CLSD + LENA

➡️ LENA Grow: Evidence-based professional development for early childhood educators.

➡️ LENA Start: Evidence-based community program for parents and caregivers of infants and toddlers.

➡️ Proven impacts on classroom quality, kindergarten readiness, and language, literacy, and social-emotional development.

➡️ 100,000+ children and 16,000+ educators served since 2013.

➡️ A birth-to-five solution that works and that CLSD can fund.

Make every interaction count in early childhood education.

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LENA Alignment With CLSD

Core Elements of LENA Programs

The elements described below work together to provide a cohesive experience for teachers and families that drives meaningful and lasting increases in interaction. For Start families, this change leads to increased vocabulary, confidence, and fewer challenging behaviors in children, along with stronger relationships between family members. For Grow educators, this change results in a more equitable classroom language environment, accelerated language and literacy development for students, and increased teacher job satisfaction, retention, and self-efficacy.

Research base

LENA programs are rooted in over a decade of peer-reviewed research linking conversational turns to improved language, brain, and social-emotional development. Over 400 researchers and clinicians in over 40 countries have used LENA technology to study early language development.

Early talk strategies

At each session, participants receive research-based curriculum materials that provide strategies for increasing interactive talk. Areas of focus include personal care, transitions, indoor play, outdoor play, mealtimes, shared reading, early math, early literacy, and songs & rhymes.

LENA Grow Reports

Room Report

At each coaching session, teachers review the Room Report, which provides objective interaction data on overall room averages and child-specific averages. It quantifies the number of conversational turns in the classroom across the day.

Child Report

At each coaching session, teachers review the Child Report, which provides a detailed view of each individual child’s experience across the day, including hourly counts of interactions and child vocalizations that highlight further engagement opportunities for teachers. This report is also used to engage families in a conversation about their child’s early talk experiences and language development.

LENA Start Reports

Parent Report

During each weekly session, families review the Parent Report, which provides a detailed view of their individual child’s language experience across the day, including hourly counts of interactions and child vocalizations, plus how many minutes their child heard mostly sounds from electronic devices. Additionally, the report displays the average amount of time parents report reading with their child during the week.

LENA Snapshot

The LENA Snapshot is a parent questionnaire that measures a child’s language development. Completed three times throughout the course of the program, families are able to see how their child’s language development compares to other children of the same age.

Weekly strengths-based coaching

LENA Grow coaches provide 30-60 minutes of coaching each week. The Coach Guide supports them in bringing a strengths-based lens to the data analysis and goal setting conversation with teachers.

LENA Start families meet 60 minutes each week to receive facilitated guidance from a trained Start Coordinator. The Parent Guide supports them in using an interactive, strengths-based approach to help form a foundation for lasting behavior change.

Weekly goal setting, documentation, and practice

During each LENA Grow session, the teacher sets a specific and measurable goal for the coming week. The teacher then documents progress toward that goal as they practice integrating early talk strategies throughout the week, including the next LENA Day.

LENA Start families use weekly reports, group sharing feedback, and coordinator observations to reflect and set growth goals for the next LENA day. They also learn strategies to increase the amount of interactive talk their child experiences.

Family Engagement

Each week of LENA Grow, a Family Talk handout is provided for teachers to send home. Teachers also spend one coaching session developing a family engagement strategy and making plans for how they will engage families in extending quality interactions into the home setting.

LENA Start is a community-based program, supporting organizations in building stronger relationships with families in their areas. Understanding the unique challenges and concerns of local families allows partners to implement the program with fidelity, but also compassion and effectiveness.

"The CLSD grant is unique in that it seeks to advance the literacy skills of children beginning in the birth to age 5 space all the way to grade 12. This setup presented us with the opportunity to seek programming that specifically promotes literacy from an early age. The LENA Start program is in perfect alignment to this goal in that early language interaction for infants and toddlers has a direct impact on academic and instructional outcomes in grade school. For our district this connection is key to meeting the goals of the CLSD grant with fidelity and longevity. With LENA Start we aim to strengthen the foundation of evidence-based literacy practices in a multi-faceted way. Firstly, we are able to rely on the robust research behind LENA Start and most importantly, we can expand community and family engagement in a meaningful way."

Velia Muñoz

Division of Equity in Learning, Aurora Public Schools

"Bernalillo Public Schools chose to implement the LENA program to address early childhood literacy by enriching language development in our 4Y preschool classes district wide . Recognizing the critical role that language exposure plays in literacy, the district aimed to use LENA's technology to provide detailed feedback to parents and teachers, helping them to engage more effectively in verbal interactions with their children. The desired outcome is to boost early language skills, background knowledge, and lay a strong foundation for future reading and academic success. ... [W]ith the implementation of LENA in our schools and next year, in our community, we can help overcome the literacy crisis by giving parents the tools and knowledge of how talking to your children can make a huge impact on their future academic success."

