Crain-Thoreson, Catherine; Dale, Philip S. (1999). Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, v19 n1 p28-39 Spr 1999. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ583795
Reviewed: April 2010
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Please see the WWC summary of evidence for Dialogic Reading.
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (EOWPVT-R) |
Dialogic Reading vs. Business as usual |
Posttest |
3-5 year olds;
|
74.80 |
71.00 |
No |
-- | |
|
Total utterances |
Dialogic Reading vs. Business as usual |
Posttest |
3-5 year olds;
|
38.70 |
35.30 |
No |
-- | |
|
Mean length utterance (MLU) |
Dialogic Reading vs. Business as usual |
Posttest |
3-5 year olds;
|
2.75 |
2.70 |
No |
-- | |
|
Lexical diversity |
Dialogic Reading vs. Business as usual |
Posttest |
3-5 year olds;
|
49.00 |
48.80 |
No |
-- | |
|
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Revised (PPVT-R) |
Dialogic Reading vs. Business as usual |
Posttest |
3-5 year olds;
|
61.10 |
62.00 |
No |
-- |
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
The study took place in five classrooms in five schools in three school districts in the Pacific Northwest. Children attended publicly funded preschool programs that provided early intervention for children with special needs.
The study began with 37 children. All children were eligible for early childhood special-education services and had mild to moderate language delays. Based on pretest scores, triads of children with similar receptive vocabulary scores were formed within each district. Within each triad, one member was randomly assigned to a parent dialogic reading group, one member was assigned to a staff dialogic reading group, and one was assigned to a control condition. Thirteen children were assigned to the staff-implemented group, which was not included in this review, and five more children did not complete the study, leaving 19 children remaining in the sample. The mean age of all the children who completed the study was 51.6 months (ranging from 39 to 66 months), and 31.3% of these children were female. The mean age of children in the sample included in this review was 50.5 months.
The study included two intervention groups: one in which program staff implemented dialogic reading, and another in which parents implemented dialogic reading. The comparison between the staff-implemented group and the no-treatment comparison group did not meet evidence standards because of high differential attrition and lack of baseline equivalence and is excluded from this report. Dialogic reading was implemented over an eight-week period, during which staff or parents engaged in book reading with individual children at least four times per week.
Children in the control group did not participate in dialogic reading. They participated in group story time, which was the standard practice.
The primary outcome domain was children’s communication and language competencies, measured by three nonstandardized measures and two standardized measures. The nonstandardized measures included mean length of utterances, number of utterances, and number of different words used (lexical diversity). Children’s vocabulary knowledge was measured by two standardized tests: the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test–Revised and the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test–Revised. For a more detailed description of these outcome measures, see Appendix A2.
Parents were trained in the dialogic reading program during two 90-minute instructional sessions held four weeks apart. Videotape training, live demonstration, and role-play were used during the training. Handouts summarizing the training components were provided to parents. The researchers modified the parent training program to address the needs of students with language delays by teaching parents to pause and give their children time to respond.
Reviewed: February 2007
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Please see the WWC summary of evidence for Dialogic Reading.
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Ratio of child participation |
Dialogic Reading vs. None |
Posttest |
3-5 year olds;
|
0.30 |
0.26 |
No |
-- | |
|
Number of child utterances |
Dialogic Reading vs. None |
Posttest |
3-5 year olds;
|
43.36 |
36.43 |
No |
-- | |
|
Mean length utterance (MLU) |
Dialogic Reading vs. None |
Posttest |
3-5 year olds;
|
3.00 |
2.73 |
No |
-- | |
|
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Revised (PPVT-R) |
Dialogic Reading vs. None |
Posttest |
3-5 year olds;
|
63.70 |
59.54 |
No |
-- | |
|
Lexical diversity |
Dialogic Reading vs. None |
Posttest |
3-5 year olds;
|
55.29 |
52.56 |
No |
-- | |
|
Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (EOWPVT-R) |
Dialogic Reading vs. None |
Posttest |
3-5 year olds;
|
70.12 |
71.73 |
No |
-- |
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
The study took place in five classrooms in three school districts in the Pacific Northwest.
The study began with 37 children with mild to moderate language delays. All children were eligible for early childhood special education services. Five children did not complete the study, leaving 32 children in the sample. The mean age of the remaining children was 51.6 months (range 39 to 66 months) and 31.3% of the remaining sample was female. Results for the 22 children who were randomly assigned to the staff/practice and comparison conditions are included in this report.
The study included two intervention groups: a staff/practice group and a parent group. The staff/practice group is included in this review; the parent group was not included in the review because it was not center-based. Dialogic Reading occurred over an eight-week period during which staff engaged in book reading with individual children at least four times per week.
Staff in the comparison group were trained on Dialogic Reading, but children did not participate individually in Dialogic Reading.
The primary outcome domain was children’s oral language use which was measured by four non-standardized measures: mean length of utterances; number of utterances; number of different words used; and ratio of child participation. Children’s vocabulary knowledge was measured by two standardized tests: PPVT-R and the EOWPVT-R (see Appendix A2.1 for more detailed descriptions of outcome measures).
Staff were trained on the Dialogic Reading program in two 1.5 hour instructional sessions held four weeks apart. Videotape training, live demonstration, and role-play were used to train teachers to use Dialogic Reading. In addition to learning Dialogic Reading principles, staff were instructed to pause and give children time to respond, and they kept logs of their shared reading activities.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
An outcome is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are attained as a result of an activity. An outcome measures is an instrument, device, or method that provides data on the outcome.
A finding that is included in the effectiveness rating. Excluded findings may include subgroups and subscales.
The sample on which the analysis was conducted.
The group to which the intervention group is compared, which may include a different intervention, business as usual, or no services.
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The number of students included in the analysis.
The mean score of students in the intervention group.
The mean score of students in the comparison group.
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Study findings for this report.
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Tier 2 Moderate indicates moderate evidence of effectiveness, and
Tier 3 Promising indicates promising evidence of effectiveness,
as defined in the
non-regulatory guidance for ESSA
and the regulations for ED discretionary grants (EDGAR Part 77).
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