PDG + LENA

Plug-and-Play Language

for PDG Applications

• How does LENA Grow support PDG Activity 4: Support the B-5 workforce?

  LENA Grow's strengths-based approach to improving language environments provides early childhood educators with a deeper understanding of the connections between language interaction, early brain development, social-emotional development, and literacy skills.

  LENA Grow is designed for infant, toddler, preschool, and pre-K classrooms. It is successfully implemented in a variety of early learning settings throughout the U.S., including private and state-funded child care centers, school districts, inclusion settings, public pre-K, family child care homes, and Early Head Start and Head Start programs.

  The LENA Grow feedback cycle is based on best practices from the Practice-Based Coaching Framework. LENA Grow helps early childhood educators form a reflective practice. It helps them not only understand the how but also the why of what they practice, building skills in data literacy, goal setting, and child observation.

  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. 

  Evaluations have shown LENA Grow to be an effective professional development program:
  

  • LENA Grow has been shown to increase teacher job satisfaction and self-efficacy.¹
  • LENA Grow has been shown to help less experienced teachers accelerate their skills at fostering optimal language environments.²
  • LENA Grow has been shown to have a positive effect on teacher retention.³ 
  • LENA Grow has been shown to improve teachers' persistence when faced with challenges, and also to improve their engagement with families.⁴

  
  

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  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
  2. LENA Foundation (2023). 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/
  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. 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

• How does LENA Grow support PDG Activity 5: Support program quality improvements?

  LENA Grow's strengths-based approach to improving language environments provides early childhood educators with a deeper understanding of the connections between language interaction, early brain development, social-emotional development, and literacy skills.

  LENA Grow is designed for infant, toddler, preschool, and pre-K classrooms. It is successfully implemented in a variety of early learning settings throughout the U.S., including private and state-funded child care centers, school districts, inclusion settings, public pre-K, family child care homes, and Early Head Start and Head Start programs.

  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
  • LENA Grow participants have achieved significantly higher TS GOLD® language, literacy, and social-emotional scores compared to control groups.⁹
  • LENA Grow has been shown to be effective at creating more equitable language environments for dual language learners, who face a greater risk of classroom language isolation.¹⁰
  • LENA Grow has been shown to be effective at eliminating language isolation, whereby children have almost no back-and-forth interaction with their teachers for the vast majority of the day.¹¹
  • LENA Grow has been shown to be effective at increasing CLASS® scores.¹²
  • LENA Grow has been shown to be effective at increasing teacher-child interaction, recognized in more and more quality improvement systems as a marker of program quality.¹³

   

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  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. LENA Foundation (2024). 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/
  12. 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
  13. Teaching Strategies, LLC (2017). Using The Creative Curriculum With LENA Grow to Increase Language Interactions in Child Care Settings [White paper]. https://teachingstrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/TS-CCIT2-LENA-Grow1.pdf

• How does LENA Grow support PDG Subgrant Option C: Improve the quality of existing programs?

  LENA Grow's strengths-based approach to improving language environments provides early childhood educators with a deeper understanding of the connections between language interaction, early brain development, social-emotional development, and literacy skills.

  LENA Grow is designed for infant, toddler, preschool, and pre-K classrooms. It is successfully implemented in a variety of early learning settings throughout the U.S., including private and state-funded child care centers, school districts, inclusion settings, public pre-K, family child care homes, and Early Head Start and Head Start programs.

  LENA Grow provides actionable data on educator responsiveness and overall interaction to create high-quality, supportive learning environments.

  LENA technology is language agnostic and supports multi-language classrooms. The LENA Grow Room Report and Child Report help teachers recognize opportunities to respond to children's vocalizations. This is especially important considering recent research showing that dual language learners experience, on average, fewer conversational turns than their monolingual peers.¹ 

  LENA provides additional materials to assist educators in supporting dual language learners. LENA's "14 Talking Tips" are available in 14 languages.² In addition, Using the 14 Talking Tips With Dual Language Learners" helps educators implement the tips with dual language learners specifically.³

  LENA Grow's strengths-based approach to improving language environments provides early childhood educators with a deeper understanding of the connections between language interaction, early brain development, socio-emotional development, and literacy skills.

  The LENA Grow feedback cycle is based on best practices from the Practice-Based Coaching Framework. LENA Grow helps early childhood professionals form a reflective practice. It helps them not only understand the how but also the why of what they practice, building skills in data literacy, goal setting, and child observation.

  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 been shown to increase teacher job satisfaction and self-efficacy.⁴  LENA Grow has also been shown to improve teachers' persistence when faced with challenges, and also to improve their engagement with families.⁵

   

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  References

  1. 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/
  2. LENA Foundation (2024). 14 Talking Tips. LENA Resources. https://info.lena.org/14-talking-tips
  3. LENA Foundation (2024). Using the 14 Talking Tips With Dual Language Leaners. LENA Resources. https://info.lena.org/14-talking-tips-for-dual-language-learners
  4. 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
  5. 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

• How does LENA Grow support PDG Bonus Option 2: Support social-emotional development and mental health?

  LENA Grow's strengths-based approach to improving language environments provides early childhood educators with a deeper understanding of the connections between language interaction, early brain development, social-emotional development, and literacy skills.

  LENA Grow is designed for infant, toddler, preschool, and pre-K classrooms. It is successfully implemented in a variety of early learning settings throughout the U.S., including private and state-funded child care centers, school districts, inclusion settings, public pre-K, family child care homes, and Early Head Start and Head Start programs.

  LENA Grow provides actionable data on educator responsiveness and overall interaction to create high-quality, supportive learning environments. LENA technology automatically captures the quantity of conversational turns that children experience throughout the day. Importantly, peer-reviewed research has shown that conversational turns have a positive impact on social-emotional competencies.¹

  • LENA Grow has been shown to be effective at having a positive impact on social-emotional skill development, including improved scores on the Devereaux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA).²
  • LENA Grow has been shown to move children out of the TS GOLD® "below widely held expectations" category in the domain of social-emotional development. Compared to a control group, LENA Grow participants were twice as likely to advance to "meets/exceeds widely held expectations."³

   

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  References

  1. 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 
  2. 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/

  3. 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/