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ABSTRACT: Purpose: The potential benefit that a low-cost scripted language and literacy curriculum supplement titled "Read It Again!" (RIA; L. M. Justice, A. S. McGinty, A. R. Beckman, & C. R. Kilday, 2006)may have on preschool-age children's skills was explored. RIA was developed to meet the needs of preschool educators who may not have access to current commercially available high-cost language and literacy curricula, which often require ongoing intensive professional development. RIA involves implementing 60 large-group lessons over a 30-week period that feature repeated use of 15 commercial storybooks.
Method: Using a quasi-experimental pre-post research design, 11 preschool teachers implemented RIA in their classrooms for an academic year, and 9 teachers working in comparable preschool programs served as comparisons. Language and literacy measures were collected in the fall and spring of the year.
Results: Children whose teachers implemented RIA had higher scores in the spring on measures of language (i.e., grammar and vocabulary) and measures of literacy (i.e., rhyme, alliteration, and print). Effect-size estimates were consistent with medium- to large-size effects.
Conclusions: RIA may be a viable means of enhancing the language and literacy instruction that is delivered within preschool classrooms and, therefore, a means of enhancing children's language and literacy learning. Future directions for continued evaluation of RIA are discussed.
KEY WORDS: emergent literacy, preschool programs, at-risk children, curriculum
An unprecedented number of 3- to 5-year-old children currently attend publicly funded preschool and prekindergarten (pre-K) programs (National Institute for Early Education Research, 2004). Many of these children exhibit elevated risks for later reading problems due to poverty and its wellestablished impact on developmental precursors to reading achievement. Consequently, increased attention is being directed toward ensuring that children who attend publicly funded preschool programs have adequate opportunities to develop such critical reading precursors as vocabulary knowledge, narrative ability, phonological awareness, and print knowledge (see Barnett, 2001; Dickinson & Brady, 2006; Justice & Kaderavek, 2004). Early Reading First provides an apt example: This federally funded program was designed to create preschool "centers of excellence" in language and emergent literacy throughout the United States to serve as model instructional programs (Institute of Education Sciences, 2007). The potential for such large-scale prevention-focused initiatives to reduce disparities in reading achievement between children with economic disadvantages and their more...