The Research instruction with and without other modifications.

Two book series totaling 26 books offer children interactive instruction for one book per week,

Behind Story

10–15 minutes per day. This is sufficient to provide children with many opportunities to learn

Friends vocabulary and comprehension skills that will help prepare them for later academic success. Howard Goldstein Elizabeth Spencer Kelley

Program Foundation

Children enter early childhood programs with diverse early language and literacy experiences. A substantial number of children, especially many children growing up in low-income homes, have limited oral language skills that place them at risk for later reading disabilities. For example, Qi, Kaiser, Milan, and Hancock (2006) reported that preschoolers enrolled in Head Start scored an average of approximately 1.5 standard deviations below the normative mean on a standardized measure of receptive vocabulary, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test–Third Edition (PPVT-III; Dunn & Dunn, 1997). Preschool children with Story Friends is a supplemental curriculum for limited oral language skills, including vocabulary, teaching preschoolers and some kindergartners are at risk for reading disabilities in later school years (National Early Literacy Panel, 2008).
Although the curriculum may have widespread appeal to all preschoolers, these stories with embedded lessons were designed to promote language development among children who are at risk for later reading problems because of their weak language skills. Thus, our research focused on effects of the curriculum with at-risk prekindergarten (pre-K) populations.

Pedagogical Approach

In the context of an MTSS model, it is important to consider the demands placed on educational staff to implement multiple tiers of intervention in several domains with high treatment fidelity (Ukrainetz, 2006).
The Story Friends curriculum was developed by the Center for Response to Intervention in Early Childhood (CRTIEC), a multisite child-collaborative project funded by the Institute of Educational Sciences. This intervention has been used successfully in multiple research studies with pre-K students who are at risk for reading disabilities due to delays in vocabulary development.

Key Features of Story Friends Curriculum:

• Each book series has a recurring cast of characters, thus reducing demands on learning background information in single books.
• A few appealing characters per book series are depicted in colorful illustrations.
• Each page includes rhyming text to facilitate learning of an aspect of phonological awareness.
• Vocabulary and linguistic complexity, as well as the number of pages, is controlled and consistent.

The Story Friends curriculum consists of a total of 26 storybooks (two sets of 13). Each child has a book because the books have interactive activities, such as flaps that children lift to reveal answers to questions. Each set (Jungle Friends and Forest Friends) has one introductory book, nine books with new vocabulary and comprehension content, and three review books. Children are led through the stories by “Wanda the Word Wolf,” who narrates the book, defines the vocabulary and basic concept words, provides opportunities for practice, and asks comprehension questions that allow children to apply concepts from the stories to their own lives.

Research Overview

This research overview summarizes much of the research conducted thus far that has built a strong evidence base for the Story Friends curriculum. Five experimental studies using the Story Friends curriculum were conducted between 2010 and 2014.

1. Spencer et al. (2012) reported the results of an early efficacy study of this embedded vocabulary intervention.
2. Kelley et al. (2015) found improvements in vocabulary knowledge and comprehension.
3. A large-scale study with teaching staff implementing the Story Friends curriculum demonstrated that children learned an average of 46% of 18 challenging target words over the course of a 12-week intervention.
4. Goldstein et al. (in press) highlighted the effectiveness of the automated storybook reading intervention among high-risk preschoolers.
5. Longitudinal studies are needed to determine long-term effects on later reading development.

REFERENCES

Barnett, D.W., VanDerHeyden, A.M., & Witt, J.C. (2007). Achieving science-based practice through response to intervention: What it might look like in preschools. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 17, 31–54.
Bradfield, T. A., Besner, A. C., Wackerle-Hollman, A. K., Albano, A. D., Rodriguez, M. C., & McConnell, S. R. (2014). Redefining individual growth and development indicators: Oral language. Assessment for Effective Intervention, 39(4), 233–244. doi:10.1177/1534508413496837 Coyne, M.D., Simmons, D.C., Kame’enui, E.J., & Stoolmiller, M. (2004). Teaching vocabulary during shared storybook readings: An examination of differential effects. Exceptionality, 12(3), 145–162.
Dunn, L.M., & Dunn, L.M. (1997). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test–Third Edition (PPVT-III). Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.