Maryse Bianco

Early Training in Oral Comprehension and Phonological Skills: Results of a Three-Year Longitudinal Study

A sample of 1,273 4-year-old children were followed for 3 years. The children participated in 1 of 2 comprehension training programs, or in a phonological awareness training program. The comprehension programs explored the possibility of improving young childrens oral comprehension in an educational setting. The first focused on the component skills of comprehension; the second involved storybook reading. Phonological awareness and oral language comprehension skills were measured repeatedly in the course of the study. The data were analyzed using multilevel growth-curve models. The results showed that it is possible to improve oral comprehension if the training focuses on its component skills and extends over 2 semesters. When these conditions were met, training effects still existed 9 months after the program had ended. Finally, phonological training improved phonological awareness but not comprehension, and comprehension-skill training improved oral comprehension but not phonological awareness.

Long-Term Teacher Effects on Pupils' Learning Gains.

Many studies have demonstrated that a teacher has a substantial impact on how much pupils learn. However, research on the long‐term effects of teachers is scarce, and the results obtained so far are inconsistent. Some studies have concluded that teacher effects are relatively permanent, while others claim that they fade away more or less rapidly over time. The present study was conducted at the elementary‐school level in France. Multilevel random crossed models were used to assess teacher effects over a period of two school years. The assessments showed that the pupils test scores in French and mathematics after two years were linked to the second‐year teachers but not to the first‐year ones. These results suggest that teacher effects on pupils learning gains wear off quickly over time. In other words, ‘immediate’ teacher effects on learning do seem to exist, but not long‐term ones. The merits of multilevel random crossed models in this research field are presented, and the potential limitations of the results obtained are discussed.