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Nested Strategies to Promote Language and Literacy Skills

Barbara Hanna Wasik and Joseph Sparling

In the United States during the 1960s, several political and social events converged with emerg-

ing research fi ndings on the malleability of children’s intellectual development, leading to major

initiatives in parent education and early childhood education. Among the political and social

events was the concern with children growing up in poverty and their subsequent low school

achievement. Believing that access to early quality educational experiences could change these

children’s projected trajectory in school, numerous interventions were initiated to make com-

pensatory experiences available. These early initiatives were primarily child focused with either

direct services to children in center settings or indirect services to children through parent edu-

cation provided in the home.

A creative turn in early childhood education and parenting education took place in the 1980s,

integrating early childhood education, parenting education, parent and child literacy interac-

tions, and adult education within the same service framework. Commonly referred to as a family

literacy program, this combination of four literacy components is based on the belief that provid-

ing simultaneous support for both parents and children would provide a synergy within the fam-

ily, leading to further support at home for the child while the parent advances in his or her own

literacy skills through adult education. With these four components, family literacy programs

seem to have the ingredients to successfully address low child literacy and achievement while

promoting parent literacy, yet the empirical data on parent and child outcomes have not yielded

the strong positive fi ndings anticipated by educators and researchers. Numerous examinations of

why these programs have not yielded strong positive outcomes have been off ered (St.Pierre et al.,

2003), including early documentation of low participant retention rates. Evaluators of the federal

Even Start Family Literacy Program, working to describe how to improve quality in program

implementation, noted an absence of common performance indicators to guide program quality

as well as the need for technical assistance for states and local levels to be assumed by the federal

level (St.Pierre, Ricciuti, & Tao, 2004). Early programs were also not required to implement

evidenced-based programs, to conduct systematic professional development, or to ensure the

supports essential for program quality and fi delity were in place (see Naoom et al., this volume).

Many programs also have lacked a strong conceptualization of how to integrate program

components in ways that can create synergy among the components. Such synergy could provide

value added when compared with stand-alone program services. Some early considerations on

program integration have been proposed (Harbin, Hermann, Wasik, Dobbins, & Lam, 2004;

Meta, 2004), including integration within the program and across collaborating agencies, but

overall a strong framework for integration has not yet been realized. It is this topic that we

Handbook of Family Literacy, edited by Barbara H. Wasik, Routledge, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/fiu/detail.action?docID=958763. Created from fiu on 2019-01-29 18:36:25.

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address here –namely, how to make use of the co-occurrence of program components to advance

outcomes for parents and children. We propose a new way of thinking about the integration of

program components, specifi cally, we propose that common, eff ective intervention strategies be

implemented across program components. These are strategies that have relevancy not only for

parents and children, but also for teachers, parent educators, and program directors.

The importance of intervention strategies was recently noted by Barbarin and Aikens (2009),

who identifi ed the following strategies often included in interventions for parents to interact with

their children: (a) reading and exposure to books; (b) conversations, storytelling, and game-like

activities; (c) intentional teaching or didactic instruction; and (d) enrichment activities. Other

strategies important in teaching and learning to read identifi ed by Wasik and Newman (2009)

include scaff olding; instructional conversations; conversations before, during, and after reading;

extended teaching; grouping strategies; instructional time; instructional delivery; and ongoing

assessment and monitoring. Empirically established intervention strategies have included specifi c

parent-child storybook reading procedures ( Justice & Ezell, 2002; Justice, Pullen, & Pence,

2008; Lonigan & Whitehurst, 1998; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998; see also Lonigan & Shana-

han, this volume), helping parents learn more positive ways of interacting with their children

(Webster-Stratton, Reid, & Hammond, 2001), and helping teachers enhance their communica-

tions with students (Dickinson, Darrow, Ngo, & D’Souza, 2009).

Many researchers have observed that activities such as book reading do not in themselves

contribute to children’s skill development (Ezell & Justice, 2000; Justice, Pullen, & Pence, 2008;

Mol, Bus, & de Jong, 2009). Rather, in examining children’s mastery of knowledge about print,

Justice and others have noted that it is the “explicit referencing of or teaching about print” by

adults that brings about change, not the simple act of book reading by itself ( Justice & Piasta,

2011, p. 204). Other researchers have also documented the signifi cance of parent-child interven-

tions during book reading for developing children’s reading skills (Senechal & LeFebre, 2002;

Senechal, 2006).

Our appreciation of the role of strategies has been shaped not only by research on such

strategies as storybook reading but also by our eff orts in the Classroom Literacy Interventions

and Outcomes (CLIO) Study, the national experimental study of the federal Even Start Family

Literacy Programs ( Judkins et al., 2008), where we gained considerable fi rst-hand knowledge

about the barriers one faces in bringing about positive outcomes in a large-scale national research

study of family literacy programs. Deriving optimism from our previous experiences with suc-

cessful early interventions (Ramey, Bryant, Campbell, Sparling, & Wasik, 1998; Wasik, Ramey,

Bryant, & Sparling, 1990; Infant Health and Development Program, 1990), we believed that

we could implement an intervention that would result in signifi cant child and parent outcomes.

In the course of the CLIO study, we faced numerous obstacles to implementing a high quality

intervention and obtained fewer positive outcomes than anticipated. In analyzing the CLIO

study, it was clear that many aspects of the CLIO study were not compatible with the recom-

mendations of the implementation science literature. Naoom and her colleagues (this volume)

note for implementation capacity to be established, numerous factors need to be in place. Among

these factors is that the human service professionals, the organizational structures, cultures,

and climates, and the thinking of system directors and policy makers all need to change. These

changes, as well as others important for program quality, were diffi cult to realize within the

parameters of the CLIO intervention.

