[ti:] [ar:Bob Doughty] [al:Education Report] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]From VOA Learning English, [00:02.05]this is the Education Report in Special English. [00:06.97]Teachers and parents normally call attention to the pictures [00:10.96]when they read storybooks to preschool children. [00:14.59]But a study published in 2011 suggests [00:18.43]that calling attention to the words and letters on the page [00:22.87]may lead to better readers. [00:25.51]The two-year study compared children [00:28.34]who were read to this way in class [00:30.78]with children who were not. [00:33.12]Those whose teachers most often discussed the print [00:37.00]showed clearly higher skills [00:39.40]in reading, spelling and understanding. [00:42.69]These results were found one year and even two years later. [00:47.32]Shayne Piasta, an assistant professor of teaching [00:51.75]and learning at Ohio State University, [00:54.95]was an author of the study. [00:57.29]She says most preschool teachers [01:00.73]would find this method manageable [01:02.82]and would need only a small change in the way they teach. [01:07.70]They already read storybooks in class. [01:11.25]The only difference would be increased attention [01:15.18]to the printed text. [01:16.79]Ms. Piasta says if you get children [01:20.52]to pay attention to letters and words, [01:23.36]it makes sense that they will do better [01:26.10]at word recognition and spelling. [01:29.29]But she says research suggests that very few parents [01:34.42]and teachers do this in a systematic way. [01:37.91]The report appears in the journal Child Development. [01:43.09]More than three hundred children age four and five [01:47.53]were observed in classrooms in Ohio and Virginia. [01:51.76]The children came from poor families [01:55.21]and were below average in their language skills. [01:58.79]This put them at risk for reading problems later. [02:03.17]For thirty weeks, the children took part in a program [02:07.56]called Project STAR, for Sit Together And Read. [02:12.54]The project is based at Ohio State. [02:16.03]It tests the short-term [02:18.72]and long-term results of reading regularly [02:22.01]to preschool children in their classrooms. [02:25.39]Laura Justice at Ohio State [02:28.83]was an investigator for the study. [02:32.02]She heads the Preschool Language and Literacy Laboratory. [02:36.25]She says one of the areas that interests researchers [02:41.20]is known as the "locus of learning." [02:44.63]LAURA JUSTICE: "Where is it that a child learns something? [02:47.07]Where is that space? [02:48.07]We think we have identified it pretty well [02:51.11]in terms of fostering some children's knowledge about print." [02:54.94]Professor Justice says this knowledge [02:57.98]can be gained by having focused discussions [03:00.77]when reading a book to a child. [03:03.41]LAURA JUSTICE: "We think we understand how information [03:06.50]about print is transmitted from the adult to the child. [03:09.05]And we think we have centered on this intervention [03:11.54]that really helps adults center in on the things [03:15.27]that children need and want to learn." [03:17.32]There are different ways that adults [03:19.83]can talk to children about print. [03:22.37]They can point to a letter and discuss it, [03:25.71]and even trace the shape with a finger. [03:29.11]They can point out a word: "This is 'dog.'" [03:33.79]They can discuss the meaning of the print [03:36.59]or how the words tell the story. [03:39.83]And they can talk about the organization of the print [03:43.92]-- for instance, showing how words [03:47.21]are written left to right in English. [03:50.44]And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, [03:55.78]written by Jerilyn Watson. [03:57.77]I'm Bob Doughty.