Early Literacy Skills Builder (ELSB) is a school-based curriculum designed to improved literacy skills among children experiencing significant developmental disabilities. Results of a randomly assigned experimental evaluation showed that students participating in the ELSB program had significantly improved nonverbal literacy, phonemic awareness, and early literacy skills.

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

Target population: Elementary school students with developmental disabilities.

Early Literacy Skills Builder (ELSB) is a school-based curriculum designed to improved literacy skills among children experiencing significant developmental disabilities. The program is conducted by special education teachers on a one-on-one basis with students or with small groups of 2 to 4 students. There are thirteen objectives in the ELSB. The first objective is for students to read vocabulary sight words through flash card drills. The second objective is to point to sight words to complete sentences through a system of decreasing prompts. The third and fourth objectives are to have students point to words as the teacher reads them and to point to words to fill in a story line through a system of least prompts. The fifth objective is for students to respond to a question about the story by selecting the correct picture through teacher scaffolding. The sixth and seventh objectives are to demonstrate understanding of segmentation by clapping syllables and tapping phonemes. The eighth objective is to identify sound-letter correspondence. He ninth and tenth objectives are to identify first and last sounds in words and to find pictures that begin and end with those sounds. The eleventh and twelfth objectives are to point to letters in segmented words and to point to pictures that represent those segmented words. The thirteenth objective is to point to pictures of spoken words. Teachers receive training on each objective of the Early Literacy Program prior to implementation. Depending on student pace, teachers can repeat lessons on a two-, four-, or ten-day cycle. Students do not move onto the succeeding lesson until they have 75% correct responses. The lessons take place through the school year.

EVALUATION(S) OF PROGRAM

Browder, D. M., Ahlgrim-Delzell, L., Courtade, G., Gibbs, S. L., & Flowers, C. (2008). Evaluation of the effectiveness of an early literacy program for students with significant developmental disabilities. Council for Exceptional Children, 75(1), 33-52.

Evaluated population: Twenty-three students in kindergarten through fourth grade from a large urban school district in the southeast United States were nominated by special education teachers as students that met the following criteria: (1) An IQ below 55 or severe deficits in intellectual functioning; (2) Enrolled in Grades K through 4; (3) Reading below first grade level; (4) Adequate hearing and vision; (5) Responsive to ongoing English instruction; and (6) Parental consent. Approximately 50% of the students were male, 50% were African American, 33% were White, and 25% received free or reduced lunch from school.

Approach: Students were randomly assigned to the intervention or control group and pretested at the beginning of the school year. The control group participated in a a sight word or picture instruction. The control group used a whole-word approach as opposed to a phoneme approach in the ELSB. Students were assessed on nonverbal literacy, conventions of reading, phonics and phonemic awareness, early literacy skills, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), and the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery (WLPB), which measures receptive vocabulary and oral language, reading, and written language.

Results: At post-test, there were significant increases in the intervention group students’ scores on nonverbal literacy (small effect size of 0.14), phonics and phonemic awareness (small effect size of 0.23), and early literacy skills (small effect size of 0.15) when compared with the control group students. There were also significant increases in the intervention group students’ scores on the PPVT (small effect size of 0.15) and memory for sentences (small effect size of 0.18). There were no significant differences between the groups on conventions of reading, WLPB total score, or letter-word identification.

SOURCES FOR MORE INFORMATION

References

Program categorized in this guide according to the following:

Evaluated participant ages: 5-9

Program age ranges in the Guide: Middle childhood

Program components: School-based

Measured outcomes: Education and Cognitive development,

KEYWORDS: Children, Kindergarten, Elementary, Co-ed, White/Caucasian, Black/African American, School-based, Early Childhood Education, Urban, Reading.

Program information last updated 6/9/10