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Dr. Mary McEvoy was a
nationally recognized researcher and advocate in the field of
early childhood development and special education. We would like
to acknowledge her for her conception of and contribution to the
Minnesota Early Literacy Training project. For more information
on the late Dr. McEvoy, please visit the "In
Memory of Mary McEvoy" web page.
Working with a
broad-based coalition of local and statewide
early education advocates, the Center for Early
Education and Development (CEED) is launching the
Early Literacy Training Project. The goal is to
prepare preschool educators to help Minnesota
children develop early literacy and language
skills. As a result of this, children from poor
neighborhoods, children with limited proficiency
in English, and children with disabilities will
have access to early childhood environments that
promote language and literacy growth and provide
them with a solid foundation for later reading.
The two-year
project will be funded through a $1.4 million
grant from the Office of Elementary and Secondary
Education of the U.S. Department of Education.
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- Revise
and refine existing early education
curriculum that focuses on literacy and
language.
SEEDS of School Readiness, an emergent
literacy curriculum written by Kate
Horst, one of the co-coordinators of
MELT, is used for training early
childhood educators. The curriculum was
developed and piloted with the
Minneapolis School Readiness
Collaborative between 2000 and 2002.
- Select
and train a cadre of trainers from
existing networks who will then train
early educators across the state. Early
Educators will also be trained to monitor
the development of language and literacy
skills using the Individual Growth and
Development Indicators (IGDIs), which are
one-minute assessments of language and
early literacy. This will help link
assessment procedures and provide a
consistent measure between preschool and
elementary school.
The Minnesota Childcare Resource
and Referral Network is the organization
responsible for training early educators
across the state of Minnesota. It has
decided to begin serving the state
through a distance training model, using
the same literacy training curriculum. A
staff person from the Network is working
with Kate Horst and Angele Passe to
transfer the SEEDS of School Readiness
curriculum into an on-line format. Our
training specialists and co-coordinators
were trained in October to deliver the
course on-line and are available to
deliver the training. The target date is
October 2003. The Network is also
projecting to begin face-to-face training
in July 2003 if funds are
available after the pilot.
- Work
closely with selected sites in
Minneapolis and the White Earth Indian
Reservation. Each site will receive
training, ongoing technical assistance,
and evaluation.
More
information
(opens in new window; when finished reading, close to return
to this page)
Project Overview (pdf
file, 62 pages, 5mb)(this file requires
Acrobat Reader)
- Work
with faculty at the Minneapolis Community
and Technical College, State University
system, and the University of Minnesota
to assure that preservice early education
programs include early literacy and
language competencies.
We are working with Minneapolis Community
and Technical College (MCTC) to offer the
SEEDS of Emergent Literacy Training as a
course for credit by April of 2003. The
course outline will be submitted to the
College for approval in January of 2003
for a pilot to begin this winter. A
teacher from Minneapolis Community and
Technical College with a Minnesota
Vocational license will be trained to
teach this course. At this time, three
community agencies have requested the
course to be taught on-site to their own
staff. The MCTC course description with
objectives and assessments is included at
the end of this section.
Provide
interactive website to provide technical
assistance to programs throughout the
state and to provide research-based
information about literacy and language
on an ongoing basis.
- Provide
access to T.E.A.C.H. (Teacher Education
and Compensation Helps) to increase early
educators' professional development and
reduce turnover.
T.E.A.C.H. is administered by the
Minnesota Childcare Resource and Referral
Network. The funds are expected to
provide 106 scholarships and 76 retention
grants. However, this number could
increase if demand was higher, as
additional funds are available statewide
to supplement this grant. A separate
report describing the services is
included at the end of this section. It
provides a good explanation of T.E.A.C.H.
Child
Performance on Reading Readiness Measures
Child reading
readiness was measured through four methods. The
first is the use of three Individual Growth
Development Indicators (IGDIs) or exercises in
picture naming, alliteration, and rhyming. The
other three measures include a comprehension
measure, Concepts about Print, and the PPVT-III.
In addition, a second rater observed 20% of the
assessments to provide for rater reliability
evidence.
Participant
Descriptions
Although this
project includes childcare centers in two sites,
Minneapolis and White Earth Reservation, the data
from the White Earth centers were not prepared
sufficiently to be summarized at this date. In
all, 36 centers are participating in Minneapolis
and 12 centers are participating in White Earth.
In Minneapolis, 25 centers are in the coaching
group, 11 centers are in the training only group.
In White Earth, six centers are in the training
only group and six centers are in the coaching
group. All centers were targeted because of their
location in high poverty neighborhoods. All
remaining descriptions of participants include
only those in the Minneapolis area.
In each
center, there are more children than those
included in the assessment portion of the
evaluation. Currently, there are 151 children in
the training only group and 265 children in the
coaching group that are participating in the full
assessments. An additional 264 children are being
assessed on IGDIs only, partially to support the
coaching role of IGDIs as assessment tools for
childcare center educators.
Among the
training only centers, the number of children
participating in the assessments from each center
ranges between 8 and 69, with a median of 16
children. Among the coaching centers, the number
of children participating in the assessments from
each center ranges between 3 and 42, with a
median of 16 children as well.
Of the 680
children included in this baseline summary:
- Approximately
52% are boys and 48% are girls.
- Nearly
10% are children learning English. This
includes 65 children, 12 of who
participate in a primarily bilingual
center (Spanish).
- Nearly
3.5% are currently being served through
an IEP (receiving early childhood special
education services).
- None of
the children with IEPs are also children
learning English.
- Nearly
60% of the children learning English are
boys.
- 75% of
the children with IEPs are boys.
Evaluation
Data will primarily be drawn
from the selected sites. The evaluation objectives and
indicators will be reflected through participant satisfaction,
technical assistance effectiveness, implementation quality,
provider knowledge and skill, and child reading readiness.
Please check back for future updates on the progress of the MELT
project.
January 2003 Highlights
Highlights of the MELT
project are listed as follows:
•
Training participants were overwhelmingly
supportive of the training efforts and the
contents of the training sessions. For the first
three sessions, 80 to 90% of participants
reported more than some learning occurred on
average, while during the last four sessions, 94
to 98% of participants reported more than some
learning occurred.
• Early
Language & Literacy Classroom Observations
indicated a wide range of literacy environments
across centers in both training only and coaching
groups. In each major area observed, there were
centers that obtained the lowest possible rating,
while in no area, did more than half of the
centers achieve the highest possible rating.
• Child
performance on the reading readiness measures
also indicated a wide range of literacy skills.
Based on PPVT performance, children are
performing at the 30th percentile on average.
•
Relationships among the reading readiness
measures were as expected, with moderate
relationships between IGDIs and PPVT scores (r =
0.37 to 0.56) and picture naming with Concepts
about Print (r = 0.34) and the comprehension
measure (r = 0.44).
•
Overall, these data suggest a great deal of room
for improvement in the quality of literacy
environments across centers and in child reading
readiness.
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