Earlier Reading Readiness Helps Youngest Learners

The figure is dismaying. One-third of American fourth graders lack basic reading skills—and the percentage among children raised in poverty is much higher. At that age, it is extremely difficult for children to recoup lost ground. Fourth graders who read with difficulty will become adults who never fully realize their potential. In 1998, an influential report from the National Research Council made the case that an inability to read fluently could be seen in the same light as a health problem. “It was clear that early diagnosis and intervention could head off more serious issues later on,” says education professor Laura Justice.

Accordingly, researchers have focused on identifying the skills and competencies young children need to bring to early reading instruction that would improve their likelihood of success. Justice applies many of the findings gained during this period to design interventions that will help preschoolers enter kindergarten and the first grade ready to read. With funding from the National Institutes of Health, she exposed at-risk preschoolers to storybooks that call attention to words—books with large print or with interesting typefaces. Reading these books aloud, she had parents systematically highlight the print—pointing out different letters and explaining how the text is organized on the page. And she used the ERICA system of eye-gaze analysis, developed in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, to document where children looked. Using this method, she found that the skills students need for literacy improved dramatically in just 12 weeks. “With the right encouragement, preschoolers find print as interesting as dinosaurs or guns,” she says.

Justice recently received a $2.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to expand this project to 90 preschool classrooms in Virginia and Ohio. The study will focus on at-risk students in a variety of communities, from rural white coal mining towns to African-American inner city neighborhoods. “We will be following up with children from prekindergarten to the end of the first grade to determine if this method changes a child’s reading trajectory,” she says.

Justice is also director of the Preschool Language and Literacy Laboratory in the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning. The laboratory conducts empirical research to determine the effectiveness of methods used to prepare preschoolers for reading and that foster other language skills. This research draws on specialists from a variety of disciplines. “There are scores of programs designed to help children develop language skills,” she says. “We want to find the ones that work.”