SERVICE DELIVERY

Read to succeed
Kate Wright explains how a collaborative project with a childrens centre and the library service has had an impact on the quality of routine book sharing and associated language stimulation with preschool children in an area of deprivation.
ensington and Chelsea is an interesting area demographically, with extremes of wealth and deprivation. It is the most densely populated local authority in the UK. Using the Indices of Multiple Deprivation, the 10 per cent most deprived in the borough are also within the top 10 per cent of the most deprived areas in the UK. The Bercow Report (2008) highlighted that, in areas of social disadvantage, as many as 40-50 per cent of children at school entry have transient language or communication difficulties. However, with the right support and good quality preschool environments, we can compensate for this. This is the aim of Kensington and Chelseas community early years service to nurseries. As a team we work with childrens centres to support nursery staff in creating a language-rich learning environment (Falkus, 2003). This is achieved through regular visits, working with identified staff to develop their skills in recognising and supporting children with speech, language and communication needs. We also offer two day interactive training courses covering typical speech and language development, bilingualism, discussing concerns with parents, and how and when to refer. Books are a great way to develop language and learning. Schoon et al. (2010) conducted a longitudinal study looking at the early influences on language development, and found that exposure to a stimulating literacy environment early in life had a positive impact on receptive language skills of the children. However, speech and language therapists in our service had noticed that, in some early years settings, books were not used interactively or included in weekly planning, and sometimes not regularly used at all. Whitehurst & Lonigan (2001) found that some children enter school with fewer than 25 hours shared book reading. This is pitifully little, averaging just over 6 hours a year - or 7 minutes a week - in their first 4 years. Dickinson & Tabors (2001) also found that teachers of children aged 3 and 4 read with children on average less than 8 minutes per day. Only 4 per cent of teachers read for more than 20 minutes. However, Wasik & Bond (2001) found that, when teachers are trained in using books and extension activities to teach vocabulary in a preschool classroom setting, they can

READ THIS IF YOU WORK IN AREAS OF SOCIAL DISADVANTAGE NEED TO CREATE LANGUAGE-RICH ENVIRONMENTS WANT TO TURN BOOKS INTO CONVERSATIONS

Kate Wright

increase the vocabulary development of 4 year olds from low-income families attending an early learning centre. As a team we felt there was both a fundamental need and a great opportunity to tackle the issues around book reading in the borough, establish some joint working, and further develop our service. In 2008 our service delivery model offered nursery settings three options: 1. Language Groups supporting staff to run small language groups with children at risk of language delay 2. Practitioners as Play Partners supporting staff to develop their adult-child interaction skills through video feedback 3. Enhancing Circle and Story Times supporting staff to develop childrens language skills through circle and story time sessions. In 2009 we extended the Enhancing Circle and Story Time strand, incorporating current research and best practice and working with parents and carers as well as practitioners. Crucial to the success of the project was the involvement of the Kensington and Chelsea

Library Services. They provided extra books and timed the distribution of Bookstart packs with the workshops we delivered. (Bookstart is a national programme that provides young children and their families across the UK with free packs of books and tips and ideas for parents on how to enjoy sharing books together.) We asked a childrens centre in an area of the local borough with the highest level of deprivation to pilot our programme. Children from such a background are more at risk of language development issues (Locke et al., 2002) and benefit particularly from a good quality preschool experience (Sylva et al., 2004). 1. Working with parents and carers Parental involvement was a key aim, because research has shown that frequency of parentchild reading in the home can enhance preschool childrens language skills and contribute to gains in their vocabulary, oral language complexity and narrative skills (Zevenbergen & Whitehurst, 2003). We offered two parent workshops in the childrens centre, lasting an hour each. They were timed to begin when the children are dropped off.