Maria Miller

Intervention Coordinator, Bernalillo Public Schools

"As part of our CLSD application, we focused on the foundational elements of emergent language and literacy for infants and toddlers. Our goal was to increase the quantity and quality of interactions between caregivers and infants/toddler in the classrooms with the children enrolled. LENA was the most important tool we identified to support the quantity of interactions and help embed coaching into existing teaching practices. As a secondary result, we measured the quality of interactions using CLASS, an indirect indicator of the improved practices supported with the implementation of the LENA program tools."

Amy Kronberg

Senior Manager of Early Learning Initiatives, Preschool Promise

How LENA Supports Early Literacy Skills

Children who participate in LENA programs experience accelerated early literacy development. In addition to the examples below, visit LENA.org/effectiveness to see more evidence, including independent program evaluations.

According to researchers at the SproutFive Center for Early Childhood Innovation in Ohio, children who participated in LENA Grow experienced significantly larger gains in TS GOLD^® literacy scores compared to a control group.

Source: Dynia, J. (2022). The Impact of a Language-Based Intervention with Individualized Coaching in Early Childhood Education Classrooms [White paper]. SproutFive Center for Early Childhood Innovation. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dIN71WcKQ_FZAxnTWOWfNQihmCoAXCul/view

According to analysis that LENA's research team conducted in collaboration with Cherokee County School District in S.C., children who participated in LENA Grow were twice as likely to demonstrate readiness on the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment.

According to researchers at Huntsville City Schools in Alabama, four-year-olds whose parents had participated in LENA Start demonstrated higher Star Early Literacy^® scores compared to a matched control group. LENA participants were three times more likely to have reached the more advanced "Late Emergent Reader" stage entering pre-K.

Source: Huntsville City Schools (2019). Initial longitudinal evaluation results: Huntsville children whose parents participated in LENA Start have stronger literacy skills two years later [White paper]. https://info.lena.org/hubfs/Huntsville%20City%20Schools%20and%20LENA%20(2019).pdf

"Third-grade literacy is not something that happens in second grade. ... School districts would be very wise to engage well with the preschool providers in their communities, to share professional development opportunities, to share resources like LENA."

Dan Wuori

Founder and President of Early Childhood Policy Solutions

About LENA Technology

LENA's "talk pedometer" technology is trusted by 400+ research institutions around the world and has powered 200+ peer-reviewed studies.

LENA Grow and LENA Start put that same technology directly into the hands of early childhood educators and families, respectively.

Plug-and-Play Language

for CLSD Applications

Enhancing the language and literacy development and school readiness of children, from birth through kindergarten entry.
LENA Grow

LENA Grow is an evidence-based professional development program that helps early childhood educators equitably improve classroom language environments. LENA’s strengths-based approach to improving language environments provides teachers a deeper understanding of the connections between language interaction and early brain development, social-emotional development, and early literacy skills.

LENA’s 14 Talking Tips are research-based techniques for increasing early talk and supporting healthy language and social-emotional development. Three “active ingredients” power the 14 Talking Tips: creating joint attention, increasing conversational turn-taking, and then recasting.¹ In addition, LENA’s Conversation Starters focus on various classroom routines, including shared reading, early literacy, and songs & rhymes. These practical strategies enhance the implementation of a variety of curriculum models. They also support children’s developmental progression in emerging language and literacy.
- LENA technology measures classroom language environments, with a special focus on counting conversational turns (back-and-forth interactions between a teacher and child).
- Conversational turns are strongly predictive of child outcomes and tied directly to high-quality early learning environments. Peer-reviewed research links conversational turns to increased vocabulary,² reading skills,³ executive functioning,⁴ language development,⁵ social-emotional development,⁶ and brain development.⁷
- By focusing on conversational turns, teachers become aware of classroom language experiences inequities, such as language isolation.⁸
- In independent evaluations, LENA Grow participants have achieved significantly higher TS GOLD^®language, literacy, and social-emotional scores compared to control groups.⁹
- LENA Grow is effective at creating more equitable language environments for dual language learners, who face a greater risk of classroom language isolation.¹⁰
LENA Start

LENA Start is a community-based program designed to engage families with children aged 0-3. LENA’s strengths-based approach to improving language environments provides families and caregivers with a deeper understanding of the connections between language interaction, early literacy development, and early brain development.

