Join ELC of Orange County and ELC of Sarasota County as they share their data and stories on how they’ve increased teacher confidence, competence, and CLASS scores while improving quality assessment outcomes despite the challenges of the past two years.
LENA - Building brains through early talk
Webinars (9)
Do COVID babies “talk” less? Research findings and potential implications
Babies born during the COVID-19 pandemic are vocalizing less and experiencing less interactive talk with adults than their pre-pandemic peers, suggesting they may be at greater risk of experiencing language delays.
Staff retention and stress reduction: Bringing positivity (back) into the classroom with LENA Grow
What can we do in the here and now to keep our best educators in infant, toddler, and preschool classrooms? For one, we can rediscover just how wonderful classrooms can be.
Supporting early childhood educators now: strategies for building a voice and a community
Being an early childhood educator has always been challenging, but it seems to be getting harder. This webinar focuses on practical strategies to support educators by giving them a voice and building a community.
The link between language and socioemotional development
Many previous studies have drawn connections between the quantity of back-and-forth interactions in early childhood and later linguistic and cognitive skills. Importantly, newly published research conducted in Chile has taken a novel direction, determining that infants’ language environments predict their socioemotional skills one year later.
Inside Early Talk: Our point of greatest leverage for improving children’s futures
We find ourselves in the unprecedented position to understand the early language environments of very young children and answer questions we’ve been hearing from the early childhood education field for years.
Virtual Family Engagement: Ingredients for Success
How have our partners adapted to the pandemic’s challenges? Learn about practical strategies that worked for them, and get your creative, problem-solving juices flowing as you design your family engagement strategy for 2021.
Supporting young children and families during COVID: Launching new programs and adapting to virtual family engagement
We hear from an organization that has recently launched a new LENA Start program and another that has shifted their existing program from in-person to virtual. What are their go-to strategies for effective family engagement in a virtual context?
Mitigating the Academic and Social Impacts of COVID-19 in Child Care
COVID-19 recommendations have changed the way child care providers are able to interact with children and support their early academic and social development. How can we continue to adapt while creating a positive learning environment?
Blog Posts (24)
Early childhood mental health, dual-language learners, the science of reading, and more: A look back at our most popular content of 2023
LENA’s journey through 2023 has been marked by revealing insights and transformative discussions. Join us as we take a look back at some of the blog posts, webinars, and resources that gained the most attention over the year.
Evidence-based professional development for early childhood educators: Webinar highlights
Two independent program evaluations of LENA Grow have established the program as evidence-based professional development. See the highlights from the webinar here.
Bridging research and practice in early childhood education: SproutFive’s independent evaluation of LENA Grow
True to their commitment to bridging research and practice, SproutFive embarked on an independent evaluation of LENA Grow soon after implementing the program.
Sounding the alarm about young children’s language development: A look back at our most viewed content of 2022
A look back at some of the blog posts and webinars that attracted the most eyes and ears in 2022.
“1, 2, 3 Talk with Me”: One mother’s story of completing Virtual LENA Start
Working from home while caring for a baby is an all-too-familiar juggling act these days. A mom in Phoenix tells her story of how LENA Start helped.
Webinar follow-up and reflections: Do COVID babies “talk” less?
Highlights and topics that emerged from our webinar on caregiver-child interactions during COVID with Dr. Sean Deoni and Dr. Jill Gilkerson.
COVID-era infants vocalize less and experience fewer conversational turns, says LENA research team
COVID-era babies may be at greater risk of experiencing language delays.
A teacher, a coach, and an administrator on LENA Grow’s impact: Webinar highlights
Highlights from a webinar where we hear directly from a teacher, coach, and administrator using LENA Grow.
Parent recruitment for LENA Start and LENA Home: Recognizing and responding to barriers
A recent Community Conversation among our partners inspired these new ideas about recruiting families for programs like Start and Home.
Preliminary findings suggest LENA Grow accelerates language development
Children participating in LENA Grow gained nearly 1.5 months’ worth of language skill acquisition in just one month’s time, achieving developmental milestones at an accelerated rate.
Q&A with Charlie Wolfson: Investing in children’s futures by investing in early talk
Arrow Impact is a private foundation supporting “initiatives that create pathways to economic prosperity for communities that have been marginalized and under-resourced.”
Masked up and ready for conversational turns: Helpful hints to maximize interactions in early childhood classrooms
For early childhood teachers, wearing a mask and nurturing quality interactions may be at odds with each other.
