Head Start REDI (Research-based, Developmentally Informed)

描述（由申请人提供）：这一竞争性的延续建议描述了2003年启动的一项研究计划的“下一步”，该计划名为“领先REDI”（基于研究，发展知情）项目。REDI项目旨在通过提高教师将基于实践的教学战略与其正在进行的方案编制相结合的能力，加强“开端”对儿童入学准备的影响。学校准备的两个领域是有针对性的：1）语言发展/紧急识字技能，和2）社会情感能力。最初的随机试验（涉及356名儿童从44头开始教室）证明了REDI教室的教学质量的改善，根据观察员的语言使用，教学支持和情感辅导的评级。此外，接受REDI的儿童表现出增强的词汇量，紧急识字技能，社交能力和学习参与度，并减少了攻击性，在头开始的一年结束时，相对于参加“常规练习”头开始教室的儿童。这项继续执行的建议有两个主要目的。第一个目的是对参加初步试验的儿童进行随访评估，以评估REDI计划对小学后期（3年级和5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的技能增长轨迹之间的交易影响，并探索作为小学早期背景函数的持续计划效果的潜在适度（即，教学质量、课堂环境和师生关系质量）。该提案的第二个主要目的是评估以家长为中心的REDI计划扩展的额外好处，使用随机对照设计，在最初的县参加学前班的200名儿童的新样本。在家长参与的开端传统的基础上，REDI以家长为中心的扩展的目标是在开端年期间改善对儿童语言和社会情感技能发展的跨环境支持，并为儿童从开端进入幼儿园提供过渡支持。对这一新样本的纵向评估将持续三年（4岁时的预测试;幼儿园结束时的后测试，以及一年级结束时的后续评估）。多方法，多知情人的措施将被用来评估家长为中心的扩展REDI对儿童的口头语言技能，紧急识字技能，学习参与，社会情感能力和行为问题的影响。我们还将评估计划对有针对性的育儿实践的影响，并确定他们在多大程度上调解儿童的结果。 公共卫生相关性：在贫困中长大的儿童特别有可能在入学时没有他们需要适应和获得的语言和社会情感技能，使他们面临越来越多的学业延迟的风险，沿着具有长期有害影响的行为困难。本研究评估了短期和长期的影响，注入“基于研究”的教学策略，以支持教师和家长的方式，并促进儿童的语言和社会情感准备技能，从而提高儿童的入学准备和促进学校的成就。将重点放在评估和扩大针对贫困儿童的入学准备方案上，意义重大。研究结果可以为干预这些高危人群提供更好的策略。

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. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Children growing up in poverty are particularly likely to enter school without the language and social-emotional skills they need to adapt and achieve, placing them at risk for increasing delays in academic attainment, along with behavioral difficulties that have long-term deleterious effects. This research evaluates the short- and long- term impact of infusing "research-based" instructional strategies into Head Start programs in ways that support both teachers and parents, and that promote child language and social-emotional readiness skills, and thereby enhance child readiness for school and foster school attainment. The focus on evaluation and extension of a school readiness program targeted to poor children is highly significant. Results could provide improved strategies for intervening with such high risk populations.