LENA’s 14 Talking Tips are research-based techniques for increasing early talk and supporting healthy language, literacy, and social-emotional development.¹ Families use the tips, along with other specific strategies provided in the bilingual (Spanish/English) Parent Guide, to explicitly focus on increasing talk during everyday situations, including shared reading, early literacy, and songs & rhymes. These practical strategies enhance and build upon what parents and caregivers are already doing at home to help form a foundation for lasting behavior change.
- LENA technology measures a child’s daily language experience, with a special focus on counting conversational turns (back-and-forth interactions between an adult and child).
- Conversational turns are strongly predictive of child outcomes.
- Peer-reviewed research links conversational turns to increased vocabulary,² reading skills,³ executive functioning,⁴ language development,⁵ social-emotional development,⁶ and brain development.⁷Research results also indicate a statistically significant correlation between conversational turns and kindergarten readiness.¹¹
- By focusing on increasing conversational turns, parents and caregivers play an active role in boosting their child’s brain development and making a difference in their child’s future academic success.
On a broader scale, LENA Start has been shown to improve:
- STAR Early Literacy^®scores.¹²
- Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA) scores.¹³
- Development Snapshot scores.¹⁴
- Home language environments.¹⁵
- Parental beliefs about the importance of early interaction.¹⁶
References
1. Warren, S. (2015). Right from Birth [White paper]. LENA. https://info.lena.org/hubfs/RightFromBirth_Warren.pdf
2. Duncan, R., et al. (2022). Predictors of preschool language environments and their relations to children’s vocabulary. Infant and Child Development 32(1). https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2381
3. Weiss, Y., et al. (2022). Language input in late infancy scaffolds emergent literacy skills and predicts reading related white matter development. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.922552
4. Romeo, R., et al. (2021). Neuroplasticity associated with changes in conversational turn-taking following a family-based intervention. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience 49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2021.100967
5. Gilkerson, J. et al. (2018). Language experience in the second year of life and language outcomes in late childhood. Pediatrics 142(4). https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2017-4276. Romeo, R., et al. (2018). Beyond the 30-Million-Word Gap: Children’s Conversational Exposure Is Associated with Language-Related Brain Function. Psychological Science 29(5). https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617742725
6. Romeo, R., et al. (2018). Language Exposure Relates to Structural Neural Connectivity in Childhood. Journal of Neuroscience 38(36): 7870-7877. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0484-18.2018. Huber, E., et al. (2023). Language Experience During Infancy Predicts White Matter Myelination at Age 2 Years. Journal of Neuroscience 43(9): 1590-1599. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1043-22.2023
7. Gómez, E., & Strasser, K. (2021). Language and socioemotional development in early childhood: The role of conversational turns. Developmental Science, 24(5). https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13109
8. LENA Foundation (2022). New Data Analysis: One in Five Children in Child Care Spends Most of the Day in Language Isolation. LENA Blog. https://www.lena.org/child-care-language-isolation-data-analysis/
9. Dynia, J. (2022). The Impact of a Language-Based Intervention with Individualized Coaching in Early Childhood Education Classrooms [White paper]. SproutFive Center for Early Childhood Innovation. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dIN71WcKQ_FZAxnTWOWfNQihmCoAXCul/view. Heilmann, J., &. Moyle, M. (2022). Evaluation of LENA Grow in Milwaukee Head Start Classrooms [White paper]. Next Door Milwaukee. https://www.nextdoormke.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2022-Evaluation-of-LENA-Grow-in-Milwaukee-Head-Start-Classroom_Research.pdf. LENA Foundation (2023). With language and social-emotional delays on the rise, here's one part of the soluation. LENA Blog. https://www.lena.org/language-and-social-emotional-delays-lena-grow/
10. LENA Foundation (2024). Dual language learners experience less teacher-child interaction in child care and preschool: New data analysis. LENA Blog. https://www.lena.org/dual-language-learners-in-child-care/
11. Dill, J. (2021). The Relationship Between Conversational Turns and Student Achievement. PhD Dissertation.
12. Huntsville City Schools (2019). Initial longitudinal evaluation results: Huntsville children whose parents participated in LENA Start have stronger literacy skills two years later [White paper]. https://info.lena.org/hubfs/Huntsville%20City%20Schools%20and%20LENA%20(2019).pdf
13. Dill, J. (2021). The Relationship Between Conversational Turns and Student Achievement. PhD Dissertation.
14. LENA Foundation (2023).Developmental Snapshot analysis shows that LENA Start’s benefits endure for two years. LENA Blog. https://www.lena.org/lena-start-snapshot-longitudinal-results-language-skills/
15. Beecher, C.C., Van Pay, C.K (2021). Small Talk: A Community Research Collaboration to Increase Parental Provision of Language to Children. Child Youth Care Forum. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-019-09507-7
16. Cunha, F. (2023). Language Environment and Maternal Expectations: An Evaluation of the LENA Start Program. NBER Working Papers Series. http://www.nber.org/papers/w30837
Preparing and providing ongoing assistance to staff, including through high-quality professional development.
LENA Grow