Three moms share stories of their LENA Start experience
Survey results tell us that families’ enthusiasm for LENA Start has held steady more than a year into the pandemic. Three personal family stories show us why.
Research Roundup: Maternal depression and paternal parentese in the context of COVID
In the context of COVID, two studies put mothers, fathers, and the language environments they nurture in stark relief.
Inside Early Talk: Our point of greatest leverage for improving children’s futures
LENA has collected and analyzed its most expansive data set to date through the 10,000 children annually impacted by our programs for families and early childhood teachers.
Parents on virtual LENA Start classes: “Now I know 10 families when I drop my kids off at school.”
The virtual format offered families a powerful opportunity to connect when they otherwise couldn’t during the pandemic.
New data reveals virtual LENA Start classes offer same benefits to families as in-person classes
The virtual participants showed similar gains to pre-pandemic, in-person groups, with lower-talk families increasing conversational turns with their children by 12 percentile points and adult words by 35 percentile points.
Year in review: Looking back at progress in the midst of a pandemic
2020 wasn’t the year we planned for. Yet, we’ve adapted, and the pivots have had impressive outcomes.
How researchers have adapted to continue using LENA SP during the pandemic
Two teams share how they’ve adapted their data-collection process to continue their studies.
How to make video calls more engaging for infants and toddlers
Explore tips and strategies for making video calls more interactive for young children.
Virginia Beach adapts to virtual programming to boost child outcomes, reduce caregiver stress
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, the team in Virginia Beach knew that they couldn’t afford to wait to transition to virtual programming for families and teachers.
Virtual retention: Strategies for keeping families engaged in a community program
There are intentional methods you can integrate within your virtual communication to cultivate a space that welcomes vulnerability, trust, and collaborative participation.
Case study: Why three organizations pivoted to offer virtual LENA Start classes
When the pandemic hit, community organizations found their regular programming for families abruptly cut off. Learn why three pivoted to virtual.
State of Colorado helps FCC providers build confidence, self-esteem, and relationships with children with LENA Grow
The professional development program has been built into Colorado’s statewide initiative to improve quality in infant and toddler care.
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Articles (11)
What’s behind a spike in childhood speech development delays across the U.S.
PBS Wisconsin's Zac Schultz reports on what's behind the delays and whether schools have the resources to help teachers, students and caregivers.
The pandemic’s indirect effects on small children could last a lifetime
An international and all-encompassing look at the COVID-19 pandemic's effects on young children, including the perspective of Dr. Jill Gilkerson, LENA's Chief Research and Evaluation Officer.
Pandemic has made babies and toddlers miss talking and reading milestones
Multiple studies show that infants are talking less because parents haven't been able to engage them in language developing conversations due to COVID.
Covid-Era Babies Are ‘Talking’ Less, Signaling Future Reading Challenges
We know the pandemic has had a serious negative impact on the academic achievement of school-age children. But recent evidence shows we also need to worry about Covid-era babies and toddlers.
Do COVID Babies Talk Less
A decline in socializing during COVID could mean less verbalizing for babies born during the pandemic.
New Research: Babies Born During COVID Talk Less with Caregivers, Slower to Develop Critical Language Skills
Infants born during the pandemic produced significantly fewer vocalizations and had less verbal back-and-forth with their caretakers compared to those born before COVID.
Pandemic Kids Need Early Language Support. Here’s How Teachers Can Help
To avoid widespread school readiness gaps, experts say teachers and parents need to give children born since the pandemic an immediate language infusion.
Babies Are Saying Less Since the Pandemic: Why That’s Concerning
Amid the stress and disruption of the pandemic, parents and caregivers have had less time and energy to engage their babies and toddlers in conversation—and the lack of talk already shows in their language skills.
Parenting: It takes a village
In this podcast episode, host Walter Isaacson and guests discuss parenting, how it's evolved from a group activity to something more singular, and how experts and technology are filling in the gaps for new parents.
Supporting Kindergarten Readiness and Early School Success in a Pandemic Year
While we're still learning about the pandemic's effects on children, it's clear that some learning setbacks have occurred. Overdeck Family Foundation writes about how parents and teachers, with help from organizations like LENA, have stepped up.
A Look Back on 2020: Supporting Impact in a Year of Challenge and Innovation
The Overdeck Family Foundation reflects on the last year of investments, recognizing the adaptations and challenges that grantees such as LENA have surmounted.