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OLSEL Research – Background

An increasing body of evidence indicates that oral language development in the early years is strongly linked not only to literacy but more broadly to the development of:

• social skills
• friendships
• prosocial problem-solving and conflict resolution skills
• self-esteem
• school attachment
• mental health (Snow & Powell 2008).

Evidence also indicates that a significant proportion of school-aged students experience difficulties with oral language. Recent studies have reported that oral language difficulties affect approximately 20% of students entering school, increasing to 25% 30% in low-SES communities (Hay & Fielding-Barnsley 2009; Reilly et al. 2010). Another source of evidence that supports the need for exploration into the early years of schooling is the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI). The Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) is a population measure of young children’s development. Like a census, it involves collecting information to help create a snapshot of children’s development in communities across Australia. Teachers complete a checklist for children in their first year of full-time school. The Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) was undertaken as a nationwide endeavour in 2009 to measure the early development of children, in their first year of schooling, across five domains:

• physical health and wellbeing
• social competence
• emotional maturity
• language and cognitive skills
• communication skills and general knowledge.

In Victoria 20.2% of children, in their first year of full-time school, were identified as developmentally vulnerable in at least one domain with 10% vulnerable in two or more domains and being noted as requiring further service system support. The AEDI also identified that children within the most disadvantaged areas are most likely to be vulnerable in the domain of communication skills and general knowledge.

The importance of oral language and literacy skills to school success and the prevalence levels of oral language difficulties evidenced in recent research studies and in the number of referrals for speech pathology services in the four Victorian Catholic dioceses indicated a strong need for targeted teaching with the capacity to improve students’ learning trajectories.

The OLSEL research project

The OLSEL research project focused on enhancing teacher capacity to support the oral language learning of students in the early years. It was hypothesised that improving teacher knowledge of oral language and its role in facilitating early literacy acquisition would enable teachers to enhance teaching and learning interactions in the classroom. The focus on the explicit teaching of oral language skills across the curriculum would result in measurable gains in both the students’ oral language and reading abilities. The project therefore focused on professional learning to build teacher knowledge, and support to teachers, in schools, to translate this knowledge into classroom approaches. The OLSEL research project involved teams of early years teachers attending a series of professional learning days conducted over two years. The goal was to increase teacher capacity to effectively plan and implement strategies that specifically target the development of oral language skills in the early years of schooling, with a particular focus on the first year of schooling. In order to further build school capacity, additional cluster meetings were held for school OLSEL leaders and principals. To further build expertise within the school the OLSEL lead teacher was sponsored to complete a Master-level unit at the University of Melbourne: ‘Oral Language Learning: The Primary Years’, conducted by Dr John Munro. The view was that support for classroom teachers would be directly available both during and after the research via the OLSEL school leader. School implementation was more broadly supported during the research by Catholic Education Office staff in the four Catholic dioceses and the project officer, who facilitated the implementation of strategies and supported changed practice.

Specific aims for the project were that teachers will:

• implement increasingly targeted teaching strategies to facilitate oral language and early literacy
development
• use an evidence-based, action-research approach to classroom implementation
• work in teams to further analyse the needs of students and plan evidence-based interventions to
be delivered both through the general curriculum provision and as targeted activities
• explore strategies for increased community participation and support through the provision of oral language and literacy activities adapted for use in the home context.

The professional learning program was informed by relevant literature and key experts in the field and included exposure to the ‘ICPALER model’ (Munro 2005), the Collins, Brown and Newman (1989) Model of Teaching and Learning, and models of questioning such as the model proposed by Blank, Rose and Berlin (2003). Teams of early years teachers attended the professional learning sessions and subsequently developed implementation plans for their own school contexts.

The study was approved both by the CECV and the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee. The schools eligible for this project were identified via the diocesan systemic school improvement initiatives, which combine a structured approach to internal school improvement planning with a component of external objective assessment and accountability. Consistent with the aims of the project, schools from both metropolitan and rural locations targeted for involvement in the research belonged to one or more of the following descriptor categories:

• significant low-SES enrolment;
• lower levels of literacy and numeracy attainment (number of students below benchmark); and
• Indigenous student enrolment.

Following an expression of interest, 14 schools were selected for the project. Eight were designated as research schools and six designated as control schools. In the first year of the project (2009), 602 students in Prep and Year 1 were randomly selected and individually assessed. Oral language skills were
measured using the:

• Picture Vocabulary and Grammatical Understanding subtests from the Test of Language Development – Primary, Fourth Edition (Newcomer & Hammill 2008);
• Semantic and grammatical analysis of a narrative retelling – The Renfrew Language Scales: Bus Story Test  (Renfrew 1997); and
• selected subtests from the Sutherland Phonological Awareness Test – Revised (Neilson 2003).

The Reading Progress Test (Vincent, Crumpler and de la Mer 2004) was administered as an independent measure of reading ability. Students from these year levels who were not selected in the random sample were assessed with only the Reading Progress Test. Students were again assessed at the end of 2010, with approximately 90% of the students retained for the study. Intention-to-Treat analysis revealed that there were no significant differences in the language or literacy profiles of the students who were ‘lost’ to follow-up, primarily due to moving schools.

Interviews with 14 research-school teachers and eight control-school teachers were conducted to gauge the impact of the learning and understandings gained during the course of the project. These were completed in May 2009 and November 2010. Participants also completed an evaluation of each professional learning session and commented on the overall value of their participation in the project.

Effect sizes have been used to indicate the strength of research outcomes (Hattie 2009). Consistent with other social and educational research, effect sizes of 0.2 or less are described as small, effect sizes approaching 0.5 as moderate and effect sizes of 0.8 or greater as large (Hattie 2009; Durlak 1998). For further descriptive purposes, effect-size coefficients of 0.4 and greater may also be described as being educationally significant (Hattie 2009; Wolf 1987).

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