Though a number of situations in CLIO were not compatible with the recommendations of

the implementation science literature, by contrast some of our specifi c strategies were compatible

with recommendations for quality interventions because they helped ensure a common conceptual

approach, provided a common terminology, and reinforced similar behaviors across settings. They

were common across the three organizational levels, beginning with the program directors and

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supervisors, to the teachers, parent educators and home visitors, then to the parents, maximizing

the possibility that consistent training and coaching would take place. When the same strategies

are used across organizational levels within a program, the potential for increased understanding of

the intervention and increased skill development is enhanced, participants can serve as a resource

for each other, and administrative support can increase—all important for ensuring quality and

fi delity in program implementation. We refer to these strategies as nested strategies because they

are relevant across the organizational structure of family literacy programs, from families and ser-

vice providers to program directors. Though these strategies can help promote quality interven-

tions, they cannot substitute for organizational structures, cultures, and climates that must be in

place or developed prior to intervention for the strategies to be most eff ective.

Nested Strategies

To select these strategies to promote language and literacy skills, we not only reviewed the

research on early childhood education, parenting education, and parent-child literacy interac-

tions, we also reviewed our own collective work over a number of years. Through this analysis

of both the empirical data and fi rsthand experience, we identifi ed a set of strategies for use in all

program components of family literacy programs. These strategies are intertwined; when used

in combination, they provide a highly enriched learning environment.

The strategies we propose are for the adults who participate in the chain of events that eventu-

ally bring educational experiences to children: program directors (mentors and/or supervisors),

service providers (teachers or parent educators), and families (parents and other family members).

The chain of events moves through the organizational levels from program directors through

service providers to ultimately provide support to families, as illustrated in Figure 5.1. This chain

of events can be visualized as concentric circles or a nest, thus leading us to refer to these strate-

gies as nested strategies.

One of the strengths of a nested approach is the repetition of its strategies. The program direc-

tor, supervisor, or mentor uses selected strategies to support the service providers who may be

teachers, parent educators, or home visitors, who in turn use these same strategies to support

families (parents, grandparents). Families can also use the same strategies to support their chil-

dren. This repetitive feature gives the entire system a common vocabulary and emphasizes the

broad utility of the strategies. It also gives the service providers and the family opportunities to

experience the strategies both as consumers and as implementers.

History of Development

We began to recognize the importance of strategy repetition over time, growing out of our

experience with participants in intervention programs, including directors, teachers, home

Family

Service Providers

Program Directors Figure 5.1 Nested relations among organizational levels

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visitors, parents, and children. The fi rst step in this insight was the realization in our early work

that both professionals and families could employ some of the strategies we implemented. In the

late 1970s, we were teaching home visitors to help parents enhance their problem solving skills.

As we provided training for the home visitors, we became aware that the home visitors would

fi rst need to learn these procedures themselves and have experience using them in their own

lives. When we developed the intervention for a national research study with young children in

the 1980s (IHDP, 1993), we included systematic procedures for helping home visitors become

compete in using problem solving strategies themselves. Next they learned to use the strategies

as a guide for their interactions with families; with this background they were better able to

help parents develop stronger problem solving skills (Wasik, Bryant, Ramey, & Sparling, 1997;

Wasik, 2009d). In helping the home visitors learn these strategies, we also realized we needed to

help their supervisors learn the problem solving strategies so they could model and implement

the strategies as part of their supervision of the home visitors. As the problem solving strategies

became more prevalent within the overall intervention, we also learned the value of problem

solving as an organizational strategy, noting that the same problem solving strategy could be used

at higher administrative levels within the organization to address concerns related to program

implementation.

In helping parents acquire more competency in problem solving, we learned that if a strategy

was of value for one group within an intervention program we needed to examine whether the

strategy was of value for other participants. If the strategy had value across participants—and

learning to be more eff ective problem solvers has this characteristic—then providing the content

and procedures across all the participants becomes a logical next step, helping to ensure integrity

and consistency in beliefs and strategies across the entire intervention program. We found that

using problem solving across all levels in the organization also increased communication across

staff , providing a common conceptual framework and a common vocabulary related to address-

ing everyday concerns. This conceptual framework and terminology reinforced the understand-

ing that common bonds exist among staff and participants based upon such fundamental human

behaviors as problem solving. In a later study, we not only used the identical problem solving

strategy across all staff and parents, we also used a simplifi ed strategy with children.

Strategies in the Nested System

In this section, we list and defi ne eleven strategies we have identifi ed as pertinent to all organiza-

tional levels of a family literacy program. Most of the strategies have been documented through

empirical fi ndings, but not all. We have elected to present those with and without empirical

validation in anticipation that some of these strategies will prompt researchers to examine their

eff ectiveness within diff erent program components and across organizational levels. Scaff olding

is an excellent example for nested strategies because it illustrates how a strategy typically associ-

ated with one level, in this case with teaching children, has relevance across participant levels.

Scaff olding is helping a less knowledgeable or less experienced person move from one skill level

to another and thus its application is not limited to helping children (see Table 5.1).

The following sections describe each of the nested strategies, focusing primarily on how each

works at the family level between parent and child, but also illustrating how these strategies

are relevant for service providers and program directors. We begin with extended teaching, a

strategy for teaching throughout the day, because we believe the reader will quickly see how not

only children but also adults learn during all the unstructured or informal learning occasions

throughout the day.

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Extended Teaching/Enriched Caregiving

Making use of the entire day for learning opportunities, the extended teaching strategy moves

teaching eff orts into events that might not immediately seem like educational occasions. It alerts

all three levels in this system (families, teachers/parent educators, and program directors) to

expand their teaching eff orts in new and creative ways. For teachers, the entire classroom day

off ers multiple opportunities for teaching, including outdoor play time, snack time, and transi-

tion times. Teachers intentionally seek and plan for ways to use the non-formal instructional

times to promote children’s learning, such as engaging in conversations on the playground that

expand a child’s understanding and vocabulary, or connecting something outdoors to the class-

room materials (Wasik, 2009a).

This strategy is relevant for directors and supervisors because teaching adults is not limited

to specifi cally arranged times, but rather ongoing learning opportunities can be created during

conversations with teachers and parent educators throughout the day. These occasions can also

be used to illustrate for teachers and parent educators how learning takes place during unstruc-

tured parts of their day. When referring to parent-child interactions, we use the term enriched

caregiving in lieu of extended teaching, the term we use with teachers. The phrase enriched caregiv-

ing serves as a reminder that care can and should do several things at once and can be enriched

with educational content. By highlighting the pivotal role of care in the education of young

children, the nested strategies attempt to imbue all of a child’s day with educational meaning.

