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FINNUT-Forskning og innovasjon i utdanningssektoren

Preventing Later Literacy Failure in Kindergarten: A longitudinal randomized-trials study of oral language development and intervention

Awarded: NOK 6.0 mill.

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When reviewing the literature on kindergarten oral language skills and interventions, it becomes clear that no studies have traced the development of oral language and reading comprehension in children at risk, or in children from transparent languages, f rom kindergarten and into school age. Also, there clearly is a need for more studies on effects from vocabulary training in younger children in general and second language learners in particular, since the few studies that exists show very divergent resul ts. Hence, there is a great need for research that extends the knowledge base on oral language and reading comprehension in relation to kindergarten, especially since kindergarten is an important childhood arena for the majority of Norwegian children. A longitudinal randomized trials study was designed to examine the oral language and reading comprehension development and immediate and long-term effects from an oral language based intervention in kindergarten. Two participant groups are included in the s tudy (age four at study onset); first language learners with poor oral language skills and second language learners with Urdu or Punjabi as first language. Their development will be related to a untreated control group of 200 unselected children traced fr om age 4 to age 8. The children will individually and in small groups receive an oral language intervention with a total of 14 weeks duration in kindergarten. The children will be assessed on a range of language and cognitive variables prior to interventi on and afterwards into the early school years. In addition, background variables related to parents and kindergarten will be collected. The data will be analyzed by the means of advanced statistical methods using latent variables with multilevel and multi group modelling. The results from the study are aimed to be published in high-quality international journals and to be disseminated to the field of practice.

Funding scheme:

FINNUT-Forskning og innovasjon i utdanningssektoren