An experimental investigation of kindergarten language interventions: Following the effects two years later and establishing the role of booster interventions

针对幼儿园的早期语言发展可能是提高教育成就的一种途径，特别是对那些处境最危险的儿童。然而，音位意识和词汇干预显示出希望，需要更多的长期随访设计研究。在本研究计划的第一阶段（2015-2017），在六项实验研究的过程中，开发了一种新的互动-精心叙述故事（IES）干预方法。IES的方法是通过精细化的讲故事的方法来激活儿童对语言的内在兴趣，侧重于故事层面的理解，而不是明确地指导单个单词的定义。此外，在精讲中加入了互动的成分，鼓励孩子们在前几天听过这些故事后讲故事。在一项实验性的随机干预研究中，在300名幼儿园儿童的样本中，IES与音位意识和仅仅阅读的情况进行了对比。在目前的提案中，需要资金来测试不同方法的长期影响，在干预后的一到两年，对音素意识、接受和表达词汇、口头叙述技能和早期阅读发展的测量。此外，我们寻求对2018年仍将在幼儿园就读的儿童进行IES，音位意识和阅读方面的加强干预。最后，第三个目标是分析记录的讲故事过程，以确定故事传递的细粒度特征是否与词汇和语言发展有关。希望这些结果将对理解成功阅读和语言发展所需的技能和干预措施具有重要的理论和实践意义。

Targeting early language development in kindergarten may constitute one avenue to improve educational achievement, particularly for children most at-risk. Phonemic awareness and vocabulary interventions show promise, however, more research with long-term follow-up designs is needed. In the first phase of this research proposal (2015-2017), over the course of six experimental studies, a new interactive-elaborative storytelling (IES) intervention was developed. The IES approach seeks to activate children’s inherent interest in language via an elaborative story-telling approach focusing on story-level comprehension, as opposed to explicitly instructing individual word definitions. Moreover, an interactive component was added to the elaborative, whereby children are encouraged to tell the stories after hearing these on previous days. In an experimental, randomised intervention study, IES is being contrasted to a phonemic awareness and a just-reading condition, in a sample of 300 kindergarten children. In the current proposal, funding is requested to test the long-term effects of the different approaches, one and two years post-intervention, on measures of phonemic awareness, receptive and expressive vocabulary, oral narrative skill, and early reading development. Additionally, we seek to conduct booster interventions in IES, phonemic awareness and just-reading for the children who will still be attending kindergarten in 2018. Finally, a third aim is to analyse recorded storytelling sessions to determine whether fine-grained features of story delivery relate to vocabulary and language devel-opment. It is hoped that results will have significant theoretical and practical implications for under-standing the kind of skills and interventions required for successful reading and language development.