LENA Grow helps teachers form a reflective practice habit that improves responsive caregiving and promotes continuous improvement. LENA Grow motivates teachers to be active participants in their professional development, helping them understand both the how and why of what they practice, as well as building skills in data literacy, goal setting, and child observation. Upon completion, teachers consistently report greater confidence and job satisfaction.¹

The LENA Grow program provides:
- High-quality training designed to build foundational knowledge of the LENA Grow program, including the importance between language interaction and early brain development.
- Strategies to increase quality interactions equitably, achieved through the reflective feedback cycle.
- Objective data on which times of day promote the most/least amount of interactive talk and which children experience the most/least amount of interaction.
- Guidance on how to interpret data and apply it toward setting goals for lasting positive behavior change.
- A proven way to increase CLASS^®scores.²
Throughout five-weeks of LENA Grow, teachers participate in strengths-based coaching sessions. Each week, teachers review classroom and individual child language data, examining talk trends and patterns, identifying focus children, and learning strategies that support equitable language development.

The LENA Grow Coach Guide provides week-by-week guidance for each coaching session, including weekly coaching intentions, teacher learning objectives, "caring coaching" callouts to enhance a focus on equity and inclusion, and checklists for facilitating each session.

LENA Grow has the potential to reduce teacher turnover through increased teacher self-efficacy.³ In addition, LENA Grow helps less experienced teachers accelerate their skills at fostering optimal language environments.⁴

References
1. Dynia, J. (2022). The Impact of a Language-Based Intervention with Individualized Coaching in Early Childhood Education Classrooms [White paper]. SproutFive Center for Early Childhood Innovation. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dIN71WcKQ_FZAxnTWOWfNQihmCoAXCul/view. Hughes, Marcia, et al. (2023). Qualitative Evaluation of Hartford Grow Professional Development Model Designed to Improve the ‘Talk Environment’ in Early Childhood Care Settings [White paper]. https://www.lena.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Hartford-Talks-LENA-Final-Report.pdf
2. Early Learning Coalition of Escambia County (2018). Results & Lessons Learned from the First Year of LENA Grow as Part of ELC Escambia’s “Grow With Me” Initiative [White Paper]. https://info.lena.org/hubfs/08.%20LENA_Grow/LENA%20Grow%20Y1%20ELCE%20Summary%20Report_v4.pdf. LENA (2019, July 29). Early learning classrooms in Fort Worth ISD using LENA Grow increase CLASS^® scores. LENA Blog. https://www.lena.org/fort-worth-class-score-increase. LENA (2023, March 14). Coaching for impact in Sarasota County: Increased TS GOLD^® and CLASS^® scores. LENA Blog. https://www.lena.org/lena-grow-coaching-child-care-sarasota/
3. LENA Foundation (2023). LENA Grow may help keep early educators in the profession, new evidence suggests. LENA Blog. https://www.lena.org/lena-grow-increases-teacher-retention/
4. LENA Foundation (2022). Classroom interaction and teacher experience: Relationships between conversational turn rates and years of experience in child care. LENA Blog. https://www.lena.org/child-care-teacher-experience-and-conversational-turns/
Evaluating the success enhancing the early language and literacy development of children from birth through kindergarten entry.
LENA Grow

LENA Grow, designed to encourage more equitable talk environments, includes built-in evaluative information. The LENA Room Report and LENA Child Report provide a clear, hour-by-hour picture of how classrooms compare to national adult word count and conversational turn benchmarks. Using an accurate measure of adult words and conversational turns for a classroom, administrators can make decisions on how best to distribute staff resources to ensure optimal talk environments for all children across the day. Child outcomes and language gains are tracked from week to week.

