IRIS MEDIA INC — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase II: NICHD

Description

DESCRIPTIONprovided by applicantChildren who don t master the basics of literacye gphonological awarenessalphabetic awareness and letter writingvocabulary and oral languagein preschool risk failure in acquiring conventional reading skills later in elementary schoolNational Early Literacy PanelStorch et alConsidering that Head StartHSlargely serves children from minority or English learning backgroundsthese children are particularly impactedHead Start Program FactsDevelopment of early literacy skills depends on teacher preparation and readiness to teach those skillsBurchinal et alDiamond and PowellPre K teachers require focused training to improve knowledge about the high priority skill targets in language and literacy developmentOdomLandry et alWasik et alFindings show that HS teachers vary widely in their training and expertise with implementing evidence based practicesHart and SchumackerTo dateHS has had only minimal effect on children s literacy preparationWhitehurst and Massettiand the small literacy gains made by HS children do not maintain in kindergartenDHHSThe persistent achievement gap between HS children and their peersmakes high quality professional development vital and efficient training and coaching even more soWe propose to develop a mobile application to assist teachersmastery of language and literacy instructionThis technology assisted approach will use an interactive e checklist framework to operationalize fundamental instructional competenciesdeliver video based training and modeling on these competenciesand facilitate individualized in class coaching by enabling teachers to meet with coaches via teleconference and receive feedback on video uploads of their teachingOur approach stands in contrast to the costly one size fits all training model currently available to HS teachersTo evaluate our approachwe will conduct an RCT randomly assigningclassrooms to either an interventionPre K LiteracyCheckor business as usualBAUcontrol grouptypical language and literacy professional developmentUsing standardized measures and in class observationsthis RCT will test the following hypothesesaintervention group teachers will improve instructional competenciesbchildren of intervention teachers will demonstrate greater growth in languageliteracyand social skills than children in the BAUcEnglish learner children of interventionteachers will demonstrate greater growth in languageliteracyand behavioral skills than children in the BAU groupand dHS teachers in the intervention group will report higher rates of self efficacy than teachers in the BAU groupand report a high level of consumer satisfaction with Pre K LiteracyCheck