Quality of language and literacy instruction in preschool classrooms serving at-risk pupils

Abstract

Policy-makers, administrators, researchers, and teachers are increasingly vested in ensuring the quality of preschool instruction, particularly in the areas of language and literacy. This research was conducted to characterize the quality of language and literacy instruction in 135 publiclyfunded preschool classrooms serving at-risk pupils. As all teachers in these classrooms were implementing the same language and literacy curriculum, we also studied the interrelationships among procedural fidelity to a prescribed curriculum and the quality of language and literacy instruction, determining whether procedural fidelity is associated or disassociated with quality instruction. Results showed that the quality of language and literacy instruction in classrooms was low, with few teachers delivering high quality instruction. Although teachers were able to implement a prescribed language and literacy curriculum with a high degree of procedural fidelity, this was not associated with quality instruction. Few structural characteristics of classrooms of teachers were systematically associated with quality of instruction. Findings have important implications for professional development of teachers by suggesting a need for a sustained and coherent focus on the process of instruction to elevate instructional quality in language and literacy.Two-thirds of 4-year-olds currently participate in early education programs, and this figure is growing annually in light of many state-level initiatives to expand enrollment or provide universal access to preschool for 4-year-old children (Barnett & Yarosz, 2004). Complementing these initiatives are movements to improve the quality of instruction within preschool programs, particularly in the area of language and literacy. As an example, the U.S. Department of Education's Early Reading First program provides funds to preschool programs to support their achievement of "excellence" in programming, particularly the provision of high-quality instruction in literacy and language through improved classroom print richness, professional development for staff, and implementation of scientificallybased curricula. The anticipated outcome of such proactive and prevention-oriented initiatives is that more children will enter school with the skills and competencies needed to succeed in early and later reading instruction.Educational-policy initiatives that seek to improve the quality of early education, particularly in the area of literacy and language instruction, are grounded in developmental theory and empirical evidence emphasizing the continuity between children's early literacy and language development and their later achievement of skilled reading (e.g., Catts, Fey, Zhang, & Tomblin, 2001;Lonigan, 2006;Storch & Whitehurst, 2002;Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). Evidence shows that children with well-developed language and literacy Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this ear...

THEY ARE TRAINED TO TEACH, BUT HOW CONFIDENT ARE THEY? A STUDY OF STUDENT TEACHERS’ SENSE OF EFFICACY

“…Studies of Early et al (2006; and Justice et al (2008) point to the fact that teacher's qualifications, academic majors and general credentials have no association with improved classroom quality or student academic achievement. Justice et al (2008) and Guo et al (2010) found that teacher's sense of efficacy is associated with higher quality of classroom instructions and increased student achievement.…”

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“…Moreover, in Powell et al (2008) study phonological sensitivity and concepts about print were cited by some preschool teachers as being important for children's early literacy learning. Although there are dominant aspects of early literacy development that have been focused on in the research, considerable variation exists in the quality and quantity of attention to literacy skills across preschool classrooms and in the type of environment that is provided for young children (Gest et al 2006;Justice et al 2008). For example, variation often exists in attention to alphabetic letters (Stipek 2004) as well as attention to storybook reading (Justice et al 2005) across early childhood centres.…”