Language Development
Conditions
Keywords
Shared Book Reading, Language Development, Syntax, Vocabulary, Phonological Awareness, Young Children, Randomised Control Trial, Language Intervention
Brief summary
The aim of this project is to evaluate whether Beanstalk's 'Story Starters' intervention is effective in boosting vocabulary and grammatical development in young children.
Detailed description
Children who read regularly with their parents or carers tend to learn language faster, enter school with a larger vocabulary of words and become more successful readers in school. Because of this, local authorities often commission services to promote family-based shared book reading. However, recent studies suggest that shared reading interventions work less effectively for children from disadvantaged backgrounds than originally thought, particularly when their parents have lower levels of education. This means that there is a danger that the benefits of shared reading will be restricted to children from more affluent homes and not get through to those who need them most. To solve this problem, there is a need to develop a better understanding of how reading interventions work and to evaluate existing shared reading interventions to determine whether they are effective in promoting young children's language development. The aim of this project is to evaluate whether Beanstalk's 'Story Starters' intervention is effective in boosting vocabulary and grammatical development in young children. Story Starters is a reading intervention delivered by Beanstalk, a national children's literacy charity committed to ensuring no child faces the severe consequences of illiteracy. Beanstalk trains volunteers to provide caring and fun one-to-one support to disadvantaged children aged 3 and 4 in local nurseries, aiding their language development. The project will compare the effects of the 'Story Starters' intervention against a wait-list control group. Children in the intervention group will receive the Story Starters intervention, delivered by a trained Beanstalk volunteer, at their preschool for six months. The trained volunteer will visit the child twice a week and deliver a one-to-one 20 minute book reading and play session. Children in the intervention group will also receive a new book each month which will be sent to their home address by Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. Children in the wait list control group will also receive a new book each month from Dolly Parton's Imagination Library but they will not receive the 'Story Starters' intervention until after the project has ended.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALStory Starters Intervention
Shared reading intervention
BEHAVIORALWait-list Control
Wait-list control
Sponsors
Julian Pine
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
QUADRUPLE (Subject, Caregiver, Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
3 Years to 5 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
All families will be included unless they fit the
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Change in baseline language skills - CELF | Baseline, 6 months and 12 months | The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals - Preschool 2 United Kingdom (CELF Preschool-2) will be administered. This is a published standardized measure of the language knowledge of individual children. The investigators will use three subtests to calculate each child's core language score. The three subtests measure knowledge of sentence structure, knowledge of word structure and expressive vocabulary. |
| Change in baseline receptive vocabulary | Baseline, 6 months and 12 months | The British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BPVS) will be administered. This is a published standardised measure and will be used to measure receptive vocabulary of individual children. |
| Change in baseline phonological awareness | Baseline, 6 months and 12 months | The full Preschool Inventory of Phonological Awareness (PIPA) will be administered. This is a published standardised measure of phonological awareness of individual children. The investigators will use the PIPA to measure, rhyme awareness, syllable segmentation, alliteration awareness, phoneme isolation, phoneme segmentation and letter knowledge. |
| Change in baseline language skills - the WellComm Screening tool | Baseline, 6 months and 12 months | The WellComm Screening Tool will be administered. This is a published measure of language skills of individual children. The investigators will use the WellComm to measure expressive and receptive language skills. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Child engagement | 6 months | Video recordings of the trained Beanstalk volunteers delivering 'Story Starter' sessions will be analysed to measure level of child engagement (Kucirkova, Messer & Whitelock, 2012). This will include coding rate of pointing, rate of smiles and laughs, rate of less engaged behaviours and rate of vocal activity. |
| Volunteer engagement | 6 months | Video recordings of the trained Beanstalk volunteers delivering 'Story Starter' sessions will be analysed to measure level of volunteer engagement (Kucirkova, Messer & Whitelock, 2012). This will include coding rate of pointing, rate of smiles and laughs, rate of less engaged behaviours and rate of vocal activity. |
| Fidelity to the intervention by the Beanstalk volunteer | 6 months | Video recordings of the trained Beanstalk volunteers delivering 'Story Starter' sessions will be analysed to measure fidelity to the intervention and presence of target book reading behaviours. This will include coding for the presence of Dialogic book reading behaviours (prompting, evaluating, expanding and repeating). This will allow measurement of whether the volunteer adheres to the Story Starter intervention. |
Countries
United Kingdom
Outcome results
None listed