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David C. Anchin Center presentation explores strategies for supporting oral language development in pre-K classrooms
by Jessenia Rivera
Literacy struggles in K-12 schools is an issue continuously discussed among teachers, administrators and experts in the field of education.
As educators implement new strategies in their classrooms to alleviate the problem, Dr. Elizabeth Hadley, assistant professor of literacy studies at the USF College of Education, has looked towards providing solutions by proposing a change in how "talk" is implemented in early childhood classrooms.
During a presentation hosted by the David C. Anchin Center for the Advancement of Teaching, Dr. Hadley presented her research on why supporting oral language development in pre-K classrooms is critical to developing young readers.
According to published by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only 35 percent of fourth graders were proficient or above proficient readers in 2017. The NAEP also revealed that reading trends of fourth graders who are eligible for free and reduced lunch programs have remained at the 鈥渂asic鈥� level.
In her presentation, Dr. Hadley explained a theory of reading comprehension, titled the Simple Model of Reading, that demonstrates the two components that lead to reading literacy.
鈥淩eading comprehension cannot take place without both (decoding and language comprehension),鈥� Dr. Hadley said. 鈥淪o, if you can鈥檛 decode and you can鈥檛 understand what鈥檚 on the page, you won鈥檛 be able to understand what you鈥檙e reading.鈥�
Decoding, Hadley said, is a skill that鈥檚 highly developed during a child鈥檚 pre-K years, but it鈥檚 in these years where oral language tends to be left out. As a result of this, children tend to struggle as young readers in the grades that follow.
鈥淜ids really draw on these resources of oral language that they鈥檝e built over time to understand what they鈥檝e read, but if we drop out these oral language skills in the early grades, they鈥檙e not able to draw on them later on,鈥� Dr. Hadley said.
In order to set the foundation for reading success from the moment a child enters a classroom, Dr. Hadley鈥檚 research has identified two kinds of talk pre-K classrooms should focus on鈥攔esponsive talk and conceptual talk.
Conceptual talk, Dr. Hadley said, is talk that centers on topics or concepts that give explanations, details the past or the future, allows for new words to be learned and builds understanding in certain content areas.
When studying knowledge building in early childhood classrooms in Nashville, Dr. Hadley was able to note how words being taught to students didn鈥檛 necessarily relate to each other nor to a larger topic. However, she was able to see significant results when she introduced words that clustered together.
鈥淲e have some emerging evidence from research that suggests that鈥檚 it鈥檚 effective to instead focus on building knowledge on an overall topic and then teaching words that are embedded in that knowledge network,鈥� Dr. Hadley said. 鈥淲e learn words more easily when they鈥檙e related to topics we already know something about.鈥�
As part of her research, Dr. Hadley had teachers introduce a content-rich book on plants to children and had them read the book aloud four times. While educators taught new vocabulary words to their students, Dr. Hadley sought to discover which method of word learning proved to be the most effective.
Her research showed there was no relationship between word-learning and the use of visual aids or definitions to teach words. However, when educators taught new words using the book text, a positive improvement in learning outcomes for children was seen.
鈥淭he teachers didn鈥檛 need to say so much because we were reading the book four times and the book was full of rich content,鈥� Dr. Hadley said. 鈥淪o, this really indicates that the content you choose is really important in building conceptual knowledge.鈥�
When speaking on the importance of responsive talk in early childhood classrooms, Dr. Hadley presented three strategies鈥攅xpanding child talk, extending topics and open-ended prompts, which serve to either elaborate on a topic, extend to a similar topic or ask questions that further a child鈥檚 thinking.
Throughout her research, Dr. Hadley has been able to study the Initiate-Respond-Evaluate (IRE) questioning model in pre-K classrooms and determine what could be done better. Her work has led her to the idea of reconstructing the third step of the model.
