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Let’s Begin with the Letter People® is an early education curriculum that uses 26 thematic units to develop children’s language and early literacy skills. A major focus is phonological awareness, including rhyming, word play, alliteration, and segmentation. Children are encouraged to learn as individuals, in small groups, and in a whole-class environment. Teacher resource books and a set of classroom books and other program materials are available as a program kit.
Two studies of Let’s Begin with the Letter People® meet What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards and no studies meet WWC evidence standards with reservations. The two studies include children in 49 classrooms in 25 preschools in Houston, Texas, and southeastern New York State. 4
Based on these two studies, the WWC considers the extent of evidence for Let’s Begin with the Letter People® to be medium to large for oral language and print knowledge and small for phonological processing and math. No studies that meet WWC evidence standards with or without reservations examined the effectiveness of Let’s Begin with the Letter People® in the early reading and writing or cognition domains.
Let’s Begin with the Letter People® was found to have no discernible effects on oral language, print knowledge, phonological processing, or math.
| Oral language |
Print knowledge | Phonological processing | Early reading and writing | Cognition | Math | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating of effectiveness | No discernible effects |
No discernible effects |
No discernible effects |
na | na | No discernible effects |
| Improvement index5 | Average: +1 percentile point Range: –1 to +3 percentile points |
Average: +6 percentile points Range: +1 to +12 percentile points |
Average: –5 percentile points |
na | na | Average: +3 percentile points Range: –4 to +8 percentile points |
| na = not applicable | ||||||
1 This report has been updated to include reviews of two studies that were released since 2007, a review of one study that was released in 2002 but was not reviewed for the previous report, and a rereview of two studies that were included in the previous report. Of the five studies, two meet evidence standards and three were within the scope of the protocol but did not meet evidence standards. A complete list and disposition of all studies reviewed are provided in the references. The findings described in the previous
Let’s Begin with the Letter People® intervention report were based in part on a study by Assel et al. (2007). A rereview of that study for the present report revealed that the subcluster attrition rate of children exceeded standards, as specified in the Early Childhood Education protocol. Hence, results from the Assel et al. (2007) study were not considered when preparing the present intervention report.
2 The descriptive information for this program was obtained from publicly available sources: the program’s website (www.abramslearningtrends.com/lets_begin_with_
letter_people.aspx, downloaded July 2009) and the research literature (Assel et al., 2007; Fischel et al., 2007). The WWC requests developers to review the program description
sections for accuracy from their perspective. Further verification of the accuracy of the descriptive information for this program is beyond the scope of this review.
3 The studies in this report were reviewed using WWC Evidence Standards, Version 1.0 (see the WWC Standards).
4 The evidence presented in this report is based on available research. Findings and conclusions may change as new research becomes available.
5 These numbers show the average and range of student-level improvement indices for all findings across the studies.
|Institute of Education Sciences
Early Childhood Education