Focus on Learning

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究项目旨在改善有阅读困难风险的儿童在进入幼儿园时的入学准备。它将提供一种以家长为中心的干预，即“关注学习”，将亲子活动（互动阅读、字母和声音游戏）、基于计算机的辅导（针对新兴识字技能）与社会情感支持活动（针对父母的热情参与、敏感反应、情感指导和对儿童自我调节的支持）结合起来。目标是提高家长对儿童在家学习的支持，从而促进儿童口语技能、识字技能和适应性学习方法的提高。该项目已经过实地测试，并得到了三个不同社区的学校-社区团队的反馈。我们已经做出努力，以一种最佳的方式来打包、安排和组织项目的交付，以支持和吸引父母，而不是用认知或行为要求压倒他们。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，包括在家中大量使用学习活动，家长实施的质量相当高（由家访人员评分并记录在电脑日志中）。因此，该计划是可行的，现在已经准备好进行功效试验，可以在严格的随机试验中评估其对目标育儿技能和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，以确定270名在识字和语言技能标准化测试中得分低于全国平均水平一个标准差的儿童。这些孩子将被随机分配到干预组或对照组。处于干预状态的儿童及其家庭将在幼儿园期间接受15次家访，在一年级期间接受6次“助推器”家访。我们将跟踪孩子到二年级和三年级，在这个阶段他们应该已经掌握阅读，并完全适应学校环境的行为要求。评估将采用一种多方法、多信息提供方的策略，监测干预所针对的家长对学习的支持、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，干预条件下的儿童将在语言、新兴识字技能、适应性学习方法和学校学习行为方面表现出更大的进步。我们假设这些技能的提高将随着时间的推移而保持，促进在学校改善行为和社会适应，并有助于更高水平的学术成就。此外，我们预计接受干预的父母将改善他们在家为孩子提供学习支持的质量和数量，并且父母对孩子在家学习支持的改善将调解干预对儿童结果的影响。公共卫生相关性：有认知和社会情感延迟进入小学的儿童在阅读问题、学业成绩不佳、离校以及同时出现的学校行为问题和与老师和同伴的冲突关系方面的风险增加（Campbell & von Stauffenberg, in press; Pianta & Castaldi, 1989）。成绩差距随着时间的推移而扩大，因此生活在贫困中的儿童在经历教育系统的过程中，出现严重学习问题和成绩不达标的几率会增加，许多人在完成高中学业之前就辍学了（Ryan et al., 2006）。在美国，儿童贫困率接近20%，而且还在攀升（儿童保护基金会，2005年），制定干预措施以促进入学准备和缩小成绩差距是国家的优先事项。

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.