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SERVICE DELIVERY
from all parents who attended either workshop. These included: This workshop has shown me quite a bit. I will read more and help my son to learn. I will spend more time reading with my child. I will make my story time interactive, and at different times of the day. I will follow my childs lead. I will turn book reading into role play. 2. Working with practitioners Prior to the implementation of Read to Succeed, we attended a staff meeting at the childrens centre to introduce the project. From this we agreed on three named practitioners to work closely with the speech and language therapist and receive weekly support for the pilot project. We then arranged a half-day inservice training for all staff, which included: a. Research demonstrating the effectiveness of using shared book reading to develop childrens language skills b. Strategies to support language learning through shared book reading, including highlighting use of existing skills c. Involving parents and sharing information with them about the focus book. To achieve our aim of transferring ideas, learning, storytelling and vocabulary from the book into the whole learning environment, it was important to discuss how the story time sessions could be put into practice and how practitioners could manage story times in small groups. As a group the practitioners devised a timetable which meant that each practitioner would run at least one small group story time session a week. They also ensured that each child would be involved in at least one story time session per week. They displayed and used a tick-sheet to keep track of whether the session ran and which children were involved. This also meant that parents were aware of whether their child had participated in a story time session and the book that was used. The speech and language therapy team provided half-day weekly visits for six weeks. We supported the identified practitioners to run story time sessions for small groups of children and plan carryover activities such as porridge tasting for Goldilocks. To make the sessions successful we also had 15 minutes of additional time spent with the practitioner alone. This enabled us to discuss strategies and the effect on the children, and also plan for the following week. Overall the structure of the input worked to the schedule in figure 2. There were two strands to the evaluation of our work with practitioners. Firstly, we gave them all a questionnaire on the time spent reading each week to the children, for how long, and with how many different books. We repeated this six weeks later, after the speech and language therapy visits. The pre-workshop questionnaire showed that all the practitioners were already reading between one and three times a week with their group. Although there was no marked change, each of the practitioners increased

Completion prompts - leave a gap at the end of a sentence, eg. I wrote to the zoo and they sent me a Recall prompts - questions about what happened in a book a child has already read, eg. Do you remember what the giraffe did with the tie? Open-ended prompts these encourage children to give longer responses and often focus on pictures in the books, eg. tell me whats happening in this picture Wh- prompts - usually begin with what, where, when, why, and how, eg. I wonder why the fox is sad? Distancing prompts - relates the pictures or words in books to experiences outside the book, eg. who do we know that could help us put the fire out? Figure 1 Strategies (CROWD Prompts) from dialogic reading (Whitehurst, 1992) Week 1 Weeks 2-5 Week 6 Speech and language therapist to demonstrate story times / language group using strategies discussed in training Introduce props Discuss carry-over activities and target for the week Speech and language therapist and practitioner agree action plan of story time / language group sessions who/what/how/when Speech and language therapist to observe practitioner running story time with new book using the Story Time Observation Record

Figure 2 Schedule

The first workshop focused on the value of shared book reading in supporting the development of language and thinking skills, as well as introducing general interaction strategies. Attendance was high (7 mothers and 1 father). It was interesting that these parents were all already reading 4-5 times a week with their child. We introduced specific strategies (figure 1) from dialogic reading (Whitehurst, 1992). Dialogic reading is based upon three main techniques - asking what questions, asking open-ended questions and expanding upon what the child says. In addition we gave the parents techniques for when their child needed simplification, for example using forced alternatives (is it a fireman or a vet?) to help their child respond to a question they had difficulty answering. We aimed for parents to take away the idea that they can turn book reading into a conversation. A vital section of the workshops was overcoming barriers to book reading. The childrens centre caters for children from a nearby Traveller community site, and Traveller communities are historically known to have literacy difficulties (Levinson, 2007). In addition, 45 per cent of the children who attend the childrens centre have English as an additional language. We included these families in our planning, as we hoped they would attend and felt they would benefit greatly from the input. The particular message we wanted to convey was that they didnt have to read the words in the book, but could instead make a story up using the pictures. It was more important that they made some time for book sharing and used the strategies we had discussed. We were really pleased that 75 per cent of the parents who attended had English as an additional language. (Unfortunately none of the parents

from the Traveller community attended, and I subsequently started going to the Traveller site to attempt to implement the programme.) Each parent in the childrens centre was given a Bookstart pack for their child, with a copy of the book that the practitioners would be reading in the childrens centre with all children over the next two weeks. One of the key aims was for parents to be reading the same book as the practitioners, thus ensuring maximum impact on childrens language development. Whitehurst & Lonigan (2001) found that the impact on childrens language is nearly doubled when parents are reading the same book at home that is being read in the nursery. The second session, two weeks after the first, gave parents the opportunity to discuss what differences they had noticed while reading with their child. Unfortunately we had a low uptake for this, with only two parents attending. We felt this may be due to the session running in the middle of August, with many families away. Questionnaires were given to parents at the beginning of the first workshop on how many different books they had read over the week, and how long they spent reading each time. This was then repeated at the end of the second workshop. The parents who attended the first workshop, but were unable to attend the second, were also sent the questionnaire to complete, and encouraged to return it by their childs keyworker. Unsurprisingly, given the book sharing that was already happening at home, there was no noticeable change in the amount postworkshop. We did, however, note qualitative changes. The evaluation asked what they would take away from the project and we found they had taken on board different, and valuable, ideas. Responses were gathered