鈥淵ou all know that classroom conversations usually take the form of initiating, responding and evaluating,鈥� Dr. Hadley said. 鈥淏ut, instead of evaluating in that third turn, I鈥檇 like us to investigate.鈥�
Contrary to the evaluative approach, Dr. Hadley said the investigative approach uses open-ended prompts to carry on the teacher-to-student conversation on a topic. In this way, children, rather than teachers, are drivers of the conversation.
鈥淚t gives the child an opportunity to use their language, to further develop their thinking and it also gives the teacher a chance to share some conceptual information about something the child is interested in,鈥� Dr. Hadley said.
In addition to looking at what鈥檚 being said in teacher-to-student conversations, Dr. Hadley furthered her research by looking at which interactions help children learn the most. In her latest study, she examined children鈥檚 learning when teachers used three different interactive approaches鈥攊nstructional, responsive/conceptual and action processing.
Unlike instructional and active processing interactions, which consists of one-sided conversations and have children answer specific questions, Dr. Hadley said the responsive/conceptual interaction achieved a higher effect because children were more engaged.
鈥淚n education, we know that people don鈥檛 learn well if you鈥檙e trying to dump information into their heads,鈥� Dr. Hadley said. 鈥淚 think the responsive/conceptual style is most effective because a teacher is taking something that kids are already interested in and building from there.鈥�
Dr. Hadley concluded her presentation with a few conclusive statements that reinforced her research.
鈥淭o build stronger readers we need to lay a foundation that鈥檚 broader than letter knowledge in early childhood classrooms,鈥� Dr. Hadley said. 鈥淲ord-learning is most effective when it is interactive and bidirectional, so that means having a classroom climate that encourages talk about words.鈥�
Following her presentation, a group of panelists consisting of USF researchers spoke about the topic by providing their own insights.
Panelists included Maria Carlo, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Child and Family Studies; Howard Goldstein, PhD, professor and associate dean at the College of Behavioral and Community Sciences; Lisa Lopez, PhD., associate professor in the Department of Educational and Psychological Studies and Trina Spencer, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Child and Family Studies.
During the discussion, Dr. Spencer mentioned how oral language is minimized in the primary grades because it can't be measured easily. The goal of researchers, she said, is to work on creating effective measurement innovations for teachers.
鈥淭he challenge as oral language researchers is to push the boundary in the development and validation of appropriate and meaningful oral language measures that teachers can use easily in their classrooms,鈥� Dr. Spencer said. 鈥淪o, measurement innovation is essential.鈥�
In relation to her work with dual language learners (DLLs), Dr. Lopez shared how her own research in pre-K classrooms rendered results that were similar to the data presented by Dr. Hadley. She said conversations should be intentional and personal so that word learning can be better achieved, especially with DLLs students.
鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing a lot of whole group conversation going on in classrooms for long periods of time and a lot of it is teacher-directed,鈥� Dr. Lopez said. 鈥淪o, what happens with the dual-language learners is that they鈥檙e usually sitting in the back and not paying attention. Teachers need to sustain conceptual conversations with these children by helping them connect these new words in English to the words they may already have in their own language.鈥�
When discussing English language learners (ELLs), Dr. Carlo shared her findings on the difficulties these students tend to have. Vocabulary, she said, seems to be the major roadblock, and she shared some strategies teachers can incorporate to overcome the issue.
鈥淵ou could do a lot of conceptual building by supplementing materials in the classroom with materials in the child鈥檚 first language,鈥� Dr. Carlo said. 鈥�(This means) making sure you have informational books that relate to the topic you鈥檒l be teaching about.鈥�
As conversations continued, Dr. Goldstein expressed how teachers have to continuously tackle the issues of literacy in their classrooms. He ended his speech with a few words that served as motivation for attendees.
鈥淚t isn鈥檛 as easy as it seems to try to put all these tips and strategies together,鈥� Dr. Goldstein said. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 what we should be working on. We can do better.鈥�
This event was hosted as part of a speaker series sponsored by the David C. Anchin Center for the Advancement of Teaching. To learn more about future events, please visit the Anchin Center's website.