Research
2007-2008 Funded Project
Project ABC123: Promoting School Readiness in Literacy and Mathematics
Melissa Miller, assistant professor of special education, Dana Griffin, assistant professor of school counseling, Kathleen Gallagher, assistant professor of early childhood, families and literacy, and Sharon Palsha, clinical assistant professor of early childhood education, are working with parents and teachers in Head Start programs to improve literacy and math instruction for children.
Project ABC123 will examine the impact of increased early access to books and math manipulatives on the reading and math achievement of young children from low-income families, coupled with professional development support for teachers.
The project will provide a plentiful supply of books and other literacy-related materials, as well as math manipulatives to children enrolled in Head Start programs at four Orange County System elementary schools, New Hope, Pathways, Central and Efland-Cheeks. The intervention at New Hope and Pathways (Family Education/Story Time Group) will include professional development in StoryTime and 3 family education sessions. Students at the other two elementary schools Central and Efland-Cheeks (Story Time Only group) will receive materials for the classroom and teachers will take place in a Story Time intervention, without the family component at this time, to serve as a control. Children’s assessment data from existing pre-school assessments will be analyzed to determine if changes are observed in early reading and math scores between the two groups. Teachers, in both classrooms will be interviewed and observed related to the StoryTime intervention. This study will employ methodology in that both quantitative and qualitative data analysis will be used to determine program effectiveness.