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the amount of times they read with the group, and there was some increase in the number who read the same book multiple times. For the second part of the evaluation, we looked at the effect on the three identified practitioners interaction skills and dialogic reading. Our informal observation form included 33 different interaction / reading strategies and activities, which we selected by looking at known language development strategies, and through best practice identified in research (Wasik & Bond, 2001; Whitehurst, 1992). The Story Time Observation Record form is available in the members area of www.speechmag.com. For each strategy or activity, we observed whether the participants used it, sometimes used it, or never used it. We observed them pre-workshop, then again six weeks later at the end of the weekly visits. The most noticeable changes from the project were in the results for the three identified practitioners. They each showed considerable improvement in interaction, dialogic reading strategies and activities to extend the stories (figure 3). Each of the practitioners we worked with reported that they enjoyed Read to Succeed and as a staff team have elected to continue with the programme in preference to other service delivery options. One practitioner reported, I am more confident now. I know it is just about getting as much out of the book as possible. It all comes quite naturally now, I dont even realise I am using the strategies. Since the implementation of Read to Succeed the speech and language therapy team has noticed huge changes. The staff are now: 1. including small story group time in their weekly planning 2. creating book packs including props 3. independently planning, preparing and running story book times at least three times a week with follow-up extension activities. The staff team has also reported positive effects on the children since Read to Succeed: Since we have been doing the groups [name of child] and [name of child] are talking more. They say some of the words in the book and make the actions. I think its been good for the children. Theyre coming out with all the words in the books we have focused on. Its getting them to speak more. If the books are out they will pick them up and tell their own stories to each other because they are so familiar with them. We feel that the success of this project is due to multidisciplinary collaborative working and the realisation on the part of the practitioners that book sharing can easily fit into a daily routine and that it makes a great difference to the language skills of the SLTP children in their care. At the time of writing, Kate Wright was a speech and language therapist with Kensington and Chelsea PCT, Central London Community Healthcare, email k8_wright@hotmail.com.
Used Pre Practitioner 1 Practitioner 2 Practitioner 3 35% 29% 26% Post 53% 59% 74% Sometimes used Pre 12% 12% 18% Post 3% 6% 6% Never used Pre 53% 56% 56% Post 39% 29% 12%

Figure 3 Percentage of total strategies / activities observed

Sandra, a member of staff at the childrens centre, gets into character

References Bercow, J. (2008) The Bercow Report. Available at: http://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/ publicationdetail/page1/DCSF-00632-2008 (Accessed: 18 March 2011). Dickinson, D. K., & Tabors, P. O. (2001) Beginning literacy with language: Young children learning at home and school. Baltimore: Brookes. Falkus, G. (2003) Working with the whole nursery, Bulletin of the Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists 609, pp.5-6. Levinson, M.P. (2007) Literacy in English Gypsy Communities: Cultural Capital Manifested as Negative Assets, American Educational Research Journal 44(1), pp.5-39. Locke, A., Ginsborg, J. & Peers, I. (2002) Development and disadvantage: implications for the early years and beyond, International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders 37(1), pp.3-15. Schoon, I., Parsons, S., Rush, R. & Law, J. (2010) Childhood Language Skills and Adult Literacy: A 29-Year Follow-up Study, Pediatrics 125(3), pp.e459-e466. Sylva, K., Melhuish, E., Sammons, P., Siraj-Blatchford, I. & Taggart, B. (2004) Effective provision of pre-school education (EPPE) project: Final Report. London: The Institute of Education. Available at: http://education. gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/ Page1/SSU/FR/2004/01 (Accessed: 18 March 2011). Wasik, B.A. & Bond, M.A. (2001) Beyond the Pages of a Book: Interactive Book Reading and Language Development in Preschool Classrooms, Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(2), pp.243-250. Whitehurst, G.J. (1992) Dialogic Reading: An Effective Way to Read to Preschoolers. Available at: http://www. readingrockets.org/article/400 (Accessed: 18 March 2011). Whitehurst, G.J., & Lonigan, C.J. (2001) Emergent Literacy: Development from Prereaders to Readers, in Neuman, S.B. & Dickinson, D.K. (eds.) Handbook of Early Literacy Research. New York: The Guilford Press, pp.11-29.