Almost any early experience looked at through one lens can be seen as caregiving; through

Table 5.1 Nested Strategies

Strategy Purpose

Extended Teaching / Enriched Caregiving

Sensitizes all adults in the system to accomplish their educational goals by extending their teaching into ongoing informal everyday events.

Positive Relationships Seeks to create warm, respectful, and responsive relationships at all points of interaction: director/provider, provider/families, and families/children.

Language Priority Acknowledges the central role of language in a young child’s development and the centrality of language in professional/family interface (instructional conversations).

Scaffolding Provides the means to help a person move from one level of learning to a more sophisticated level.

3N (Notice, Nudge, Narrate)

Gives a specifi c strategy and rubric for accomplishing the language priority, extended teaching strategies, and scaffolding.

Conversational Reading / Interactive Book Reading

Surrounds reading events with an instructional conversation.

3S (See, Show, Say) Provides a specifi c strategy and rubric to guide interactions focused on printed texts and books.

Before, During, After Emphasizes that each learning episode has a beginning, middle, and end—and these parts can be used to add strength to the whole, as in providing information before and after reading a story.

Problem Solving Guides the exploration and potential resolution of issues and concerns through a series of intentional steps or actions.

Grouping Strategies Recognizes the value of varying group sizes for instructional and learning purposes, depending upon the age and needs of the learner and the content of the instruction.

Progress Monitoring Provides for ongoing data collection and analysis to determine if strategies are being implemented and if objectives are being reached.

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another lens the same experience can be seen as education. Enriched caregiving integrates these

two (see Table 5.2).

The repetition in the routines of care gives enriched caregiving its power to promote child

learning. By seeing these repetitions as educational opportunities rather than as simple routines,

families can turn the commonplace parts of a child’s day into occasions for care plus learning.

Families are more likely to achieve their educational goals for their children if they link these

goals to caregiving, because the repetition will enhance learning. To help families get ready for

enriched caregiving, service providers can discuss with them the educational aspects and oppor-

tunities for promoting language and literacy in recurring events such as getting ready for school

or child care, washing hands and bathing, naptime, shopping, or going for a walk. These events

are important precisely because they happen with predictable frequency and consume a good

deal of time. Mealtimes can be the more important informal learning occasions in the family, as

well as times that help families build positive relationships. The following are illustrations that

can be provided to parents of how to incorporate educational ideas into other care occasions:

• For very young children, describe what you are doing and name the objects you touch dur-

ing care routines. When the child is ready, encourage the child to take the lead in naming

the caregiving actions and associated objects.

• Ask the child questions about what will come next.

• Let the child have specifi c responsibilities during care routines such as dressing or bath times.

• Think about the educational content (singing a song, naming colors, naming body parts,

counting, rhyming) that might fi t into a care routine and include it.

• With older children, consider ways routines such as washing clothes, cooking, shopping,

cleaning, and riding in a car or bus can be turned into productive and enjoyable learning

opportunities. (Wasik, 2009a)

Positive Relationships

For optimal learning, positive relationships should permeate the entire service delivery system.

Thus, a program director provides a model of positive, respectful, professional interactions with

Table 5.2 Extended Teaching Strategy

Family Service Provider Program Directors

Family members can take advantage of teachable moments as they arise. Families can use ordinary events of the day as opportunities to teach vocabulary and basic concepts such as up and down, as well as help children master social skills such as cooperation and sharing. Parents learn the importance of repetition.

Service providers take advantage of teachable moments in the early childhood classroom, parent education session, or home visit. They point out that they are “picking up on” something a family member said or did, and they praise family members when they pick up on things the child said or did. With the family, they brainstorm teaching ideas that will fi t into the family’s routines.

Directors use all their interactions with staff for furthering the goals of the program. For example, they use time in the car driving to a home visit to discuss what will happen in the visit and what was successful about the last visit. Directors pick up on what the service providers say and ask leading questions: “I like your idea; let’s explore it further. Would that work also with the Jones family?” Directors note the similarities of what they are doing with procedures teachers and parent educators can use in their work.

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staff , parents, and children. In turn, parent educators and home visitors not only talk with parents

about the importance of positive interactions with their children, but also model positive inter-

actions during a visit or parent education session. Thus, as the parents or other family members

attempt to create and maintain positive adult-child interactions, they are able to model on and

learn from the positive interactions of the staff , both with each other and with the parents.

The importance of positive relationships for parents and children as well as for teachers and

students has been extensively documented over the last two decades (Bowman, Donovan, &

Burns, 2000; Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Pianta & Shulman, 2004; Hart & Risley, 1995). Children’s

development depends not simply on the content and strategies adults use with them, but also

upon the aff ective responses of the adults. In their now classic longitudinal study of young chil-

dren, Hart and Risley (1995) found that children who received more positive interactions and

fewer negative interactions during the fi rst three years of life had higher language scores than

children who received more negative and fewer positive interactions. In observing children’s

interactions with preschool teachers, Pianta and Stuhlman (2004) found that early interactions

are important and formative for later ones; in particular, the more positive a child’s interactions

with a preschool teacher, the most positive the child’s interactions with the elementary school

teacher, and the higher the child’s scores on social behavioral scales. Though most parents and

professionals believe that positive relationships are important, the predictive value of these rela-

tionships for children’s later academic and social/emotional development (Pianta, Nimetz, &

Bennett, 1997) brings into sharper focus the need to ensure that these relationships are warm

and caring (see Table 5.3).

Positive relationships between parents and children have also been shown to result in children

receiving more literacy-related information and instruction (Bus, Van IJzendoorn, & Pellegrini,

1995). For positive interactions to work as a strategy, the adult’s words, body language, and tone

of voice need to consistently convey a positive message.

Language Priority Strategy

Identifying language priority as a strategy acknowledges the pivotal role of language in a young

child’s development and school success and also recognizes that language is the main vehicle pro-

fessionals use to communicate with each other and with client families. Language priority can

occur at all levels of the service delivery system. For language to function as an eff ective strategy,

it needs to be frequent, positive, and information rich (see Table 5.4).

