SBIR-STTR Award

Rural community schools are faced with a growing number of Latino English language learners who have lagged behind in terms of academic achievement, and have school dropout rates near twice those of native English speakers. These Latino ELLs need interventions that teach target vocabulary in an efficient, timely manner, so they can integrate and participate in the economies of rural communities. The purpose of this project is to develop Unit 1 of the Babble Tree English Vocabulary learning Tool-kit and evaluate its potential efficacy to improve literacy among preschool Spanish speaking children in Head Start and in rural communities. OBJECTIVES: Babble Tree has developed a design for an innovative Pre-K early language learning curriculum for Latino English language learners and their parents and teachers. The creation of these bilingual materials based on the latest ELL research will assist non- bilingual teachers and parents to provide intensive support for the home and target languages in the form of vocabulary development, games, a teaching manual, assessment and home support tools. Phase I research will develop and test these materials with rural Pre-K populations to prove the feasibility/superiority of these research-based techniques in a classroom setting

Over the past decade, rural school systems have seen a rapid expansion in the number of Hispanic/Latino students who enter school with limited and non-English speaking abilities, and rural schools are being challenged to accommodate this rapid population growth and the education of students with Limited English Proficiency (LEP). There are over 5 million LEP students in the U.S., with more than 300,000 Head Start language learners who enter grade school without the language skills needed for high academic performance. English as a Second Language (ESL) and English Language Learners (ELLs) represent the nation's fastest growing and most educationally challenged group of students in American schools. From the 1997-98 school year to the 2008-09 school year, the number of English Language Learners enrolled in public schools increased by 51%, from 3.5 million to 5.3 million (NCELA, 2012). The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that within the next 40 years, the Hispanic school-age population will exceed the non-Hispanic white school-age public school population (Fry & Gonzales, 2008). This group of English learners consistently enters school ill-prepared and lag behind their Anglo peers, and the achievement gap remains over the course of their schooling. Babble Tree's innovative language development program for Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten students is intended to transform the way that rural community instructors design and employ English language instructional approaches for ELL students. Phase I results demonstrated significant student achievement gains via Babble Tree's approach over the use of conventional methods. This Early Language Learning Intervention for Non-English Speaking Latino Children is a research- and game-based, continuous assessment, and student participatory approach that enables limited and non-English speaking language learners to acquire English efficiently, naturally and easily. For rural teachers, who may not have ESL certification or extensive experience in working with Spanish speaking parents, Babble Tree's program is designed to include a comprehensive set of tools that will support "beginning to advanced" ESL teachers with specific and detailed instructions on how to implement the student-centered, movement-oriented learning and tactile play. The commercial program components will initially include one year of a Pre-K/K (Stage I/II) curriculum and lessons, an instructor's manual, web-based professional development program, and bilingual parent and home support tools. Babble Tree's early learning program will equip teachers, students and parents with the training, knowledge, and materials they need to more adequately address the nation's fastest growing population of Limited English Proficiency (LEP) students.