Zevenbergen, A.A. & Whitehurst G.J. (2003) Dialogic reading: A shared picture book reading intervention for preschoolers, in van Kleeck, A., Stahl, S.A. & Bauer, E.B. (eds.) On reading books to children: Parents and Teachers. New Jersey: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates, pp.170-194. Resource Bookstart, www.bookstart.org.uk/

REFLECTIONS DO I IDENTIFY AND WORK WITH KEY STAFF WHEN TRYING TO BRING ABOUT A CHANGE IN PRACTICE? DO I SET UP RELEVANT PROJECT PARTNERSHIPS WITH OTHER BODIES SUCH AS LIBRARY SERVICES? DO I USE THE LITERATURE AND BEST PRACTICE TO DEVELOP INFORMAL CHECKLISTS FOR ASSESSMENT AND TRAINING?
To comment on the difference this article has made to you, see guidance for Speech & Language Therapy in Practices Critical Friends at www.speechmag.com/About/Friends.

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STORY TIME: OBSERVATION RECORD Adult running story time: Book:

General strategies Ensure book and props are chosen, and included in weekly planning Choose which children to include in this story time Reduce distractions e.g. toys put away, quiet space allocated Mark the beginning and end of the story time in an interesting way (e.g. with a hello/goodbye song, wearing a story hat) Introduce the book in an interesting way to (e.g. in a box/bag, create suspense) and inform the children what it is about (e.g. Were going to read a story about a family who go on an exciting adventure looking for a bear) Look at the book cover - encourage children to talk about what they can see Point out the title, author, illustrator and blurb (summary of story on the back of book) Introduce key vocabulary before you read the book Repeat and explain important vocabulary Use props (e.g. objects, puppets, photographs, pictures) Use CROWD prompts as appropriate for different ages: - Completion - leave a gap at the end of the sentence / x
(~ sometimes)

Date:
Comment

- Recall ask what happened in a book that a child has

(e.g. We cant go over it. We cant go under. We have to go .)

already read (e.g. why did the giant give the giraffe his tie?) - Open-ended Tell me whats happening in this picture - Wh questions I wonder why the fox was sad

- Distancing When we went to the farm do you remember which

animals we saw? Who can help us put the fire out?

I wonder what might happen next?

Offer forced alternatives if a child is unable to answer your prompts (e.g. is it a fireman or vet?) Actively involve children in turning pages/holding props Scan the group to make sure all children are participating Adapt the story to childrens level (e.g. shorten group when attention, re-word stories to make them simpler for younger children)

Downloaded from www.speechmag.com accompanies Wright, K. (2011) Read to succeed, Speech & Language Therapy in Practice Summer, pp.22-24.

Interaction strategies Use gestures /actions/ Makaton to reinforce key vocabulary Use different voices and animated facial expressions to maintain childrens interest OWL:
Observe- how the children react and incorporate their ideas Wait- dont rush the reading Listen-acknowledge and respond to what the children say/do (e.g. child pointing to animal on the page)

/ x
(~ sometimes)

Comment

Expand on childrens talking (e.g. Child says tiger and adult says Yes, its a book about a big stripy tiger) Use a balance of comments and questions (e.g. rather than saying whats this? you could say Id be really scared if I saw a bear in a cave) Use specific praise (e.g. good looking, I didnt see that little mouse in the fountain) Identify ways to expand the story Sing a song or make up a new song related to the story - Sing the song slowly - Leave gaps in familiar songs Visit to a farm/zoo/bakery/market Play games/activities that link to the book (e.g. porridge tasting sweet, salty or just right) Inform parents about your books of the week and give them the key vocabulary / songs Is the book and key vocabulary specified in weekly planning for the class / x Comment

(~ sometimes)

Practitioner target: _________________________________________________________________________

Downloaded from www.speechmag.com accompanies Wright, K. (2011) Read to succeed, Speech & Language Therapy in Practice Summer, pp.22-24.