Table 5.3 Positive Relationships

Family Service Provider Program Directors

Family members smile and express positive affect during interactions with the child. They say things like, “What a fi ne job you just did!” and “I like playing these games with you.” They use positive statements such as, “Great! You let John have a turn.” and provide positive nonverbal interactions with hugs and high-fi ves.

Visitors and parent educators express positive affect regarding their interactions with the family. “I enjoy being in your home and sharing ideas with you.” They smile and nod while the parent and child are interacting. If the parent is experiencing diffi culty, they express empathy and offer to discuss, if appropriate.

Leaders express positive affect regarding their interactions with providers. “I enjoy going on visits with you and seeing the good work you’re doing with families.” They smile and nod while the provider and family members are interacting. If the provider is experiencing diffi culty, they acknowledge the diffi culty of the task, and after the visit or parent education session they help the provider through problem solving.

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The main language priority task for service providers is to raise their own consciousness about

their use of language with adults and children so that their language use becomes intentional.

At the same time, providers need to help family members raise their consciousness about family

language use with children. The following are suggestions for the language priority strategy in

interactions with children:

• Use rich language with children of every age; do not wait until children are “old enough”—

they already are.

• Develop vocabulary by labeling things, actions, and attributes. Move in a steady progression

from concrete here-and-now language to increasingly abstract and conceptual language.

• If a very young child makes a babbling sound in your direction, talk back to the child with

babbling and real words.

• Develop extended discourse with older children. Extended discourse contains multiple

speaking turns for both partners in the conversation and develops or expands on a particular

topic.

• Keep directive, behavior-managing talk to a minimum, while engaging with the child in

conversations on a variety of topics.

So many possibilities exist for eff ective language use that providers will want to consider how

to help parents develop a framework for promoting language. Providers can point out to families

all of these techniques when opportunities occur during the course of parent education sessions

or home visits. In order to be more systematic, the professional might want to write down a par-

ticular practice to emphasize for each parent session or home visit. For example: Visit 1—label

things, actions, and attributes; Visit 2—respond to language overtures; Visit 3—use extended

discourse. The professional might alternatively write down and follow through on a particular

language technique for an entire month of visits or parent education sessions. Such planning

helps parents gain knowledge about the strategy and provides opportunities for practice and

follow-up discussion

In a cogent description of the increasing recognition of language’s role in child develop-

ment, Dickinson and colleagues (Dickinson, Darrow, Ngo, & D’Souza, 2009) not only report on

research documenting the importance of children’s language skills for both their reading abilities

and their social development, they call into question the Piagetian view of the child as a solitary

Table 5.4 Language Priority

Family Service Provider Program Directors

Family members respond to the child’s language overtures and try to extend the number of turns in a conversation. They can prompt language and vocabulary development by talking about the names of things, their characteristics, and what they do. They can engage the child in conversations througout the day, and in story telling.

Service providers provide appropriate and positive feedback to parents, modeling how parents might respond with their children. They can label and reinforce the skillful things parents do with children. “Good. You’re following up on the ideas we talked about last week.” “I noticed 3 back-and-forth turns with your baby. You had a nice long conversation!” They label concepts and strategies. “Next week we will talk about 3N.”

Leaders label and reinforce the skillful things providers do with families. “You explained the 3S strategy very clearly to that family.” “Your were skillful in giving the parent plenty of time to express her idea.” They relate current practice to previous training. “Remember our training session about positive relationships? You’ve used several of those techniques very successfully. What else do you plan to use?”

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scientist who learns mainly through observation and experimentation. Pulling from cognitive

science, they observe that “Teacher’s comments, the information they communicate verbally,

their responses to children’s comments and questions, and the questions they ask are all of central

importance” (Dickinson et al., 2009, p. 329). Supporting the importance of teacher-child verbal

interactions, these authors emphasize that the teacher’s ability to bring children into “… sustained

conversations that stretch children’s linguistic and conceptual abilities and to teach vocabulary

that fosters conceptual growth become equally if not more important than the activities they

provide” (Dickinson et al., 2009, p. 329). Extended Teaching, described earlier, provides more

detailed information on integrating language and vocabulary throughout the day (Wasik, 2009a).

Scaffolding Strategy

At the core of all these nested strategies is scaff olding, a way of moving a less skilled learner from

a current skill level to a more sophisticated level. A parent or a teacher can scaff old skills for a

child; a parent educator can scaff old skills for a parent; and a director can scaff old skills for a

preschool teacher. Scaff olding is a fundamental strategy undergirding parent-child interactions

(Wasik & Newman, 2010) as the parent, teacher, or more skilled peer provides the structure to

help a child move to a more advanced level. Vygotsky’s social-cultural theory and his zone of

proximal development (ZPD) are essential to the concept of scaff olding. Vygotsky defi ned the

ZPD as “… the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent

problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solv-

ing under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers” (1978, p. 81). Through

careful observation, a parent notices a child’s developmental level and verbally or nonverbally

prompts the child to move to a more advanced level.

Central to scaff olding, adults must be able to give direction and maintain child attention

(Hustedt & Raver, 2002; Pratt, Kerig, Cowan, & Cowan, 1988). Adult tutors “… must also

be sensitive to child cues by accurately gauging and responding to the children’s initiatives to

solve a task, as well as maintaining awareness of the children’s responses to their own initiatives”

(Hustedt & Raver, 2002). Research has examined the role of both parent scaff olding of their

children (Hodapp, Goldeld, & Boyatzis, 1984; Hustedt & Raver, 2002; Pratt et al., 1988) and

teacher scaff olding of students (see Table 5.5). Wells (2009) has elaborated on the teacher’s role

in working with a child in his or her ZPD, noting that the teacher responds to both implicit and

explicit requests for help. Wells describes the many forms in which help can be given as follows:

prompting; inviting the child to talk about what he or she is trying to do, and what strate-

gies he or she has available that may be useful; asking specifi c questions that may help the

child to see what to do next; drawing attention to some aspects of the task that he or she

seems to have ignored

(p. 296)

Mothers have been observed to use a variety of techniques for scaff olding their child’s behav-

ior, including verbalizations, manual help, modeling, and helping to solve the task by pushing

or positioning materials (Hustedt & Raver, 2002). Readers will note the overlap in scaff olding

characteristics with the 3N and 3S strategies described later in this chapter.

