A Comprehensive Preschool Program Published by Abrams & Company Publishers

Waterbury, CT

September 2003

ABRAMS& COMPANY Publishers is totally committed to the publication of evidence-based educational programs for early childhood.

This commitment is grounded in an expanding array of third-partysponsored research partnerships with respected universities and educational policy organizations. Most of these studies are funded by agencies of the federal and state government(s) through these third-party organizations.

These studies are under the supervision of principal investigators who hold at least a Ph.D. among their research science qualifications.

None of the following referenced research studies has been completed. Upon completion, it is the intention of the principal investigators to have the results of these studies published in peer review journals. A summary of results will appear on ABRAMS& COMPANY Web sites (www.letterpeople.com and www.abramsandcompany.com).

For further information and updates on this research, please contact:

                        Research Department

                        ABRAMS& COMPANY Publishers

                        61 Mattatuck Heights

                        Waterbury, CT 06705

                        (203) 7566562

TITLE:     NATIONALHEADSTARTQUALITYRESEARCHCENTER GRANT

                        EVIDENCE-BASED EMERGENT LITERACY APPROACHES

AGENCY:                   Administration on Children, Youth and Families, ACF, DHHS

PRINCIPAL                Janet Fischel, Ph.D.

INVESTIGATOR:       (631) 6327870

                                    jfischel@mail.som.sunysb.edu

UNIVERSITY            Departments of Pediatrics and Psychology

AFFILIATION:           State University of New York at Stony Brook

                               Stony Brook, NY 117942500           

METHODOLOGY      Randomized assignment of classrooms with control

USED:                      15 classes: 5 classes per intervention plus control

DESCRIPTION:

Enhancing emergent literacy skills and tracking program outcomes in emergent literacy are currently emphasized as major tasks for Head Start in the effort to inform program planning and improve child readiness. This project addresses the emphasis on school readiness through a comparative study of two curriculum interventions, each of which addresses emergent literacy in the preschool years as at least one of its goals. The curriculum interventions selected are: LETS BEGIN with the Letter People and Waterfords Early Reading Level 1. The comparison curriculum is The High/Scope Educational Approach. The selected classes are located on Long Island, New York.

The specific objectives of this project are:

1)      to compare, with a broad and identical set of metrics, child outcomes across three leading curricula for the development of emergent literacy skills in randomly assigned classrooms of four-year-old children in Head Start;

2)      to follow all children in the project through kindergarten in order to obtain the broadest evidence-based support for the strengths of one or more of the three curricula on the domains of emergent literacy and school readiness; and

3)      to identify important issues in the feasibility and practicality of curriculum adoption (intensity of teacher training required, resource costs, amount of time spent on the curriculum) in order to maximize successful and broad dissemination and adoption in interested Head Start locations nationwide.

The broader objectives of the study are to provide Head Start and other pre-K educational settings with the evidence and programs that are necessary to substantially reduce reading problems through early prevention.

LENGTH OF STUDY: 5 Years (September 2001-June 2006)

TITLE: PRESCHOOL CURRICULUM EVALUATION RESEARCH GRANT (PCER)

AGENCY:                   Institute for Educational Sciences (IES)

PRINCIPAL                Susan A. Landry, Ph.D.

INVESTIGATOR:        (713) 5003710                                  

                                    susan.landry@uth.tmc.edu

UNIVERSITY             The Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning

AFFILIATION:              and Education

                                 Division of Developmental Pediatrics

                                 University of Texas Houston Health Sciences Center Medical School

                                  7000 Fannin

                                  Houston, TX 77030

METHODOLOGY      Randomized assignment of classrooms with control

USED:                         59 classrooms in total: 24 using LETS BEGIN

DESCRIPTION:

The purpose of this PCER program is to implement rigorous evaluations of preschool curricula that will provide information to support informed choices of classroom curricula for early childhood programs. This is a new program of research that will determine through randomized clinical trials whether one or more curricula produce educationally meaningful effects on children.

The curriculum interventions selected for this research study are LETS BEGIN with the Letter People and Doors to Discovery. The classes include public school Title 1 and non-Title 1 prekindergarten and Head Start in the Houston Area.

LENGTH OF STUDY: 2 Years  (September 2001-June 2003)

TITLE:   EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT  

      PROGRAM GRANTS

AGENCY:                   Department of Education

PRINCIPAL                Susan A. Landry, Ph.D.

INVESTIGATOR:       (713) 5003710                                  

                                    susan.landry@uth.tmc.edu

UNIVERSITY             The Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning

AFFILIATION:              and Education

                                    Division of Developmental Pediatrics

University of TexasHouston Health Sciences Center Medical 

   School

                                    7000 Fannin

                                    Houston, TX 77030

METHODOLOGY      Randomized assignment of classrooms with control

USED:                         28 classrooms

DESCRIPTION:

This grant complements the Early Reading First initiative, which will support local efforts to enhance the school readiness of young children, particularly those from low-income families, through scientifically based reading research that is designed to improve the verbal skills, phonological awareness, letter knowledge, pre-reading skills, and early language development of children from ages three through five. The Department of Education intends to disseminate information about those professional development programs that prove to be effective models for best practices in early childhood education programs.

This grant was applied to assisting teachers in the Elk Grove/Sacramento area in northern California.

LENGTH OF STUDY: 2 Years (September 2001June 2003)

TITLE:       CLASSROOM LITERACY INTERVENTION AND OUTCOMES STUDY

AGENCY:                         Institute for Educational Sciences (IES)

                                          Conducted by WESTAT

PRINCIPAL                      Susan A. Landry, Ph.D.

INVESTIGATOR:             (713) 5003710

                                          susan.landry@uth.tmc.edu

CO-INVESTIGATOR:    Richard Abrams, President, ABRAMS& COMPANY Publishers

UNIVERSITY                   The Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for

AFFILIATION:                     Learning and Education

Division of Developmental Pediatrics

University of TexasHouston Health Sciences Center Medical 

                                              School

                                          7000 Fannin

                                          Houston, TX 77030

METHODOLOGY            Randomized assignment of classrooms with control

USED:                               60 classrooms for each of 2 interventions plus control

DESCRIPTION:

The Classroom Literacy Intervention and Outcomes Study (CLIO) is the fourth national evaluation of the Even Start program. Its study design calls for testing the effectiveness of two promising family literacy interventions in a sample of Even Start projects from across the nation. Two versions of each intervention will be tested: one that is solely focused on early childhood education in the classroom for 3- and 4-year olds, and one that contains the same early childhood education component along with integrated parenting education and parent/child interactive literacy activities components.

The goal of CLIO is to determine whether these promising interventions are more effective than the family literacy approaches currently used in Even Start projects. If the children and parents receiving the experimental interventions perform significantly better than the control group, it will provide Even Start practitioners across the country with information they can use to improve the effectiveness of their projects.

The Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning and Education (CIRCLE), in collaboration with ABRAMS& COMPANY Publishers, has been selected as one of the two interventions. This partnership will bring together the highly respected professional development model created by CIRCLE for early childhood teachers, the proven-effective parent education program developed by CIRCLE, called Play and Learning Strategies (PALS), and the high-quality LETS BEGIN with the Letter People curriculum.

LENGTH OF STUDY: 3 Years (September 2003-June 2006)