| Description |
In providing children at risk for reading difficulties with the necessary skills to be successful readers in school age programs, early childhood educators in high-quality preschool programs facilitate the development of emergent literacy and oral language abilities through language-rich environments. However, most teachers in preschool settings rarely use strategies necessary to build these skills in their students. Professional development efforts need to employ the most effective methods for providing early childhood educators with the knowledge, skills, and strategies to increase emergent literacy skills. Follow-up techniques that successfully support teachers in the transfer of new strategies to their classrooms are an important component of professional development training. A multiple-baseline design across participants was used in this study to examine the effects of an expert coaching model, which included teacher selfevaluation of videotaped observations and reflection on implementation of open-ended questions and expansions, on (a) implementation of strategies, (b) generalization of strategies to other settings, (c) teacher attitudes towards the coaching model, and (d) student outcomes. Data analysis showed that self-evaluation maintained or increased the use of teaching strategies, with the addition of modeling and guided practice bringing about continued improvement over baseline values. The use of open-ended questions generalized to other settings, increasing over baseline in the majority of participants. Teachers indicated the self-evaluation process was useful in improving their use of oral language development strategies. The majority of students increased the use of one-word and two or more-word utterances, which resulted in an overall increase in words per minute. Implications for professional development designers and recommendations for future research are discussed. |
