in terms of their accuracy and costs, including:

• prior-year state test (STAAR Reading)
• aimswebPlus: a web-based assessment suite which designed for screening and progress monitoring in reading and math for PreK-12 students
• multiple-gate model: prior-year STAAR was used in the first screening and aimswebPlus was administered as additional screening for a subgroup of students, who scored below a cut-point on first universal screen
• multivariate model: prior-year STAAR and aimswebPlus tests results were combined in multivariate analyses

Using data from Grades 4-8 students (n = 19,417) in a mid-size urban district in Texas, the researchers examined classification accuracy and the cost-effectiveness relation of the four approaches.  The results suggest that aimswebPlus is the most costly and the least accurate, while the state achievement test data is sufficient for accurately screening reading risk. This study provides guidance for educational decisionmakers, such as school administrators, that screening measures should be carefully analyzed before being adopted to make sure that funds and time are used effectively and efficiently.

Source: Paly, B. J., Klingbeil, D. A., Clemens, N. H., & Osman, D. J. (2022). A cost-effectiveness analysis of four approaches to universal screening for reading risk in upper elementary and middle school. Journal of School Psychology, 92, 246–264. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2022.03.009… Read the rest

Summer slide, or the loss of student learning progress over the summer months, is of concern to parents and educators. While summer school has been offered as a possible solution, it can be expensive and difficult to serve all students.  Lighter touch strategies such as engaging students to read and complete book activities through the summer months are popular alternatives.  One such program, Kids Read Now (KRN), engages K-5 students with both school-based and home-based activities while mailing them up to nine self-selected high-quality books. Additionally, parents receive weekly voice or text messages with nudges and tips for reading to and with their children. Students who report reading their selected books receive certificates and a prize. KRN has completed two quasi-experimental studies by Borman and colleagues. 

In both studies, students who chose to participate in the program were matched with students who did not choose to participate. The five schools included came from two states.  Schools took different approaches to recruiting students, with some targeting those students with the greatest need, while others chose to invite all students to participate. Participating students were matched with non-participating students using propensity score matching, to ensure students were similar on three prior school test scores (either NWEA MAP or aimswebPlus) as well as demographic information. This resulted in comparable groups.

• In the first study from 2018, there was a significant impact of the program, with an effect size of +0.12 for all students. This was estimated to be higher for students who read all 9 books (ES = +0.18). 
• In the second study, from 2019, there was a similar effect, with a statistically significant effect size of +0.15 for all students, and even higher for students who read all 9 books (ES = +0.21).
• Both studies suggested the effect may be strongest for first grade students.

This set of studies is important for showing the impact of a replicable, scalable program to address summer slide. It also highlights the importance of replication of results, to demonstrate that successful programs can be reproduced in different schools with different students at different times. Kids Reads Now appears to be a promising approach for schools looking to engage students with literacy over the summer months.

Source (Open Access): Kids Read Now Program (n.d.) Discover the efficacy of the Kids Read Now reading programs. https://kidsreadnow.org/science-of-reading/

Borman, G. D., Yang, H., & Xie, X. (2018). The Kids Read Now summer reading program: A quasi-experimental impact study. https://kidsreadnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/BormanReport2018.pdf… Read the rest

The coronavirus outbreak hit the world in early 2020 and caught all industries off-guard. Since then, schools and pre-schools were forced into long terms of suspension, bringing a completely new challenge to students, parents and teachers and pushing early childhood education to go fully digital.  

ECE research blossomed due to this sudden change and provided solutions for effective teaching practices to sustain education as usual during the pandemic. Su et al. performed a systematic bibliometric synthesis of the knowledge generated from this research to guide effective change at the policy and practice levels. Their overview of 507 empirical articles on ECE during COVID-19 between 2020 and March 2022 revealed the following critical observations in early childhood research:   

1. Online Learning and Teaching in ECE during the pandemic  

• Educators faced various challenges regarding their IT competence, lack of training in distance learning, and ability to maintain the quality of early childhood programmes;  
• Prolonged online learning can bring risks to children’s development of self-regulation and motivation stability;  

1. Physical Activity in ECE during the pandemic 

• Lockdown and social isolation measures reduced the duration of physical activity for children, increased time spent on entertainment screens and decreased their sleeping quality;  

• To maintain children’s health and well-being, promoting active play with children is essential;  

1. Stress and Mental Health in Early Childhood during the pandemic 

• Family background and access to kindergarten or daycare have great impact on the reduction of children’s psychological stress;  

1. Families in Early Childhood Research during the pandemic 

• Active parental involvement in home schooling can reduce children’s negative learning behaviours;  

• Parents have made active attempts to provide home education for children, but home environment-related limitations can hinder the possibilities of quality home-schooling;  
• Families met various emotional and economic challenges during the pandemic. More service of psychological, financial and digital support should be given to parents from schools and communities, in order to reduce possible suffering of vulnerable children regarding their online learning. 

 
Source:  
Su, J., Ng, D.T.K., Yang, W., & Li, H. (2022). Global trends in the research on early childhood education during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A bibliometric analysis. Education Sciences, 12, 331. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12050331… Read the rest

A research team in New York University evaluated a classroom-based oral storytelling program called Reading Success Using Co-Constructive Elaborative Storytelling Strategies (R-SUCCESS). R-SUCCESS is composed of three phases: pre-telling, which builds key content knowledge and vocabulary; telling, which involves specific strategies to scaffold children’s active listening skills and engagement; and post-telling, which supports children’s comprehension skills. The program was delivered at least twice a week for a 6-month period.

A total of 185 children within 12 classrooms participated in the study. The program was implemented in a Head Start program serving immigrant children with Latin American backgrounds. Among 12 participating lead teachers, six teachers in the intervention group were trained to deliver R-SUCCESS. The remaining six teachers, who served as a comparison group, were trained to have regular book reading sessions using the same techniques used in the pre-telling and post-telling phases in the intervention group. The key differences between R-SUCCESS and the regular book reading sessions were that R-SUCCESS did not require the presence of a book, used an oral storytelling method, and provided indicators of the story contents to children in the pre-telling stage. Trainings for both groups included a full-day introductory session along with 12 40-minute coaching sessions.

The study found that children who received R-SUCCESS were more likely to demonstrate stronger narrative independence and narrative coherence, compared to the comparison group. However, there were no significant differences in the overall language skills between children in intervention or comparison groups. Although the scaling the intervention might be challenging because the intervention involved a graduate student in the training, which can be not easily replicable in regular early care and education settings, this study provides an interesting finding regarding the potential role of differential story sharing modality.

Source:

Melzi, G., Schick, A. R., & Wuest, C. (2022). Stories beyond books: Teacher storytelling supports children’s literacy skills. Early Education and Development, Published online. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2021.2024749… Read the rest