Henk Blok

The relevance of delivery mode and other programme characteristics for the effectiveness of early childhood intervention

Although it is generally believed that early intervention programmes are an effective means to stimulate children’s cognitive development, many questions remain concerning programme design and delivery. This article reviews 19 studies into the effectiveness of early intervention programmes published from 1985 onward. The database comprised 85 different outcomes or effect sizes (71 in the cognitive domain, 14 in the socioemotional domain). The overall effect size estimate was d 1/40.32 (SE 1/4 0.05) in the cognitive domain, and d 1/4 0.05 (SE 1/4 0.02) in the socioemotional domain. Effect sizes were found to depend on delivery mode. Centre-based interventions and interventions following the combined home- and centre-based delivery mode produced greater effect sizes than did home-based programmes in the cognitive domain, but not in the socioemotional domain. The programme inclusion of coaching of parenting skills was also positively related to outcomes in the cognitive domain. Several other programme characteristics, including age of onset, programme length and intensity, continuation after kindergarten, and the inclusion of social or economic support, appeared not to be uniquely related to outcomes.

Reading to Young Children in Educational Settings: A Meta-Analysis of Recent Research.

This article reviews 10 studies, comprising 11 samples, of the effects of reading to young children in schools. The age of the children varied between 31-90 mo. Dependent variables were classified in 2 domains: oral language and reading skills. The combined effect size for the oral language domain was d = .63, and for the reading domain d = .41. Although these figures look promising, caution is needed because the empirical evidence appears to be meager. Not only is the number of studies small, but a critical analysis of the design of the studies generally reveals poor quality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2000 APA, all rights reserved)

Enhancing the Reading Fluency and Comprehension of Children with Reading Disabilities in an Orthographically Transparent Language.

Breznitz (2006) demonstrated that Hebrew-speaking adults with reading disabilities benefited from a training in which reading rate was experimentally manipulated. In the present study, the authors examine whether silent reading training enhances the sentence reading rate and comprehension of children with reading disabilities and whether results found in Hebrew equally apply to an orthographically transparent language. Training results of 59 Dutch children with reading disabilities and normally achieving children show that children with reading disabilities are able to increase their sentence reading rate with high comprehension levels when pushed to do so with accelerated reading training. Posttest results show that transfer to routine reading is less strong for both accelerated and unaccelerated reading. Only accelerated training allows children with reading disabilities to read at high speed while maintaining high comprehension levels.

PERFORMANCE IN HOME SCHOOLING: AN ARGUMENT AGAINST COMPULSORY SCHOOLING IN THE NETHERLANDS

Although home education is a growing phenomenon in many Western countries, it is almost non-existent in the Netherlands. Under Dutch educational law, children must be educated in the school system. Home schooling is thought to endanger childrens development. This study examines — primarily American — analyses of performance in home schooling. Its leading question is: How do home-schooled children develop in comparison with school pupils? It concludes that home-schooled children perform better on average in the cognitive domain (language, mathematics, natural sciences, social studies), but differ little from their peers at school in terms of socio-emotional development. This positive finding may be attributed partly to socio-economic factors. However, it is also suggested that the quality of the learning environment, including one-to-one tutoring, could also be a contributing factor.

Looking for a balance between internal and external evaluation of school quality: evaluation of the SVI model.

This article describes the results of a study into the utility of the SVI model, a model in which internal and external evaluation are balanced. The model consists of three phases: school self‐evaluation, visitation and inspection. Under the guidance of school consultants, 27 Dutch primary schools have built up two years of experience with the SVI model. The results show that the school leaders developed a positive attitude towards school self‐evaluation and visitation. They found that both self‐evaluation and visitation have improved their insight into the quality of the school. However, a content analysis of the school self‐evaluation reports shows that the school self‐evaluations are often of low quality. For example, it appeared that most of the self‐evaluation reports do not provide answers to questions the schools have formulated at the beginning of the self‐evaluation. Moreover, the teams of critical friends and the inspectors concluded that the school self‐evaluations do have many shortcomings. Based on these results, we conclude that school self‐evaluation is a very difficult task for most schools. It is therefore crucial that schools receive external support and that they build up experience with school self‐evaluations over a period of years.

Using longitudinal data to estimate reliability

Werts, Breland, Grandy, and Rock (1980) have analyzed the relationship between a direct and an indi rect measure of writing ability. Werts et al. assumed that the same true score underlies both measures and concluded that the test-retest reliability of the essay tests is biased due to correlated errors. The present analysis of their data shows that the direct and indirect tests measure two different abilities which correlate only .89 with each other and that it is not necessary to include correlated measurement errors for the essay tests. It is argued that the assumption that different tests measure the same ability should always be tested. Werts et al. (1980) did not test this assumption, and their conclusions, as a result, are incorrect.

Coping with conflicting demands: student assessment in Dutch primary schools

n the Netherlands, as in many other developed countries, the educational authorities are trying to strengthen their control of educational productivity. They want schools to adopt student assessment schemes, based on norm-referenced tests. A questionnaire was submitted to primary school teachers and principals in order to obtain a description of current assessment practices and opinions. It appears that Dutch teachers and principals make only limited use of norm-referenced tests. They prefer curriculum-embedded tests, which provide much more support for teaching and learning processes. Respondents consider accountancy purposes to be of secondary importance. Several recommendations specifically directed at educational officials are given in order to facilitate the introduction of a standards-based accountability system.

Increasing the involvement of parents in the education of special-needs children

(2007). Increasing the Involvement of Parents in the Education of Special-Needs Children. The British Journal of Development Disabilities: Vol. 53, No. 104, pp. 3-16.

Reading fluency and speech perception speed of beginning readers with persistent reading problems: the perception of initial stop consonants and consonant clusters

This study investigated the role of speech perception accuracy and speed in fluent word decoding of reading disabled (RD) children. A same-different phoneme discrimination task with natural speech tested the perception of single consonants and consonant clusters by young but persistent RD children. RD children were slower than chronological age (CA) controls in recognizing identical sounds, suggesting less distinct phonemic categories. In addition, after controlling for phonetic similarity Tallal’s (Brain Lang 9:182–198, 1980) fast transitions account of RD children’s speech perception problems was contrasted with Studdert-Kennedy’s (Read Writ Interdiscip J 15:5–14, 2002) similarity explanation. Results showed no specific RD deficit in perceiving fast transitions. Both phonetic similarity and fast transitions influenced accurate speech perception for RD children as well as CA controls.

Measuring Time Spent on Teaching Native Language.

Abstract Three methods (mail survey, telephone survey, and keeping time) for measuring teaching time were compared. Sixth-grade teachers from 74 schools assessed time spent on teaching native language in an average school week. They used each of the three methods with a time lag of a few weeks. Total teaching time and the teaching time spent on language categories were measured; the main language categories were communication, reading, grammar, spelling, and writing. The analysis of the data showed that the means of the total score and of the main category scores for spelling and writing were about equal for each of the methods. Moreover, the rank order of the mean main category scores was identical for each of the methods. The correlations of the scores showed that the individual scores of the three methods did not sufficiently converge.