WWC review of this study

The effects of a read-aloud program with language interaction (Doctoral dissertation).

Lamb, H. A. (1986). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. (UMI No. 8616894).

  • Randomized Controlled Trial
     examining 
    19
     Students
    , grade
    PK

Reviewed: April 2015

No statistically significant positive
findings
Meets WWC standards without reservations
Alphabetics outcomes—Indeterminate effect found for the domain
Outcome
measure
Comparison Period Sample Intervention
mean
Comparison
mean
Significant? Improvement
    index
Evidence
tier

Concepts About Print Test

Shared Book Reading vs. Interaction without reading

Posttest

Reading and interaction;
19 students

3.60

2.33

No

--

Concepts About Print Test

Shared Book Reading vs. Reading without interaction

Posttest

Reading and interaction;
19 students

3.60

4.22

No

--
Comprehension outcomes—Indeterminate effect found for the domain
Outcome
measure
Comparison Period Sample Intervention
mean
Comparison
mean
Significant? Improvement
    index
Evidence
tier

Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Revised (PPVT-R)

Shared Book Reading vs. Interaction without reading

Posttest

Reading and interaction;
19 students

27.30

23.88

No

--

Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Revised (PPVT-R)

Shared Book Reading vs. Reading without interaction

Posttest

Reading and interaction;
19 students

27.30

27.44

No

--
Language development outcomes—Substantively important negative effect found for the domain
Outcome
measure
Comparison Period Sample Intervention
mean
Comparison
mean
Significant? Improvement
    index
Evidence
tier

Record of Oral Language

Shared Book Reading vs. Interaction without reading

Posttest

Reading and interaction;
19 students

8.75

9.44

No

--

Record of Oral Language

Shared Book Reading vs. Reading without interaction

Posttest

Reading and interaction;
19 students

8.75

13.88

No

--


Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.

Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.


  • Urban
    • B
    • A
    • C
    • D
    • E
    • F
    • G
    • I
    • H
    • J
    • K
    • L
    • P
    • M
    • N
    • O
    • Q
    • R
    • S
    • V
    • U
    • T
    • W
    • X
    • Z
    • Y
    • a
    • h
    • i
    • b
    • d
    • e
    • f
    • c
    • g
    • j
    • k
    • l
    • m
    • n
    • o
    • p
    • q
    • r
    • s
    • t
    • u
    • x
    • w
    • y

    Florida

Setting

The study took place in one day care center in Tallahassee, Florida.

Study sample

The day care center served primarily minority and low socioeconomic status (SES) families. The children in the study were aged 3–5 years, from a minority racial group, and mostly from low SES families. The 36 children were randomly assigned to either the intervention group—read-aloud with structured language interaction (10 children)—or one of three comparison groups: read-aloud with no interaction (9 children); interaction with no read-aloud (9 children); and no contact (8 children).

Intervention Group

The read-aloud with structured language interaction condition involved the study author reading a preselected book with a small group of children, using verbal and nonverbal interactions before, during, and after the reading that focused on the book, story, and children’s related experiences. The author met with the intervention group on a daily basis for 10 weeks to deliver the intervention.

Comparison Group

There were three comparison conditions. The read-aloud with no interaction condition involved the author reading to a small group of children using the same books as in the intervention condition with no interaction initiated by the author. The interaction-only condition involved no read-aloud activities; the author engaged a small group of children in art activities, providing comments and discussing the activities. The author met with each of these comparison groups on a daily basis for 10 weeks. The third comparison group condition was business-asusual classroom instruction, in which children had no contact with the author. The businessas-usual general classroom instruction condition was excluded from this intervention report because contrasts against this group do not meet WWC standards.

Outcome descriptions

In the comprehension domain, the author used the PPVT-R, which measures receptive vocabulary. In the alphabetics domain, the author used the Concepts About Print Test (Clay, 1979), which measures knowledge about book orientation, print convention, concepts of words and punctuation, and relationship between print and meaning. In the language development domain, the author used the Record of Oral Language (Clay et al., 1983), in which children repeat carefully constructed sentences. For a more detailed description of these outcome measures, see Appendix B.

Support for implementation

The author implemented the intervention and two of the comparison conditions. No support or training was provided.

 

Your export should download shortly as a zip archive.

This download will include data files for study and findings review data and a data dictionary.

Connect With the WWC

loading
back to top