Study Background

Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (National Research Council 1998) shows that a high percentage of children from low-income families attend preschools that may successfully address other developmental domains but often fail to provide the language, cognitive, and earlyreading instruction and activities necessary to develop skills to become successful readers. Improving the instructional program to support the age-appropriate development of these skills is the central focus of ERF.

ERF provides grants to school districts, other public, nonprofit, and private organizations, and collaborations of the same entities that serve 3- to 5-year-olds, especially those from low-income families. The grants must be used to provide services that will better prepare children to enter kindergarten with the necessary language, cognitive, and literacy skills that can avert reading difficulties. ERF grants are intended to support the following items:

• A high-quality oral language and print-rich classroom environment
• Activities and instructional materials developed according to scientifically based reading research that will help develop children's oral language, phonological awareness, print awareness, and alphabet knowledge
• Screening and assessments to monitor children's acquisition of skills and to guide instruction
• Professional development formulated according to scientifically based reading research that will help teachers to enhance children's language, cognitive, and early literacy skills
• Integration of the instructional materials, activities, tools, and measures into the grantee's existing programs

Two key elements of ERF are the use of scientifically based methods and the goal of enhanced professional development. Scientifically based reading research is defined as that which applies rigorous, systematic, and objective procedures to obtain valid and reliable knowledge relevant to reading development, reading instruction, and reading difficulties. Consistent with the statutory definition of “professional development,” ERF professional development was expected to be continuous, intensive, and classroom focused.

Five rounds of ERF grants have been awarded since the program began in 2002. These awards ranged from $750,000 to $4.5 million per site for a 3-year period. The national evaluation of ERF focused on the second cohort of grantees from FY 2003, in which the grants totaled approximately $75 million; the average award was $2.5 million, and individual awards ranged from $1,074,846 to $4,358,750 to be spent over three years.

The national evaluation of ERF was intended to investigate the effects on children's language development and emergent literacy when:

• preschools receive funding to adopt scientifically based methods and materials
• teachers are provided with focused professional development that supports the use of these materials and methods

The following research questions were addressed by the evaluation:

• What is the impact of ERF on the language and literacy skills of children enrolled in preschools that receive ERF support?
• What is the impact of ERF on the quality of language and literacy instruction, practice, and materials that preschools provide?
• To what extent are variations in ERF program quality and implementation associated with differences in the language and literacy skills of the children served?

Top