3N (Notice, Nudge, Narrate) Strategy

The 3N strategy is used in conjunction with the extended teaching and language priority strate-

gies. The N’s—notice, nudge, and narrate—are easy to learn, remember, and use (see Figure

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Nested Strategies to Promote Language and Literacy Skills

5.2). They give the adult a pattern for surrounding spontaneous events with rich language. This

strategy can be thought of as a cycle of noticing someone else’s words and actions, using what is

noticed as a springboard to encourage or nudge that person to try something new or more dif-

fi cult, and then narrating or commenting on what is happening (what the person is now doing).

Once professionals and families learn the notice-nudge-narrate sequence, the sequence can

become a routine that occurs many times every day. This strategy provides a guide for scaff old-

ing, giving adults a structured sequence to guide their interactions. The 3N strategy is compat-

ible with responding to a child or adult’s ZPD because it calls for the more experienced person

to observe the less experienced individual to gain information on the child’s or adult’s skills and

knowledge and then use this information in encouraging the individual to advance in his or her

skills and knowledge (see Table 5.6).

Notice. It is easy for family members to notice something that obviously demands attention, such as a child’s distressed cry. In the 3N strategy, families notice a wider range of child behaviors

such as the direction of the child’s gaze or what he is reaching for or touching. In using the

3N strategy, family members say to the child that they have noticed something. When adults

tell children they have just noticed something, the action may seem a little strange at fi rst—of

Table 5.5 Scaffolding

Family Service Provider Program Directors

Family members can pay attention to what children do or say as a fi rst step in scaffolding so they gain knowledge of the child’s skill level.With this knowledge, a parent might nonverbally prompt a child or model a behavior, then encourage a child to try it alone.

Service providers can scaffold the parent’s actions by noticing the parent’s skills, then encouraging the parent to try something new with a child, suggesting a modifi cation that might be a more effective way to gain a child’s attention, or asking the parent to see if providing more frequently interactions with the child might bring about a desired develomental goal.

Leaders may scaffold complex behaviors and provide more verbal instruction than other participants. They might describe a classroom event they observed and ask the teacher to think of some changes that might be implemented to bring about a change in child behavior. The leader might also prompt or suggest an action, with the goal of helping the teacher move to a higher skill level.

Figure 5.2 Three-part instructional model

n ot

ice nudg e

narrate

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course, adults notice things all day and do not necessarily mention anything about them. But on

the occasions when parents or family members say they are noticing something, the child will

know that the adults are now focusing especially on him and are about to begin a process of

back-and-forth interaction. Thus, families gain children’s attention by saying they notice some

action—and then follow up that observation with a nudge or narration.

Nudge. Here the adult gently moves things along. For the family, a nudge may involve prompting a child to take her current action a step further. Or someone may suggest that a

child add a new skill to what she is doing. In either case, family members are making only a

suggestion—a “gentle nudge,” not a “push.” The child may or may not accept the idea in the

nudge. Either way is okay. Families will have plenty of additional chances to off er a nudge.

If the child can respond to a family member’s nudge, the child is taking an important step.

As an example of nudging with an adult, a supervisor, when talking with a teacher informally,

might encourage her to think about how she might use information in a new and creative

way.

Narrate. In the third step of the 3N strategy, a family member narrates or describes a child’s action or response to a nudge. The narration tells the story, in real time, of what the child is

doing (“You built a four block tower!” or “You put plates on the table for lunch.”). By describing

current actions and events, families increase a child’s cognitive awareness of the signifi cance of

his or her own actions. Through narration, actions that were intuitive or random are raised to

a level of consciousness where the child can purposefully repeat or modify them. Signifi cantly,

this 3-part, cyclic strategy does not focus on briefl y naming something or making an isolated

comment—it keeps the conversation going in a direction that relates to the idea or action that the

young child is currently engaged in. The process works the same way between adults when a

parent educator might support a family member or when a program director might elaborate on

an action for a home visitor.

Conversational Reading/Interactive Book Reading Strategy When program directors, service providers, and families use interactive book reading, they sur-

round reading events with an instructional conversation that supports the reading process. A con-

Table 5.6 3N Strategy

Family Service Provider Program Directors

Family members pay attention to what children do. They say, “I notice that...” or “I see you doing...” Family members ask questions and make suggestions related to what they observe the child doing. When the child responds to their suggestions, they describe the child’s actions.

Service providers are careful observers of family members. When they see something interesting, they say that they are noticing a family member’s actions and behaviors. They make suggestions related to what they observe. When the family member acts on the suggestions, the service provider describes (narrates) what they observe.

Leaders observe service providers as they deliver services and when they are in the offi ce. When they see something interesting, they say that they are noticing the service provider’s actions and behaviors. Leaders make suggestions related to what they observe. When the service provider acts on the suggestions, the leader or program director describes (narrates) what they observe.

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versation implies that talk goes back and forth. The instructional conversation families have when

reading a book to a child explicitly builds the child’s early literacy skills (Sparling & Sparling,

2006). The parent educator can help family members develop the habit of reading to a child (or

to each of their children) daily, cuddling the child, sharing the child’s visual focus, and speaking

in close auditory range in a back and forth conversation.

Research has shown that parents can learn new behaviors for engaging their children during

joint reading, and in turn their children make gains in their oral language skills (Blom-Hoff man,

O’Neil-Pirozzi, & Cutting, 2006; Blom-Hoff man, O’Neil-Pirozzi, Volpe, Cutting, & Bissinger

2006; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998; see Lonigan & Shanahan, this volume). Conversational

reading, also referred to as interactive book reading, is similar to the dialogic reading approach

of Whitehurst and colleagues (Lonigan & Whitehurst, 1998; Whitehurst et al., 1999; see Loni-

gan & Shanahan, this volume) in its overall goals and in some of its procedures. It includes a set

of strategies developed by the authors for use in our early intervention curricula (e.g., Sparling

& Lewis, 1984; Wasik, 2009c). Interactive book reading includes the use of (a) the 3S strategy,

(b) Wh questions (who, what, when, where, why), and (c) before/during/after learning activities

(see Table 5.7). The procedures also include an intentional focus on concepts of print, beginning

with simple print concepts (recognizing the front and back of book or book title) to progressively

more complex print concepts (punctuation, words; Wasik, 2009c).

