Sustained effects of an early childhood language and literacy intervention through second grade: Longitudinal findings of the SPELL trial in Denmark.

The study investigates the relationship between language and literacy skills at kindergarten age and children's future reading skills. It is based on initial reports from the randomised control study SPELL in Denmark. The project has two objectives. 1) To investigate the extent to which the SPELL intervention at kindergarten age affected average reading performance during Year 2, especially children's language comprehension, word decoding, and reading comprehension. 2) To explore differences in long-term effects, focusing on factors at child level (gender, age, immigrant status and initial skills) and parental level (maternal education and income).

The main analyses, based on the entire sample, showed no significant differences in reading in Year 2 for the children who had received interventions through SPELL, compared to children who had not received such resources. However, moderation analyses showed a difference with regard to children of mothers who had low or medium levels of education, as these children benefited greatly from such interventions. Something similar could be registered in children with other risk factors, such as income or immigrant background. These findings suggest that, in some cases, at-risk children gain long-term benefits from early language and literacy interventions, and that the interventions may improve their learning opportunities in the kindergarten environment.

In this study, which is a follow-up study, the researchers made use of information from the SPELL project, which is a national, standardised language test in Denmark. The researchers compared 2700 participants, who were four or five years old at the time of the survey, with the results the same children received in reading tests during Year 2 of primary school.

Bleses, D., Dale, P. S., Justice, L., Højen, A., Vind, B. D., & Jiang, H. (2021). "Sustained effects of an early childhood language and literacy intervention through second grade: Longitudinal findings of the SPELL trial in Denmark". Plos one, 16(10):e0258287.