|
|
|
|
Summer School Evaluation
|
Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, 2004-2005
Ellen Edmonds and Bob Algozzine
|
|
|
|
Participants and Setting
|
|
Two hundred and thirty-seven children attended summer school prior to enrolling in kindergarten in their neighborhood school. Twenty-one teachers working in nine elementary school settings provided organized instructional activities using Opening the World of Learning (OWL) materials during the six-week transition program.
|
|
|
|
|
Evaluation
|
A team of five trained assessors completed all testing. The Individual Growth and Development Indicators (IGDI) assessment is a Pre-K version of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS). Letter naming fluency and IGDI measures were administered to all children attending during the first and last week of the summer school program.
- Letter Naming: Letter naming cards included capital letters only. After naming four capital letters (A-D) presented on practice cards, the child was shown the remaining capital letters of the alphabet one-by-one and asked to name them. If the child correctly named the rest of the letters in less than one minute, the time was recorded as well as the number of letters named correctly.
- Picture Naming: Photographs or line drawings of objects (e.g., apple, chair, fish, computer) commonly found in preschoolers' natural environments (i.e., home, classroom, community) were presented one at a time and the child was asked to name them as fast as possible. After one minute, the activity was stopped and the total number of pictures named correctly was recorded. Categories of objects used in the subtest included animals, food, people, household things, games and sports materials, vehicles, tools, and clothing.
- Alliteration: Cards with an image (e.g., teeth) at the top and a set of three images in a row at the bottom (e.g., phone, tire, fish) were presented one at a time and the child was asked to point to a picture at the bottom that starts with the same sound as the picture at the top. After two minutes, the activity was stopped and the total number of pictures identified correctly was recorded.
- Rhyming: Cards with an image (e.g., mouse) at the top and a set of three images in a row at the bottom (e.g., house, apple, cheese) were presented one at a time and the child was asked to point to a picture at the bottom that sounds the same as (or rhymes with) the picture at the top. After two minutes, the activity was stopped and the total number of pictures identified correctly was recorded.
Kindergarten teachers in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools use DIBELS for progress monitoring and benchmark assessments of their students. Scores on the IDGI provide a baseline for comparison with later performance on DIBELS; they also provide information about a child's performance in summer school.
|
|
|
|
|
Outcomes
|
|
Means and standard deviations for pretest and posttest performance on letter naming fluency and IGDI measures are presented in Table 1. Significant improvements were evident for all "indicators" with moderate to large effect sizes across early literacy skills; the performance improvements ranged from 20-71%. The levels of improvement are also illustrated in Figure 1.
|
|
|
|
|
Early Literacy Skills
|
| |
|
Pretest |
Posttest |
Gain |
Observed t-statistic |
Effect Size |
| Letter Naming Fluency |
M |
14.48 |
17.31 |
20% |
-5.99 |
0.37 |
| |
SD |
7.73 |
5.32 |
|
|
|
| Picture Naming |
M |
12.34 |
17.95 |
45% |
-2.60 |
1.02 |
| |
SD |
5.52 |
7.37 |
|
|
|
| Alliteration |
M |
2.58 |
4.37 |
69% |
-2.26 |
0.88 |
| |
SD |
2.04 |
2.57 |
|
|
|
| Rhyming |
M |
3.87 |
6.62 |
71% |
-2.26 |
0.74 |
| |
SD |
3.74 |
3.95 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Early Literacy Skill Improvements
|
|
|
|
|
|
