Preschool Language & Social Curriculum Evaluation

描述（由申请人提供）：R21项目的主要目的是计划一个综合多模式课程的多地点有效性试验，旨在提高学龄前儿童的读写能力、沟通能力和社会情感技能。我们的目标包括提高这些技能，以确保学龄前儿童在他们的过渡和经验在幼儿园是成功的。拟议的课程将扩展学前行为项目（PBP），该项目将促进语言/识字前技能的活动与社会情感发展相关的主题结合起来。我们计划与以前参加过PBP或参加过向学龄前儿童教授语言和识字前技能的大学课程的教师进行焦点小组讨论。我们将修订课程，并在幼儿园课堂上开展新的活动。我们将与教师进行另一个焦点小组讨论课程，以及他们对课程的全面性、发展适当性和可用性的评价。我们之前的经验和更广泛的文献表明，有行为问题的儿童不太能够利用传统的早期儿童环境。该项目的第二个目标是调整课程，使这些儿童能够从其活动中受益。我们将与教师进行焦点小组讨论，探讨如何在课堂上最好地实施这些适应措施。项目工作人员和教师将在常规幼儿课堂上对儿童进行改造，并进行手工操作。该项目的第三个目标是创建专业设计的课程材料。我们将寻求幼儿课程和平面设计顾问的帮助，就课程的设计、布局和整合提供意见。第四个目标是制定一项研究设计，以审查为有效实施课程需要哪些教育、培训和行政支助。这包括最终的措施，研究设计，伙伴关系的发展和计划的大规模，多地点，随机有效性的课程试验，这将使我们能够回答与上述目标相关的问题。为了实现这些目标，我们计划继续我们与启智计划的成功合作，并扩展到公立和私立儿童护理中心，以随机设计的方式提供课程。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The primary aim of the proposed R21 project is to plan a multisite effectiveness trial of a comprehensive multimodal curriculum designed to promote the literacy, communication, and socioemotional skills of preschool children. Our goals include enhancing these skills to ensure that preschoolers are successful in their transition to and experiences in kindergarten. The proposed curriculum will expand the Preschool Behavior Project (PBP) that integrates activities promoting language/preliteracy skills with topics related to socioemotional development. We plan to conduct focus groups with teachers who have previously participated in PBP or in a college course on teaching language and preliteracy skills to preschoolers. We will revise the curriculum and practice new activities in preschool classrooms. We will conduct another focus group with teachers about the curriculum and their appraisal of its comprehensiveness, developmental appropriateness and usability. Our prior experience and the broader literature suggest that children with behavior problems are less able to take advantage of traditional early childhood environments. A second aim of the project is to make adaptations to the curriculum so that these children can benefit from its activities. We will conduct focus groups with teachers about ways to best implement the adaptations in classrooms. The adaptations will be practiced with children by project staff and teachers in regular early childhood classrooms and manualized. The third aim of the project is to create professionally designed curriculum materials. We will enlist the help of early childhood curriculum and graphic design consultants for advice about the design, layout and integration of the curriculum. The fourth aim is to develop a research design to examine what education, training and administrative supports are needed to effectively implement the curriculum. This includes finalizing measures, research design, partnership development and planning for a large-scale, multisite, randomized effectiveness trial of the curriculum which will allow us to answer questions associated with the aims described above. To achieve these aims, we plan to continue our successful collaboration with Head Start programs and expand to public and private child care centers to deliver the curriculum in a randomized design.