Teaching the Teachers about Language Support Strategies: Effects on Young Children’s Language Development

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

The feeling thinking talking (FTT) intervention was designed because early childhood seems to be a prime time for fostering young children's language skills. This intervention involved teaching teachers from N = 28 kindergarten groups in N = 13 German kindergartens language support strategies (LSS) to be used in everyday conversations with the children in their care. The FTT intervention was evaluated in a business-as-usual control group design with N = 281 children (mean age = 49.82 months, range = 33-66 months at T1, mixed SES) who were individually tested using objective tests on grammar, vocabulary and working memory before (T1) and after the FTT intervention (T2), and in a follow-up about one year after T1 (T3). After propensity matching was applied, multilevel models demonstrated that the children taught by the intervention group teachers made faster progress in their understanding of sentences, their application of morphological rules, and their memory for sentences when numerous covariates (child age, gender, behavioral self-regulation, multilingual upbringing, and family SES) were controlled. Results suggest that complex language processing abilities in young children can be promoted by a teacher-led intervention in early childhood education. Improved language skills will further all children's academic and social success in school.

Original languageEnglish
Article number660750
JournalFrontiers in Psychology
Volume12
Number of pages11
ISSN1664-1078
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 04.05.2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This study used the data set from the multicenter study Professionalisierung alltagsintegrierter sprachlicher Bildung bei ein-und mehrsprachig aufwachsenden Kindern collected within the BISS framework that was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth under the grant BIS00.00007.16.

This publication was funded by the Open Access Publication Fund of Leuphana University Lüneburg.

Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright © 2021 Voltmer, Hormann, Pietsch, Maehler and von Salisch.

Documents

DOI

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Silent reading fluency and comprehension in bilingual children
  2. Timing, fragmentation of work and income inequality
  3. Analphabetismus
  4. Influence of Extrusion Rate on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Magnesium Alloy AM60 and an AM60-Based Metal Matrix Nanocomposite
  5. Consequence evaluations and moral concerns about climate change
  6. The blue-collar brain
  7. A web- And mobile-based intervention for comorbid, recurrent depression in patients with chronic back pain on sick leave (get.back)
  8. Utilizing international networks for accelerating research and learning in transformational sustainability science
  9. The Rhythm Method
  10. Three steps to a solar system
  11. Information seeking about tool properties in great apes
  12. Bridging scenario planning and backcasting
  13. The impact of goal specificity and goal type on learning outcome and cognitive load
  14. Daniel Fiott (ed.), The csdp in 2020: The EU’s legacy and ambition in security and defence
  15. Ge-/Beschriebenes Gesicht
  16. On Molecular Complexity Indices.
  17. The potential impacts of insecticides on the life-history traits of bees and the consequences for pollination
  18. § 292 Haftung bei Herausgabepflicht
  19. Impact of wages and job levels on worker absenteeism
  20. Crown size-growth relationships of European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) are driven by the interplay of disturbance intensity and inter-specific competition
  21. Art 159: Composition, procedure and voting
  22. A Note on Smoking Behavior and Health Risk Taking
  23. Modes of Being in Mobile Telecommunication
  24. Network measures of mixing

Press / Media

  1. Von Nachbarschaften
  2. ***