LENA in Indiana

---

Making every interaction count in early childhood education.

LENA (Language ENvironment Analysis) is a national nonprofit on a mission to transform early childhood education.

⬤ LENA Grow offers evidence-based professional development for early childhood educators.
⬤ LENA Start builds school readiness and strengthens families with parent-group classes.
⬤ LENA SP offers reliable, detailed language environment data in research and clinical applications.

In Indiana, LENA has reached 1.7k children and 350 early childhood educators since 2018, and LENA technology has recorded more than 1.4 million conversational turns.

On the Ground in the Hoosier State

It's an exciting time for early childhood education in Indiana, and LENA is excited to be a part of it. Here's some of what we've been up to:

 

 

Early Learning Indiana announces partnership with LENA to strengthen early language and literacy practices

October 16, 2024: Early Learning Indiana (ELI) announced today an innovative partnership with LENA, a national nonprofit that is a leader in research and programing focused on language development in young children. Funded by a $3.2 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., the partnership will improve the quality of verbal interactions between young children and their teachers in communities across Indiana by expanding a program called LENA Grow^®. Read more ...

Sixty-eight organizations receive funding for programs to boost early learning for Indiana children

October 9, 2024: Early Learning Indiana (ELI) announced today that 68 community organizations have joined the Early Years Initiative receiving $23 million in grants to help them meet the developmental needs of infants and toddlers and surround Hoosier families with the resources to capitalize on the opportunities for learning that occur from birth to age 3. Read more ...

Early Learning Indiana identified LENA Grow and LENA Start as model programs for the Early Years Initiative. Across the state, 12 organizations have received Early Years Initiative funding to launch new LENA programs!

LENA Grow Crosswalk with Indiana Early Learning Standards

LENA Grow is an evidenced-based professional development program that helps teachers equitably improve classroom language environments in early learning settings, complementing Indiana Early Learning Standards. Download the crosswalk here.

LENA also has national crosswalks with Head Start, CLASS, The Pyramid Model, ZERO TO THREE, and more.

Partner Spotlight: Family Development Services

Family Development Services manages the Head Start and Early Head Start programs in Marion and Hamilton Counties. With funding from the Early Years Initiative, the organization brought LENA Grow to their classrooms in 2024. One of the most consistent benefits of any LENA Grow program is that it helps the children who need it the most. The children who came into the program experiencing the least amount of interaction with their teachers end up gaining the most. That has certainly been the case at Family Development Services. Children who had been experiencing fewer than the national average of 15 conversational turns per hour saw a 117% increase by the end of the five-week LENA Grow program! Research shows that that increase in teacher interaction will help their social-emotional and literacy skills, as well as their overall kindergarten readiness. Read more ... 

 

ECE Research: New Research Links Early Vocabulary Skills to Teacher-Child Interaction in Preschool Classrooms

Published in the journal Infant and Child Development, a study out of Purdue University used LENA technology to find that:

• Children’s vocabulary skills are linked to the quantity of interactions they experience in preschool classrooms. The more conversational turns a child experiences, the larger their vocabulary.
• Different children within the same preschool classroom can have very different experiences of that classroom’s language environment. 
• Per year, some children in preschool may experience an estimated 25,000 fewer conversational turns than their classmates.

Read more ...

---

---