Researcher Starter Grant: Establishing Research Opportunities with Latino Head Start Children in Tampa, FL

有了这些“启动”的研究资金，PI，在南佛罗里达大学发展心理学的开始终身制教师，和前NSF博士后研究员，将完成她以前的NSF博士后研究的数据分析，并建立与坦帕地区的希尔斯伯勒开端的合作关系，以追求进一步对讲西班牙语的学龄前儿童的新研究。实现这两个目标将为她提供机会，传播她的研究到这一点的时间，并制定一项研究计划，在坦帕湾地区。 今天，英语学习者在我们的学校里越来越多。重要的是要分析已经收集的数据，并继续研究这一人群。《不让一个孩子掉队法》的重点是帮助儿童在学校取得成功。重要的是要考虑到所有儿童，包括那些英语不是第一语言的儿童。确定与这些儿童合作的最佳做法不仅有助于他们，而且有助于他们的教师，教室和学校取得成功。因此，必须在这些儿童进入正规学校之前就开始与他们一起工作，以确保他们拥有取得好成绩所需的背景技能。两个最重要的技能，将帮助这些孩子是口语技能，如词汇和语音意识能力。这些技能，沿着与父母和老师的积极发展的关系，提供了一个成功的秘诀，在他们的学校生涯的开始。作为国家科学基金会博士后研究员，PI对马萨诸塞州的拉丁裔学龄前儿童的母亲进行了采访。这些儿童参加了西班牙语儿童语言和识字发展的幼儿研究。当孩子们在幼儿园时，对一部分母亲进行了后续采访。所有的谈话都被转录和编码了。这项拨款将允许PI建立与采访的编码器间的可靠性，以便他们可以重新分析和信息传播。还提供了来自研究的其他数据，并将使PI开发一个生态发展模型，将家庭和课堂因素视为双语儿童语言发展的预测因素。该赠款还将允许PI开始在坦帕湾地区建立研究合作。PI已经与希尔斯伯勒的董事讨论了他们的教师和他们所服务的学生的需求。在这笔启动补助金的帮助下，PI将购买所需的评估材料，以便进行一项实验性的试点研究，评估儿童的语言和识字需求，以及教师的管理和教学风格在两个开端教室。实验教室和对照教室将被匹配，教师将在实验教室使用早期语言和识字课堂观察工具包进行培训。通过评估和观察，将确定对教师进行这一工具的培训是否会使他们了解子女的需求，并帮助子女取得成功。

With these "start-up" research funds, the PI, a beginning tenure-track faculty member in development psychology at the University of South Florida, and a former NSF post-doctoral fellow, will complete data analysis from her previous NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship research, and establish a collaborative relationship with Hillsborough Head Start in the Tampa area in order to pursue further new research on Spanish-speaking pre-school children. Accomplishing these two goals will provide her with the opportunity to disseminate her research up to this point in time, and develop a program of research in the Tampa Bay area. English Language Learners are a growing demographic in our schools today. It is important to analyze the data that has been collected as well as continue to research this population. The No Child Left Behind Act focuses on helping children to succeed in school. It is important to take into account all children, including those for whom English is not their first language. Identifying the best practices for working with these children will help not only them, but their teachers, classrooms, and schools to succeed as well. It is therefore important to start working with these children before they enter formal school, to ensure that they have the background skills necessary to do well. Two of the most important skills that will help these children are oral language skills, such as vocabulary, and phonological awareness abilities. These skills, along with positively developed relationships with parents and teachers, provide a recipe for success at the onset of their schooling career. As a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow the PI conducted interviews with the mothers of Latino preschool children in Massachusetts. The children were participants in the Early Childhood Study of Language and Literacy Development in Spanish-speaking Children. Follow-up interviews with a subset of the mothers were conducted when the children were in kindergarten. The interviews have been transcribed and coded. This grant will allow the PI to establish inter-coder reliability with the interviews, so that they may be reanalyzed and the information disseminated. Additional data from the study have also been provided and will allow the PI to develop an ecological model of development, looking at home and classroom factors as predictors of bilingual children's language development. The grant will also allow the PI to begin to establish research collaborations in the Tampa Bay area. The PI has discussed with the directors of Hillsborough Head Start the needs of their teachers and the students they serve. With the help of this starter grant, the PI will purchase the assessment materials needed in order to conduct an experimental pilot study assessing children's language and literacy needs, as well as teacher's management and instructional styles in two Head Start classrooms. An experimental and control classroom will be matched and teachers will be trained in the experimental classroom using the Early Language and Literacy Classroom Observation Toolkit. Through assessment and observation, it will be determined whether training a teacher on this tool will inform them on the needs of their children and help the children in succeeding.