Asking text-related questions such as “What do you think will happen when she gets to

school?” or “Why do you think the little boy was sad?” helps focus a child’s attention and

encourages the child to think about content and make meaning from what has been heard.

The examples below illustrate how an adult can facilitate mastery of print concepts:

• Talk about book characteristics, “Show me how to hold this book.”

• Diff erentiate print and pictures, “Show me the part of the book that tells the story.”

• Talk about directional rules, “Show me where I should start reading on this page.”

• Ask about letters, “Point to just one letter. Can you tell me the name of that letter?”

• Ask about words, “Show me just one word. Show me two words.”

• Talk about words and sentences, “Show me the fi rst word in the sentence. Show me the last

word in the sentence.”

• Ask who, what, where, when, why questions, “Where do you think he is hiding?” (Wasik,

2009c).

Table 5.7 Conversational Reading/Interactive Book Reading Strategy

Family Service Provider Program Directors

Family members engage in back and forth conversations during book reading. They ask questions related to features of the book, print, and pictures. They wait for a child’s answers or responses. They readily respond to the child’s questions about the story.

Service providers engage in a conversation about the printed program materials provided to the family. They do guided reading, “Let’s look fi rst at the title.” They ask leading questions such as, “What do you think this activity is about?” “Is this similar to something you have done before?” They readily respond to the family member’s questions.

Directors engage service providers in conversations about program materials and resources. They use role play to deepen understanding and mastery of print materials: “Let’s think about how this book will be used with families. Could you play the visitor and I will be Mrs. Adams.” They encourage service providers to ask questions about print materials and they accept a variety of possible answers.

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3S (See, Show, Say) Strategy

The 3S strategy—see, show, say—is part of the conversational book reading strategy. 3S guides

one to seek and expect several levels of response from a reading partner. The fi rst response, see,

is used by an adult to help a child attend to the book or object of the interaction. Attention is a

crucial step in learning to read and learning from print (Hidi, 1995; Justice & Piasta, 2011); the

adult needs to ensure that the child is paying attention to the print in order for advances to be

made. (The child can also attend by listening, but listening by itself is not suffi cient for learn-

ing to read.) Asking the child to see provides the adult with an opportunity to gauge the child’s

attention. Asking the child to show and then to say calls for more active engagement from the

child (see Table 5.8).

In using the 3S strategy with children, families learn to ask for responses in a hierarchical

fashion. They can think of the response levels as stair steps. They can seek the highest response

the child is capable of at the moment, but will move down to one of the lower steps when the

child does not understand or needs a simpler question to succeed. With very young children,

the adult starts at one of the lower steps to help ensure success. This step-wise approach is espe-

cially useful for children who are learning English as a second language; these learners will have

opportunities to get plenty of input and to demonstrate comprehension non-verbally (see and

show) before being expected to produce an oral response (say).

See. At this level the very young child uses basic looking and attending responses that are available to even preverbal children. At fi rst a parent and child may simply go through a picture

book together while the adult talks about what the child is seeing. The parent learns to watch the

child’s eyes and, as often as possible, to name a picture a moment after the child fi rst looks at it

and then to point to it. In other words, the parent does not fi rst try to direct the child’s attention,

but follows it—naming and pointing just after the child’s eyes alight on a picture. When the child

begins to reach out and touch the page, the parent can take care to say the name of the picture

as the child’s hand lands on it. This step is important because the parent is naming or talking

about pictures exactly when the child is attending to them (as evidenced by the child’s eye or

hand movements)—imbuing them with meaning and supplying appropriate and useful language.

In this early stage, the parent is matching attention to the child’s. Later, using the 3S strategy,

the parent will help the child match his or her attention to what the parent has identifi ed. The

parent may point to and name a picture, or run a fi nger under large words while reading them.

Table 5.8 3S Strategy

Family Service Provider Program Directors

Family members read books or other print material interactively with the child. They ask questions that accept 1 of 3 responses: see, show, or say. By moving among all 3 levels, they are always able to ask for a response that the child can successfully give.

Parent educators can make it easy for family members to process printed program materials by asking them to see, show, or say something about the material at the adult level. They may request the see or show response when the parent has diffi culty putting their response into words, as might happen with an ELL parent. They can point out the use of 3S across age groups, noting it general features.

Leaders use all 3 levels of response as a way of varying the training on and discussion of program materials. They use the 3S strategy to individualize their interactions with service providers and to provide a little more scaffolding for those providers who need it. They ask for see and show responses when service providers appear to miss or overlook some important features in the materials.

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After many successes with this action, the parent will stop pointing to some of the most familiar

pictures and will watch the child’s eyes to know if the child is looking at the picture being named

but not pointed to. Because the young child is considerably less inclined to focus on print rather

than pictures, parents will need to prompt attention to print more frequently.

Show. In the second level of response, a child gives or shows a response using some form of body language. At this level the parent does not point to the pictures but says something

like, “Touch the little boy’s hat” or “Show me who’s jumping” and waits for the child to show

which picture was mentioned. The child may pat, touch, tap, or point to the item on the page.

Sometimes the child may have fun using other body language to show or act out the answer. The

child might hop in response to a phrase such as “Show what this kangaroo is doing.” Parents also

need to call specifi c attention to print through such prompts as “Show me the title of this book”

or “Touch the word that says ‘hat’.”

Say. The fi nal level is introduced as soon as the child begins to gain some spoken words. The parent tries to elicit this level of response by saying things like “What’s this?” “Who is this?”

or “What will this little girl do next?” The child uses language to give his response. The say

response level of the 3S strategy has considerable fl exibility. It contains everything from a young

toddler’s simple one-word response to a detailed response from a 4- or 5-year-old. Parents use

the say level to make conversational reading and the 3S strategy challenging enough for older

children. At an advanced say level, the parent might ask a child to describe her favorite part of a

storybook.

Before/During/After Strategy

Compared to the earlier strategies, this strategy in our system has greater variability and diff eren-

tiation across the three nested levels. Within this variability, teaching and learning events have a

beginning, middle, and end. For families, this strategy is particularly useful in book reading with

a child (Wasik, 2009c) and thus can be considered a special feature of conversational reading.

