{"id":7958,"date":"2010-01-21T07:00:10","date_gmt":"2010-01-21T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=7958"},"modified":"2023-11-12T19:36:14","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T00:36:14","slug":"improving-the-literacy-skills-of-at-risk-kindergarteners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2010\/01\/improving-the-literacy-skills-of-at-risk-kindergarteners\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving the Literacy Skills of At-Risk Kindergarteners"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Michael<\/a>
Michael Coyne, associate professor of educational psychology. Photo by Peter Morenus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even as young readers learn to unravel the letters and sounds that make up words, too many children don\u2019t know what those words mean, says a University of Connecticut researcher.<\/p>\n

The inability to recognize even simple terms often leads to serious reading problems later, says Michael Coyne, whose research on reading interventions for kindergarteners, including intensive vocabulary training, is gaining national attention.<\/p>\n

Coyne, an associate professor in the Neag School of Education\u2019s Center for Behavioral Education and Research, has won nearly $4.5 million in federal grants to study how schools can help poorly prepared kindergarten children bolster reading skills. His work comparing various methods of vocabulary instruction for kindergarteners was published in the September 2009 volume of The Elementary School Journal<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Poor reading ability, especially among disadvantaged children, remains one of the nation\u2019s most pressing education issues. One-third of the nation\u2019s fourth-graders cannot understand basic fourth-grade reading material, according to the U.S. Department of Education\u2019s most recent test. In Connecticut, one out of five third-graders cannot understand basic third-grade material, statewide tests indicate. In major cities, the number is nearly half.<\/p>\n

Reading difficulty is a major factor in the academic achievement gap that finds many low-income and minority children lagging behind their classmates.<\/p>\n

\u201cKids come into school with significant differences in their experiences in language and literacy,\u201d Coyne says. \u201cWe see differences in their vocabulary knowledge, in their ability to think about sounds in speech, in their knowledge of the alphabet.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his vocabulary intervention study, Coyne cites earlier research showing that disadvantaged children often enter kindergarten knowing thousands fewer word meanings than their peers. Some cannot identify common objects and do not know terms such as \u201ctop\u201d and \u201cbottom\u201d or \u201cbefore\u201d and \u201cafter,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, his research has found that specific vocabulary instruction for young children can make a lasting difference, he says. \u201cKindergarten kids, even those with at-risk backgrounds, can really learn sophisticated vocabulary if we provide support for them \u2013 the kind of vocabulary that\u2019s going to give them long-term benefits,\u201d said Coyne, the project director of two studies examining vocabulary interventions for young children.<\/p>\n

At the Shoreline Academy in New London, kindergarten teacher Jeanne McDowell says Coyne\u2019s vocabulary intervention approach has made a difference in her classes, even among children who are learning to speak English.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s working very well,\u201d she says. The program has not only expanded children\u2019s vocabulary, it has made them better learners, she adds: \u201cChildren become very conscious of words … very inquisitive about words.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coyne is also co-director of a major study examining the effectiveness of a promising early reading program first developed at the University of Oregon and later published commercially.<\/p>\n

That program, known as Early Reading Intervention, is being tested in places such as North Windham School in Connecticut, one of about 25 schools in Connecticut, Texas, and Florida that are working with Coyne.<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably the majority of our kids coming in are deficient with oral language skills,\u201d says Betsy Fernandez, principal at North Windham, where more than half the children are Latino, and many are from low-income families.<\/p>\n

The ERI program is designed to give struggling readers extensive, systematic training in an understanding of the alphabet and the relationship between letters and sounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very explicit,\u201d says Fernandez. \u201cIt really covers the key skills that need to be taught in kindergarten.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, the results are encouraging, she says. \u201cWe found that the kids do very well. They make great gains.\u201d<\/p>\n

George Sugai, director of UConn\u2019s Center for Behavioral Education and Research, says Coyne\u2019s work has been significant \u201cbecause he has tested and demonstrated effective … reading techniques that can be used successfully with young readers who have been unsuccessful in traditional core or basal reading programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coyne, 42, came to UConn in 2001, but his interest in helping poor readers began years earlier. As a special education teacher in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, he worked with third-, fourth- and fifth-graders who already were unmotivated and falling behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were mostly kids with learning disabilities,\u201d he says. \u201cAlmost all of them had reading difficulty. It seemed to be this bottleneck to having them have success in other areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coyne says he began thinking that the problem needed to receive attention earlier, one reason his research has focused on kindergarten children. He hopes to help them avoid what he calls \u201ca trajectory of failure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a real advance in our ability to identify kids who are at risk,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of evidence that with targeted, intensive support, kids can change those early trajectories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coyne is a frequent consultant to school districts and state education departments across the nation. Last year, he received the Distinguished Early Career Research Award from the Council for Exceptional Children, a national special education advocacy group. He also won the Neag School of Education\u2019s Outstanding Young Investigator award in 2004.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The need to improve reading ability is one of the nation\u2019s most pressing education issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2428,1855],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[43],"class_list":["post-7958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational-psychology","category-neag"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 09:43:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7958"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206884,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7958\/revisions\/206884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7958"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=7958"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}