At the end of the program, classroom data is aggregated into a Partner Impact Report. Positive impact in talk environment is measured by two segments of children:
- Children experiencing less talk than their peers in the same classroom (+40% increase in conversational turns).
- Children experiencing less talk than the national median of 15 turns per hour (+56% increase in conversational turns).
The Partner Impact Report also includes results from a teacher survey reporting on the impact of the LENA Grow program:
- 95 percent of teachers would recommend LENA Grow to other teachers.
- 89 percent say LENA Grow helped them feel more confident in their teaching abilities.
- 88 percent say LENA Grow increased their overall job satisfaction.
- 78 percent say LENA Grow increased their communication with families.
- 91 percent say they saw positive changes in children's language development.
On a broader scale, LENA Grow has been shown to improve:
- CLASS^® scores in all three Pre-K domains (Emotional Support, Classroom Organization, and Instructional Support).¹
- TS GOLD^® scores in the Language, Literacy, and Cognitive objectives.²
- DECA and LAP™ B-K scores, measuring social-emotional development.³
LENA Start

LENA Start is designed to support families in making lasting increases in early talk with their child. The LENA Parent Report provides a clear, hour-by-hour picture of a child’s daily language environment. Child outcomes, reported reading minutes, and language gains are tracked from week to week.

Using an accurate measure of adult words and conversational turns, families can make decisions on how best to individualize conversation to ensure an optimal language and literacy environment for their child throughout the day.

Participants use the LENA Snapshot to measure a child’s language development, comparing benchmark results to other children of the same age. Completed three times throughout the course of the program, the report is used to track language progression.

At the end of the program, data is aggregated into a Performance Report showing cumulative growth of an entire LENA Start group. The Performance Report also includes results from a family survey reporting on the impact of the LENA Start program:

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On a broader scale, LENA Start has been shown to improve:
- STAR Early Literacy^®scores.⁴
- Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA) scores.⁵
- Development Snapshot scores.⁶
- Home language environments.⁷
- Parental beliefs about the importance of early interaction.⁸
References
1. Early Learning Coalition of Escambia County (2018). Results & Lessons Learned from the First Year of LENA Grow as Part of ELC Escambia’s “Grow With Me” Initiative [White Paper]. https://info.lena.org/hubfs/08.%20LENA_Grow/LENA%20Grow%20Y1%20ELCE%20Summary%20Report_v4.pdf. LENA (2019, July 29). Early learning classrooms in Fort Worth ISD using LENA Grow increase CLASS^® scores. LENA Blog. https://www.lena.org/fort-worth-class-score-increase. LENA (2023, March 14). Coaching for impact in Sarasota County: Increased TS GOLD^® and CLASS^® scores. LENA Blog. https://www.lena.org/lena-grow-coaching-child-care-sarasota/
2. Dynia, J. (2022). The Impact of a Language-Based Intervention with Individualized Coaching in Early Childhood Education Classrooms [White paper]. SproutFive Center for Early Childhood Innovation. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dIN71WcKQ_FZAxnTWOWfNQihmCoAXCul/view. Heilmann, J., &. Moyle, M. (2022). Evaluation of LENA Grow in Milwaukee Head Start Classrooms [White paper]. Next Door Milwaukee. https://www.nextdoormke.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2022-Evaluation-of-LENA-Grow-in-Milwaukee-Head-Start-Classroom_Research.pdf
3. LENA Foundation (2022). Research shows links between LENA Grow participation and social-emotional growth. LENA Blog. https://www.lena.org/research-shows-links-between-lena-grow-participation-and-social-emotional-growth/. LENA Foundation (2023). With language and social-emotional delays on the rise, here’s one part of the solution. LENA Blog. https://www.lena.org/language-and-social-emotional-delays-lena-grow/
4. Huntsville City Schools (2019). Initial longitudinal evaluation results: Huntsville children whose parents participated in LENA Start have stronger literacy skills two years later [White paper]. https://info.lena.org/hubfs/Huntsville%20City%20Schools%20and%20LENA%20(2019).pdf
5. Dill, J. (2021). The Relationship Between Conversational Turns and Student Achievement. PhD Dissertation.
6. LENA Foundation (2023).Developmental Snapshot analysis shows that LENA Start’s benefits endure for two years. LENA Blog. https://www.lena.org/lena-start-snapshot-longitudinal-results-language-skills/
7. Beecher, C.C., Van Pay, C.K (2021). Small Talk: A Community Research Collaboration to Increase Parental Provision of Language to Children. Child Youth Care Forum. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-019-09507-7
8. Cunha, F. (2023). Language Environment and Maternal Expectations: An Evaluation of the LENA Start Program. NBER Working Papers Series. http://www.nber.org/papers/w30837

CLSD + LENA

Make every interaction count in early childhood education.

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