Focus on Learning

专注于学习

• 批准号: 7927122
• 负责人: JANET A WELSH
• 金额: $ 51.6万
• 依托单位: PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY, THE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-05 至 2014-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7927122
• 关键词: Academic achievement; Accounting; Achievement; Address; Aggressive behavior; Attention; Attenuated; Behavior; Behavioral; Characteristics; Child; Child Language; Child Support; Cognitive; Communities; Competence; Compliant Behaviors; Computers; Conflict (Psychology); Control Groups; Development; Dimensions; Disadvantaged; Discipline; Dose; Drops; Economically Deprived Population; Educational Curriculum; Effectiveness; Emotional; Emotions; Environment; Exercise; Exhibits; Family; Feedback; Feeling; Fostering; Funding; Goals; Head Start Program; Home environment; Home visitation; House Call; Informal Social Control; Intervention; Language; Learning; Letters; Life; Low income; Mediating; Methods; Modeling; Monitor; Nursery Schools; Oral; Outcome; Parent-Child Relations; Parenting behavior; Parents; Performance; Play; Poverty; Problem Solving; Problem behavior; Randomized; Readiness; Reading; Research; Research Project Grants; Resources; Risk; Role; Schools; Self Efficacy; Social Adjustment; Specific qualifier value; System; Techniques; Testing; Time; Underachievement; United States; Verbal Learning; Videotape; base; child poverty; coping; design; efficacy trial; elementary school; experience; fall risk; first grade; foster child; high school; improved; informant; intervention effect; kindergarten; laptop; literacy; peer; programs; public health relevance; randomized trial; scaffold; skill acquisition; skills; skills training; social; socioeconomics; sound; teacher; therapy design; therapy development; third grade; uptake

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This research project seeks to improve the school readiness of children at risk for reading difficulties as they enter kindergarten. It will provide a parent-focused intervention, Focus on Learning, that combines parent-child activities (interactive reading, letter and sound games) and computer-based tutoring (targeting emergent literacy skills) with social-emotional support activities (targeting parental warm involvement, sensitive-responding, emotion coaching, and support for child self-regulation). The goal is to improve parent support for child learning at home, thereby fostering gains in child oral language skills, emergent literacy skills, and adaptive approaches to learning. The program has been field-tested and informed by the input of school-community teams in three diverse communities. Efforts have been made to package, pace, and organize the delivery of the program in a manner that optimally supports and engages parents, without overwhelming them with cognitive or behavioral demands. Pilot testing has validated "proof of concept" for the intervention approach, producing high rates of parent and child engagement, including substantial use of the learning activities at home, with reasonably high quality of implementation by parents (as rated by home visitors and documented on computer logs). Hence, the program is feasible and is now ready for an efficacy trial which can evaluate its impact on the targeted parenting skills and on child learning and achievement in a rigorous randomized trial. The proposed research project will screen all of the children attending kindergarten in three school districts serving primarily low-income families in order to identify 270 children who score one standard deviation below the national mean on standardized tests of literacy and language skills. These children will be randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. Children and their families in the intervention condition will receive 15 home visits during kindergarten and 6 "booster" home visits during first grade. We will follow children through second and third grade, the point at which they should have mastered reading and be fully adjusted to the behavioral demands of the school setting. Assessments will utilize a multi-method, multi- informant strategy to monitor improvements in parental support for learning as targeted by the intervention, and in child oral language and literacy skills, as well as approaches to learning and academic achievement. We anticipate that children in the intervention condition will show greater gains in language, emergent literacy skills, adaptive approaches to learning, and learning behaviors at school, when compared with children in the control condition. We hypothesize that the gains in these skills will maintain over time, foster improved behavioral and social adaptation at school, and contribute to higher levels of academic achievement. Furthermore, we anticipate that parents who receive the intervention will improve the quality and quantity of learning support they offer their children at home, and that improvements in parent support for child learning at home will mediate intervention effects on child outcomes. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Children who enter elementary school with cognitive and social-emotional delays are at an increased risk for reading problems, academic underachievement, and school disengagement, as well as for concurrent school behavior problems and conflictual relationships with teachers and peers (Campbell & von Stauffenberg, in press; Pianta & Castaldi, l989). The achievement gap widens over time, such that children living in poverty experience elevated rates of serious learning problems and underachievement as they move through the educational system, and many drop out prior to completing high school (Ryan et al., 2006). With rates of child poverty near 20 percent and climbing in the United States(Children's Defense Fund, 2005), the development of interventions to promote school readiness and reduce the achievement gap represents a national priority.

描述（由申请人提供）：该研究项目旨在提高进入幼儿园时面临阅读困难风险的儿童的入学准备。它将提供以家长为中心的干预措施“聚焦学习”，将亲子活动（互动阅读、字母和声音游戏）和基于计算机的辅导（针对新兴识字技能）与社交情感支持活动（针对家长的热情参与、敏感反应、情绪辅导和对儿童自我调节的支持）结合起来。目标是改善家长对儿童在家学习的支持，从而促进儿童口语技能、新兴识字技能和适应性学习方法的进步。该计划已经过实地测试，并听取了三个不同社区的学校社区团队的意见。我们努力以最佳方式支持和吸引家长的方式来包装、安排和组织该计划的实施，而不是让他们因认知或行为要求而不知所措。试点测试验证了干预方法的“概念证明”，产生了较高的家长和儿童参与率，包括大量使用家庭学习活动，家长的实施质量相当高（由家庭访客评分并记录在计算机日志中）。因此，该计划是可行的，现在已准备好进行功效试验，可以通过严格的随机试验评估其对目标育儿技能以及儿童学习和成就的影响。拟议的研究项目将对主要服务于低收入家庭的三个学区的所有幼儿园儿童进行筛查，以找出在识字和语言技能标准化测试中成绩低于全国平均水平一个标准差的 270 名儿童。这些孩子将被随机分配到干预组或对照组。处于干预条件的儿童及其家人将在幼儿园期间接受 15 次家访，在一年级期间接受 6 次“加强”家访。我们将跟踪孩子们直到二年级和三年级，此时他们应该掌握阅读并完全适应学校环境的行为要求。评估将采用多方法、多信息策略来监测家长对干预目标学习支持的改善情况、儿童口语和识字技能以及学习方法和学业成绩的改善情况。我们预计，与控制条件下的儿童​​相比，干预条件下的儿童​​在语言、新兴读写能力、适应性学习方法和学校学习行为方面将表现出更大的进步。我们假设这些技能的进步将随着时间的推移而保持，促进学校行为和社会适应的改善，并有助于提高学业成绩。此外，我们预计接受干预的家长将提高他们为孩子在家提供的学习支持的质量和数量，而家长对孩子在家学习的支持的改善将调节干预对孩子的学习结果的影响。公共卫生相关性：进入小学时认知和社交情感迟缓的儿童出现阅读问题、学业成绩不佳和脱离学校的风险增加，同时出现学校行为问题以及与老师和同龄人发生冲突关系的风险也会增加（Campbell & von Stauffenberg，待出版；Pianta & Castaldi，l989）。随着时间的推移，成绩差距不断扩大，生活在贫困中的儿童在进入教育系统时遇到严重学习问题和成绩不佳的比例升高，许多人在完成高中学业之前就辍学了（Ryan 等，2006）。美国的儿童贫困率接近 20%，并且还在不断攀升（儿童保护基金，2005 年），制定干预措施以促进入学准备并缩小成绩差距成为国家优先事项。