This strategy also has a strong tradition of use with teachers of young children and can be used

to increase motivation, promote comprehension, and develop advanced book concepts (Wasik &

Newman, 2009). Family members can be encouraged to put emphasis on three phases of reading

with the following (see Table 5.9):

• Before reading: introduce the book, ask the child to predict what the book might be about,

explain new vocabulary words.

• During reading: talk about the characters and their feelings, talk about the events and setting

of the story, help the child connect the story to his or her own life.

• After reading: ask the child what he or she liked about the story, invite the child to retell all

or part of the story.

Parent educators can use this before/during/after strategy in presenting intervention elements

to families. For example, when using the LearningGames curriculum, game-like materials

designed for teacher and parents to use with young children, the presentation of a game divides

itself naturally into before/during/after phases (Sparling & Lewis, 2007). These games are pack-

aged in a 3R mnemonic: reconnect (before), read/role play (during), and refl ect (after). In the

fi rst 3R phase, for example, a parent educator reconnects with the parent or family members before

starting a new LearningGame and asks how things have been going, especially with games that

were left at the home during the last visit. In the second phase, the home visitor helps the parent

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read and discuss the game and, if appropriate, invites the parent to role play the activity. The home

visitor initiates the third phase by encouraging the parent to refl ect on what happened in the role

play or in the use of the game with the child.

Program directors can use this strategy that calls for attending to what goes on before, during,

and after an event in their mentoring or supervisory activities. This three-part sequence is illus-

trated by the Home Visit Assessment Instrument, an instrument that can be used by supervisors

when accompanying a home visitor to the home of a family (Wasik & Sparling, 1996). Directors

do not fi rst observe a home visitor in action; rather, they should begin by gaining information

from the home visitor needed to interpret the upcoming observation in the home. They might

learn about the goals for the visit and what went on during the preceding visit. During the home

visit, the program director will observe the interactions and may make contributions to the

ongoing visit. After the home visit, the program director will review with the home visitor the

meeting with the parents, encourage the home visitor to be refl ective and to self-evaluate the

session, and give the home visitor information-rich feedback.

This before/during/after strategy has had little attention in the early intervention literature

outside such areas as teaching reading to children, but it does overlap with strong teaching prin-

ciples that encourage a teacher to tell students in advance what will be taught, to conduct the

lesson, and then review what was taught. We have included it here because of its relevance for

teachers and parents in reading with children, and to illustrate how it has relevance for other

adult-to-adult interactions in a family literacy program. In relation to the other strategies, it

lends itself less well to empirical documentation because of its broad application, but it can pro-

vide an explicit structure for many learning activities.

Problem Solving Strategy

Problem solving is a fundamental part of everyday living. It involves both cognitive processes

and behaviors or actions as one works to fi gure out possible solutions for everyday concerns

(Wasik, Bryant, Ramey, & Sparling, 1997). Beginning over 30 years ago, we included problem

solving as a strategy for helping parents develop competencies for their everyday responsibilities

and we have continued to refi ne our procedures for including problem solving competencies in

early childhood and parenting interventions (see Table 5.10). In our strategy, problem solving is

defi ned as including seven steps or processes: problem recognition; identifi cation of goals; gener-

ation of alternative solutions; evaluation of consequences; decision making; implementation; and

Table 5.9 Before, During, After Strategy

Family Service Provider Program Directors

Family members introduce a book to the child before reading it. During reading they ask a variety of questions to engage the child. After reading they help the child sum up or review what was read.

Service providers reconnect with families before presenting a new activity or game. During the presentation of a new activity, they encourage reading and role playing. After a new activity they invite a family member to refl ect on how it went.

Leaders meet with a service provider and gain information before observing her. During observation they are sensitive to the feelings of everyone present and they notice how specifi c program elements are being used. After observation they encourage the service provider to refl ect on the session and they help the provider think about next steps.

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evaluation (Wasik et al., 1993; Wasik, 2009c). During the past two decades, problem solving has

been recognized as an important strategy for helping parents address parenting concerns as well

as other everyday issues in their lives. Problem solving has been successfully taught to children

(Webster-Stratton, Reid, & Hammond, 2001), adolescents (Robin & Foster, 1989), and parents

(Kazdin, Siegel, & Bass, 1992). Its relevance for family literacy programs comes not only from its

appropriateness for parents, but also from its recognition among numerous adult educators as an

important component of adult learning.

Grouping Strategy

When helping adults or children learn new materials, some grouping arrangements may be

more advantageous than others (Wasik, 2008). Connor and her colleagues (Connor et al., 2008),

through their analysis of classrooms, teachers, and students, have been obtaining information

that shows children respond diff erently to the classroom environment and that children’s lan-

guage and literacy skills infl uence their responses to instruction. Their research reinforces the

need for teachers to gain knowledge about each child, learning what settings and strategies are

most conducive for that child to learn.

Using dyads of children is an eff ective instructional strategy with several advantages for teach-

ers and children. Dyads provide intensive opportunities for teachers and children to interact.

Teachers can often gain as much information about an individual child when working with two

children as with one, thus reducing the time needed to gain specifi c information on a child.

Teachers can easily individualize for each child when working with a dyad and the two children

can learn from each other. Furthermore, teachers can gain considerable information about a

child’s social and emotional skill level when working with dyads because the dyad creates a small

social environment within which the teacher can observe the child’s ability to do such things as

take turns, share, help another child, and respond to or initiate conversation and can foster social

and emotional development while addressing language and literacy skills. Knowledge gained

from working with dyads can help the teacher identify additional appropriate learning structures

for each child. Teachers can fi nd creative ways of structuring their classroom schedule to make

such times available.

For adults, the structure of learning environments is also important. In most family literacy

programs, both parent group sessions and home visits are provided for families, giving two dif-

ferent settings for learning, one a group setting and one an individual or family setting (see Table

5.11). Both parent groups and home visits process have advantages. Parent group meetings can

Table 5.10 Problem Solving Strategy

Family Service Provider Program Directors

Family members learn the steps of the problem solving strategy and how this strategy can help them resolve parenting concerns more effectively. They also learn how they can use problem solving strategies in other areas of their lives.

