Effects of an Early Literacy Intervention for Linguistically Diverse Children: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge underpin children’s early literacy
acquisition. Promoting these foundational skills in kindergarten should therefore lead
to a better response to formal literacy instruction once started. The present study
evaluated a 12-week early literacy intervention for linguistically diverse children who
are learning to read in German. The study was set in Luxembourg where kindergarten
education is in Luxembourgish and children learn to read in German in Grade 1 of
primary school. One hundred and eighty-nine children (mean age = 5;8 years) were
assigned to an early literacy intervention in Luxembourgish or to a business as usual
control group. Trained teachers delivered the intervention to entire classes, four times
a week, during the last year of kindergarten. The early literacy program included direct
instruction in phonological awareness and letter-knowledge, while promoting print and
book awareness and literacy engagement. Children were assessed pre-intervention,
immediately post-intervention and at a 9 months delayed follow-up using measures in
Luxembourgish and in German. At the end of the intervention, children in the intervention
group performed significantly better than the control group on phonological awareness
and letter-knowledge measures in Luxembourgish and the gains in phonological
awareness were maintained at 9 months follow-up. The effects generalized to measures
of phonological awareness, word-level reading comprehension and spelling in German
(effect sizes d > 0.25), but not to German single word/pseudoword reading, at delayed
follow-up. Intervention programs designed to support foundational literacy skills can
be successfully implemented by regular teachers in a play-based kindergarten context.
The findings suggest that early literacy intervention before school entry can produce
educationally meaningful effects in linguistically diverse learners.