LENA - Building brains through early talk
BLOG
There’s a lot that goes into creating high-quality early childhood education. One simple yet powerful ingredient is a focus on fostering teacher-child interactions and creating robust language environments. Head Start and Early Head Start One show tremendous promise in that regard.
There’s strong evidence to suggest that LENA Grow, the evidence-based professional development program that helps early childhood educators create equitable language environments, has a beneficial impact on teacher retention.
What roles do conversational turns and responsive relationships play in infant and early childhood mental health?
One of the largest school districts in the U.S. brought LENA Grow to its Early Head Start and Head Start classrooms. Watch these webinar highlights to hear their story.
Updated with new data insights! Researchers in Santiago, Chile, have used LENA technology to show important connections between conversational turns and social-emotional development in very young children.
“You have it already in your heart. Get rid of your fear. Go for it. Try.” Highlights from LENA’s webinar about dual language learners in early childhood education.
Just as the early childhood education profession is unique, so is each teacher’s story. This week, Teacher Appreciation Week, we’re telling just a few of them.
Gather up those flashes of a well-timed hug, a generous smile, or an enthusiastic morning hello, and take more time to appreciate our early childhood teachers.
“The federal review team was impressed that LENA Grow was something we were doing for our teachers in the classroom,” said Jon-Vincent Jamir, PACT’s Head Start Area Manager and LENA Grow coach.
Developed in partnership with Lakeshore®, four kits are available to provide age-appropriate materials that align with the topics teachers explore during LENA Grow’s five-week coaching sequences and beyond.
“The TN CCR&R sees the LENA Grow program as an important piece of the puzzle in proper language and socio-emotional development for children in Tennessee,” said Heather Hicks, Director of the TN CCR&R.
An organization in Florida saw some amazing results in their very first LENA Grow classrooms. They want those results to have a positive impact on the whole community.
For children who began LENA Start at risk for language delays, the results are especially encouraging.
“One of my students, he came in and told me, ‘Auntie, I’d like to read to you.’” A preschool teacher and a family child care provider in Hawaii tell their stories. What keeps them excited and motivated?
Does LENA Grow help early childhood educators increase self-efficacy and job satisfaction as professionals who play a critical role in children’s lives?
Two independent program evaluations of LENA Grow have established the program as evidence-based professional development. See the highlights from the webinar here.
In this video, a long-time preschool teacher in Milwaukee reflects on LENA Grow and what motivates her dedication to the profession.
True to their commitment to bridging research and practice, SproutFive embarked on an independent evaluation of LENA Grow soon after implementing the program.
“For all of us who care about the millions of children who spend most of their waking hours in child care, this is a call to action,” said Dr. Jill Gilkerson, Chief Research and Evaluation Officer at LENA.
By year’s end, LENA technology will have measured 20 million conversational turns on 90,000 LENA Days. But that’s only part of the story, and it’s where we go from there that we’re focusing on now.
A look back at some of the blog posts and webinars that attracted the most eyes and ears in 2022.
When it comes to accelerating the growth of LENA programs, place-based philanthropic support is critical.
According to LENA’s recent analysis of day-long audio recordings from 15,820 children, approximately one in five children spent most of the day in language isolation.
While more experienced teachers foster more interactive talk in their classrooms, participating in LENA Grow helps less experienced teachers catch up.