Providers help parents gain knowledge and skills about using a problem solving strategy to address everyday parenting needs. Parents learn about the steps in a problem solving process and can develop skill, identify concerns, and generate potential solutions.

Leaders fi rst master the problem solving strategy, then incorporate the strategy into ongoing supervision and coaching of staff, model the use of effective strategies in their interaction with the service providers, and provide opportunities for service providers to discuss their use of these strategies in their professional work and encourage the use of the strategies by other staff.

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be a more effi cient means for presenting information and can provide opportunities for parents

to develop supportive social relationships with others in the groups (Prins and Van Horn, this

volume), while individual meetings can provide time for focusing more specifi cally on parent-

child interactions. For staff within family literacy programs, similar advantages exists: group

meeting may be a more effi cient means of conveying information while allowing participants to

build social supports, but individual meetings between a supervisor and a home visitor can target

specifi c concerns of the parent in more depth.

Progress Monitoring Strategy

Progress monitoring is an assessment procedure used for data-based decision making. It has

gained considerable support as part of the Response to Intervention procedures (Deno, 1985;

Deno, 2003; Fuchs, 2004) with school age children, but also has direct relevance for early

childhood education (Greenwood et al., 2008) as well as other components of family literacy

programs. In progress monitoring, data are obtained to determine a child’s initial status, and

periodic assessments are made to determine progress towards goals. An individual child’s current

performance can be compared with the child’s earlier or expected rate of performance. These

data allow teachers to make decisions about whether a child is experiencing a delay or disability

as well as to monitor individual child performance. Data can also inform decisions about whether

instructional procedures should be maintained or modifi ed for an individual child. Data on a

range of child skills can be evaluated, including social skills as well as language and literacy. Par-

ent educators can help parents learn to collect information on a child’s behavior to evaluate how

a child is responding to a specifi c intervention strategy.

Though progress monitoring procedures are almost always used to describe child perfor-

mance, they also have relevance for adult education. Assessing adult performance to obtain

information on progress provides data for adult educators regarding the individual’s progress as

well as information on whether specifi c instructional procedures should be modifi ed. Aggre-

gated data across adult learners can provide program evaluation information.

This strategy generates information that can be used in the program director’s mentoring

of specifi c service providers. It also provides program fi delity data in conjunction with self-

report data from service providers. Directors can combine data across participants to determine

if program goals are being reached, using procedures consistent with earlier calls for continuous

program evaluation within family literacy programs (St.Pierre et al., 2004). In summary, using

progress monitoring can provide data for decision making at all levels within a family literacy

Table 5.11 Grouping Strategy

Family Service Provider Program Directors

Within a family, a parent takes time to interact individually with each individual child, ensuring personalized attention and building a strong relationship.

Service providers might meet with parents as a group, with parents and their children in an interactive literacy time, or with each parent and child individually, as in a home visit. A teacher might offer instruction in a large group setting, in a small group setting, or to two children at once.

Leaders may provide group instruction in a workshop, lead a small group discussion, or meet in a one-to-one supervisory session with each teacher or parent educator. These different formats allow for a range of intensity in interactions and well as opportunities to individualize supervision to meet each provider’s needs.

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program. Furthermore, the problem solving strategy described earlier can provide a framework

for decision making when using progress monitoring procedures (see Table 5.12).

Conclusions and Recommendations for the Future

In this chapter, we have proposed a set of intervention strategies that can be used across the com-

ponents of a family literacy program, in particular, the early childhood educational component,

the parent-child literacy interactions component, and the parent education component, and most

are appropriate for adult education. Our system makes the strategies fully nested—from family

to program director.

Strategies with meaning across program components provide a common conceptual frame-

work, a common vocabulary, and a common set of procedures that can help build eff ective sup-

portive networks across all the components.

Three major conclusions can be drawn related to the use of strategies in family literacy pro-

grams. First, the systematic use of the strategies identifi ed in this chapter can lead to enhanced

child and parent outcomes related to language and literacy. Many of the strategies are based on

empirical evidence with children, parents, or both (e.g., interactive book reading, scaff olding,

progress monitoring, problem solving). The other strategies have support from best practices

related to conducting early interventions. To extend the use of strategies, additional targeted

research should address specifi c strategies as well as the value added of using strategies across

components. We recognize that such research will not be easily implemented. Family liter-

acy programs are inherently complex by virtue of their multiple components, and meaningful

research on these programs will be complex in nature.

Second, we believe that for strategies to be eff ective, they must be used in settings that meet

expectations for quality. Even the best strategies, if implemented in a setting without other qual-

ity educational practices in place, cannot be successful. To implement the strategies identifi ed in

this chapter within a preschool classroom, for example, success will depend upon the presence

of such variables as clear structure and goals, established schedules, and good classroom man-

agement, as well as classrooms rich with books, print, and other learning materials. Schedules

that do not allow time for individual teacher-child interactions, or for children to interact with

instructional materials, also interfere with the successful implementation of strategies. Theories

and concepts that question the importance of explicit instruction for young children can inter-

fere with the successful use of strategies.

Third, we recommend that strategies be evaluated to ensure procedures and processes are

implemented with high fi delity. Otherwise, we will draw erroneous conclusions about potential

strategies and their role in facilitating language and literacy. If, for example, a program calls for

Table 5.12 Progress Monitoring Strategy

Family Service Provider Program Directors

Parents may learn to keep track of progress made by a special needs child or to record new words a child is learning to help assess a language delay.

Service providers may record information on parents and children routinely in order to document that services are being provided, and to obtain information on whether progress is being made on a range of language and literacy skills.

Leaders may keep track of several intervention variables to help determine the quality of the program implementation, such as retention, participation, progress towards specifi c skills, program benchmarks, and outcomes using this information with service providers to improve services.

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strong positive teacher-child relationships, then information needs to be collected to determine

if the teacher has been provided with information on relevant knowledge and skills, if feedback

has been provided to improve performance, and if an expected level of competency has been

met. Only when we prepare individuals to implement the intervention procedures can we draw

meaningful conclusions.

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