Head Start REDI (Research-based, Developmentally Informed)

描述（由申请人提供）：这份竞争性的延续提案描述了2003年启动的一个研究项目的“下一步”，该项目名为“领先启动REDI”（基于研究，发展信息）项目。REDI项目旨在通过提高教师将基于经验的教学策略与其正在进行的规划相结合的能力，加强先头计划对儿童入学准备的影响。入学准备的两个领域是：1)语言发展/新兴识字技能，以及2)社会情感能力。最初的随机试验（涉及来自44个先锋教室的356名儿童）证明了REDI教室教学质量的提高，基于观察者对语言使用、教学支持和情感指导的评分。此外，接受REDI的儿童在学前教育结束时，与参加“常规”学前教育教室的儿童相比，词汇量、读写能力、社交能力和学习参与度都有所提高，攻击性也有所降低。这一继续的建议有两个主要目的。第一个目标是对参加最初试验的儿童进行后续评估，以评估REDI项目对小学后期（三年级和五年级）儿童学校适应的长期影响。在这一目标的背景下，我们还计划研究随着时间的推移，儿童语言/识字技能和社会情感能力技能获得轨迹之间的交易影响，并探索持续项目效应作为小学早期环境（即教学质量、课堂环境和师生关系质量）的功能的潜在调节作用。本提案的第二个主要目的是评估以家长为中心的REDI项目扩展的附加效益，采用随机对照设计，在原始县的200名儿童中加入先导性启动教室。基于先导性教育的家长参与传统，这个以家长为中心的REDI扩展的目标是在先导性教育的一年里改善对儿童语言和社会情感技能发展的交叉设置支持，并为儿童从先导性教育进入幼儿园提供过渡支持。对这个新样本的纵向评估将持续三年（4岁时进行前测，幼儿园结束时进行后测，一年级结束时进行后续评估）。本研究将采用多方法、多信息指标来评估以家长为中心的REDI扩展对儿童口语技能、新兴识字技能、学习参与、社会情感能力和行为问题的影响。我们还将评估项目对目标育儿实践的影响，并确定它们对儿童结局的调节程度。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This competing continuation proposal describes the "next steps" in a program of research initiated in 2003, entitled the Head Start REDI (Research based, Developmentally Informed) project. The REDI project was designed to enhance the impact of Head Start on child school readiness by promoting teachers' capacities to integrate empirically-based instructional strategies with their ongoing programming. Two domains of school readiness were targeted: 1) language development/emergent literacy skills, and 2) social-emotional competencies. The initial randomized trial (involving 356 children from 44 Head Start classrooms) demonstrated improvements in teaching quality in REDI classrooms, based upon observer ratings of language use, instructional support, and emotion coaching. In addition, children who received REDI showed enhanced vocabulary, emergent literacy skills, social competence, and learning engagement, and reduced aggression at the end of the Head Start year, relative to children attending "usual practice" Head Start classrooms. This proposal for continuation has two major aims. The first aim is to conduct follow-up assessments with children who participated in the initial trial to evaluate the long-term effects of the REDI program on child school adjustment in the later elementary years (grades 3 and 5.) In the context of this aim, we also plan to examine transactional influences over time between trajectories of skill gains in child language/literacy skills and social-emotional competencies, and to explore potential moderation of sustained program effects as a function of early elementary school context (i.e., instructional quality, classroom context, and teacher-student relationship quality). The second major aim of this proposal is to evaluate the added benefit of a parent-focused extension of the REDI program using a randomized controlled design with a new sample of 200 children attending Head Start classrooms in the original counties. Building upon the Head Start tradition of parent involvement, the goal of this parent-focused extension of REDI is to improve cross-setting support for child language and social-emotional skill development during the Head Start year and provide transition support for children as they move from Head Start into kindergarten. Longitudinal assessments of this new sample will extend over a three-year period (pre-test at age 4; post-test at the end of kindergarten, and follow-up assessment at the end of first-grade). Multi-method, multi-informant measures will be used to assess the impact of the parent-focused extension of REDI on children s oral language skills, emergent literacy skills, learning engagement, social-emotional competencies and behavior problems. We also will evaluate program impact on the targeted parenting practices and determine the degree to which they mediate child outcomes.